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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Old Curiosity Shop
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Release Date: March 7, 2008 [EBook #700]
+Last updated: May 7, 2015
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Old Curiosity Shop
+
+By Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+Although I am an old man, night is generally my time for walking. In the
+summer I often leave home early in the morning, and roam about fields
+and lanes all day, or even escape for days or weeks together; but,
+saving in the country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven
+be thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the
+earth, as much as any creature living.
+
+I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my
+infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating
+on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The
+glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like
+mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp
+or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full
+revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is
+kinder in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built
+castle at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or
+remorse.
+
+That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that
+incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy--is
+it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear it!
+Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin's Court, listening
+to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged,
+despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect
+the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from the booted
+exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering
+outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker--think of
+the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream
+of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his
+restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in
+a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come.
+
+Then, the crowds forever passing and repassing on the bridges (on
+those which are free of toll at least), where many stop on fine evenings
+looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague idea that by and
+by it runs between green banks which grow wider and wider until at last
+it joins the broad vast sea--where some halt to rest from heavy loads
+and think as they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away
+one's life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a
+dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness unalloyed--and where
+some, and a very different class, pause with heavier loads than they,
+remembering to have heard or read in old time that drowning was not a
+hard death, but of all means of suicide the easiest and best.
+
+Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when the
+fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the
+unwholesome streams of last night's debauchery, and driving the dusky
+thrush, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night long,
+half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all akin
+to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the hot
+hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already, while
+others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they shall be
+watered and freshened up to please more sober company, and make old
+clerks who pass them on their road to business, wonder what has filled
+their breasts with visions of the country.
+
+But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story I
+am about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals,  arose out
+of one of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of them by
+way of preface.
+
+One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in my
+usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was arrested by an
+inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but which seemed to be
+addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft sweet voice that
+struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round and found at my elbow
+a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed to a certain street at
+a considerable distance, and indeed in quite another quarter of the
+town.
+
+'It is a very long way from here,' said I, 'my child.'
+
+'I know that, sir,' she replied timidly. 'I am afraid it is a very long
+way, for I came from there to-night.'
+
+'Alone?' said I, in some surprise.
+
+'Oh, yes, I don't mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I
+had lost my road.'
+
+'And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?'
+
+'I am sure you will not do that,' said the little creature,' you are
+such a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.'
+
+I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the
+energy with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child's
+clear eye, and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into my
+face.
+
+'Come,' said I, 'I'll take you there.'
+
+She put her hand in mine as confidingly as if she had known me from her
+cradle, and we trudged away together; the little creature accommodating
+her pace to mine, and rather seeming to lead and take care of me than I
+to be protecting her. I observed that every now and then she stole a
+curious look at my face, as if to make quite sure that I was not
+deceiving her, and that these glances (very sharp and keen they were
+too) seemed to increase her confidence at every repetition.
+
+For my part, my curiosity and interest were at least equal to the
+child's, for child she certainly was, although I thought it probably
+from what I could make out, that her very small and delicate frame
+imparted a peculiar youthfulness to her appearance. Though more
+scantily attired than she might have been she was dressed with perfect
+neatness, and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect.
+
+'Who has sent you so far by yourself?' said I.
+
+'Someone who is very kind to me, sir.'
+
+'And what have you been doing?'
+
+'That, I must not tell,' said the child firmly.
+
+There was something in the manner of this reply which caused me to look
+at the little creature with an involuntary expression of surprise; for
+I wondered what kind of errand it might be that occasioned her to be
+prepared for questioning. Her quick eye seemed to read my thoughts, for
+as it met mine she added that there was no harm in what she had been
+doing, but it was a great secret--a secret which she did not even know
+herself.
+
+This was said with no appearance of cunning or deceit, but with an
+unsuspicious frankness that bore the impress of truth. She walked on as
+before, growing more familiar with me as we proceeded and talking
+cheerfully by the way, but she said no more about her home, beyond
+remarking that we were going quite a new road and asking if it were a
+short one.
+
+While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my mind a hundred different
+explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I really felt
+ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful feeling of
+the child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love these
+little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh
+from God, love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her confidence I
+determined to deserve it, and to do credit to the nature which had
+prompted her to repose it in me.
+
+There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the
+person who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by night
+and alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found herself near
+home she might take farewell of me and deprive me of the opportunity, I
+avoided the most frequented ways and took the most intricate, and thus
+it was not until we arrived in the street itself that she knew where we
+were. Clapping her hands with pleasure and running on before me for a
+short distance, my little acquaintance stopped at a door and remaining
+on the step till I came up knocked at it when I joined her.
+
+A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I
+did not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and
+I was anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our
+summons. When she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise as if
+some person were moving inside, and at length a faint light appeared
+through the glass which, as it approached very slowly, the bearer
+having to make his way through a great many scattered articles, enabled
+me to see both what kind of person it was who advanced and what kind of
+place it was through which he came.
+
+It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he held
+the light above his head and looked before him as he approached, I
+could plainly see. Though much altered by age, I fancied I could
+recognize in his spare and slender form something of that delicate
+mould which I had noticed in the child. Their bright blue eyes were
+certainly alike, but his face was so deeply furrowed and so very full
+of care, that here all resemblance ceased.
+
+The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those
+receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd
+corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public
+eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like
+ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from
+monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures in
+china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture that
+might have been designed in dreams. The haggard aspect of the little
+old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have groped among
+old churches and tombs and deserted houses and gathered all the spoils
+with his own hands. There was nothing in the whole collection but was
+in keeping with himself nothing that looked older or more worn than he.
+
+As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed me with some astonishment
+which was not diminished when he looked from me to my companion. The
+door being opened, the child addressed him as grandfather, and told him
+the little story of our companionship.
+
+'Why, bless thee, child,' said the old man, patting her on the head,
+'how couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!'
+
+'I would have found my way back to YOU, grandfather,' said the child
+boldly; 'never fear.'
+
+The old man kissed her, then turning to me and begging me to walk in, I
+did so. The door was closed and locked. Preceding me with the light, he
+led me through the place I had already seen from without, into a small
+sitting-room behind, in which was another door opening into a kind of
+closet, where I saw a little bed that a fairy might have slept in, it
+looked so very small and was so prettily arranged. The child took a
+candle and tripped into this little room, leaving the old man and me
+together.
+
+'You must be tired, sir,' said he as he placed a chair near the fire,
+'how can I thank you?'
+
+'By taking more care of your grandchild another time, my good friend,'
+I replied.
+
+'More care!' said the old man in a shrill voice, 'more care of Nelly!
+Why, who ever loved a child as I love Nell?'
+
+He said this with such evident surprise that I was perplexed what
+answer to make, and the more so because coupled with something feeble
+and wandering in his manner, there were in his face marks of deep and
+anxious thought which convinced me that he could not be, as I had been
+at first inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or imbecility.
+
+'I don't think you consider--' I began.
+
+'I don't consider!' cried the old man interrupting me, 'I don't
+consider her! Ah, how little you know of the truth! Little Nelly,
+little Nelly!'
+
+It would be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of speech
+might be, to express more affection than the dealer in curiosities did,
+in these four words. I waited for him to speak again, but he rested his
+chin upon his hand and shaking his head twice or thrice fixed his eyes
+upon the fire.
+
+While we were sitting thus in silence, the door of the closet opened,
+and the child returned, her light brown hair hanging loose about her
+neck, and her face flushed with the haste she had made to rejoin us.
+She busied herself immediately in preparing supper, and while she was
+thus engaged I remarked that the old man took an opportunity of
+observing me more closely than he had done yet. I was surprised to see
+that all this time everything was done by the child, and that there
+appeared to be no other persons but ourselves in the house. I took
+advantage of a moment when she was absent to venture a hint on this
+point, to which the old man replied that there were few grown persons
+as trustworthy or as careful as she.
+
+'It always grieves me,' I observed, roused by what I took to be his
+selfishness, 'it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of
+children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than
+infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity--two of the best
+qualities that Heaven gives them--and demands that they share our
+sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.'
+
+'It will never check hers,' said the old man looking steadily at me,
+'the springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but
+few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought and
+paid for.'
+
+'But--forgive me for saying this--you are surely not so very
+poor'--said I.
+
+'She is not my child, sir,' returned the old man. 'Her mother was, and
+she was poor. I save nothing--not a penny--though I live as you see,
+but'--he laid his hand upon my arm and leant forward to whisper--'she
+shall be rich one of these days, and a fine lady. Don't you think ill
+of me because I use her help. She gives it cheerfully as you see, and
+it would break her heart if she knew that I suffered anybody else to do
+for me what her little hands could undertake. I don't consider!'--he
+cried with sudden querulousness, 'why, God knows that this one child is
+the thought and object of my life, and yet he never prospers me--no,
+never!'
+
+At this juncture, the subject of our conversation again returned, and
+the old man motioning to me to approach the table, broke off, and said
+no more.
+
+We had scarcely begun our repast when there was a knock at the door by
+which I had entered, and Nell bursting into a hearty laugh, which I was
+rejoiced to hear, for it was childlike and full of hilarity, said it
+was no doubt dear old Kit coming back at last.
+
+'Foolish Nell!' said the old man fondling with her hair. 'She always
+laughs at poor Kit.'
+
+The child laughed again more heartily than before, and I could not help
+smiling from pure sympathy. The little old man took up a candle and
+went to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels.
+
+Kit was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad with an uncommonly wide
+mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the most
+comical expression of face I ever saw. He stopped short at the door on
+seeing a stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly round old hat
+without any vestige of a brim, and resting himself now on one leg and
+now on the other and changing them constantly, stood in the doorway,
+looking into the parlour with the most extraordinary leer I ever
+beheld. I entertained a grateful feeling towards the boy from that
+minute, for I felt that he was the comedy of the child's life.
+
+'A long way, wasn't it, Kit?' said the little old man.
+
+'Why, then, it was a goodish stretch, master,' returned Kit.
+
+'Of course you have come back hungry?'
+
+'Why, then, I do consider myself rather so, master,' was the answer.
+
+The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways as he spoke, and
+thrusting his head forward over his shoulder, as if he could not get at
+his voice without that accompanying action. I think he would have
+amused one anywhere, but the child's exquisite enjoyment of his oddity,
+and the relief it was to find that there was something she associated
+with merriment in a place that appeared so unsuited to her, were quite
+irresistible. It was a great point too that Kit himself was flattered
+by the sensation he created, and after several efforts to preserve his
+gravity, burst into a loud roar, and so stood with his mouth wide open
+and his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently.
+
+The old man had again relapsed into his former abstraction and took no
+notice of what passed, but I remarked that when her laugh was over, the
+child's bright eyes were dimmed with tears, called forth by the
+fullness of heart with which she welcomed her uncouth favourite after
+the little anxiety of the night. As for Kit himself (whose laugh had
+been all the time one of that sort which very little would change into
+a cry) he carried a large slice of bread and meat and a mug of beer
+into a corner, and applied himself to disposing of them with great
+voracity.
+
+'Ah!' said the old man turning to me with a sigh, as if I had spoken to
+him but that moment, 'you don't know what you say when you tell me that
+I don't consider her.'
+
+'You must not attach too great weight to a remark founded on first
+appearances, my friend,' said I.
+
+'No,' returned the old man thoughtfully, 'no. Come hither, Nell.'
+
+The little girl hastened from her seat, and put her arm about his neck.
+
+'Do I love thee, Nell?' said he. 'Say--do I love thee, Nell, or no?'
+
+The child only answered by her caresses, and laid her head upon his
+breast.
+
+'Why dost thou sob?' said the grandfather, pressing her closer to him
+and glancing towards me. 'Is it because thou know'st I love thee, and
+dost not like that I should seem to doubt it by my question? Well,
+well--then let us say I love thee dearly.'
+
+'Indeed, indeed you do,' replied the child with great earnestness, 'Kit
+knows you do.'
+
+Kit, who in despatching his bread and meat had been swallowing
+two-thirds of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a
+juggler, stopped short in his operations on being thus appealed to, and
+bawled 'Nobody isn't such a fool as to say he doosn't,' after which he
+incapacitated himself for further conversation by taking a most
+prodigious sandwich at one bite.
+
+'She is poor now'--said the old man, patting the child's cheek, 'but I
+say again that the time is coming when she shall be rich. It has been a
+long time coming, but it must come at last; a very long time, but it
+surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing but waste and
+riot. When WILL it come to me!'
+
+'I am very happy as I am, grandfather,' said the child.
+
+'Tush, tush!' returned the old man, 'thou dost not know--how should'st
+thou!' then he muttered again between his teeth, 'The time must come, I
+am very sure it must. It will be all the better for coming late'; and
+then he sighed and fell into his former musing state, and still holding
+the child between his knees appeared to be insensible to everything
+around him. By this time it wanted but a few minutes of midnight and I
+rose to go, which recalled him to himself.
+
+'One moment, sir,' he said, 'Now, Kit--near midnight, boy, and you
+still here! Get home, get home, and be true to your time in the
+morning, for there's work to do. Good night! There, bid him good night,
+Nell, and let him be gone!'
+
+'Good night, Kit,' said the child, her eyes lighting up with merriment
+and kindness.
+
+'Good night, Miss Nell,' returned the boy.
+
+'And thank this gentleman,' interposed the old man, 'but for whose care
+I might have lost my little girl to-night.'
+
+'No, no, master,' said Kit, 'that won't do, that won't.'
+
+'What do you mean?' cried the old man.
+
+'I'd have found her, master,' said Kit, 'I'd have found her. I'll bet
+that I'd find her if she was above ground, I would, as quick as
+anybody, master. Ha, ha, ha!'
+
+Once more opening his mouth and shutting his eyes, and laughing like a
+stentor, Kit gradually backed to the door, and roared himself out.
+
+Free of the room, the boy was not slow in taking his departure; when he
+had gone, and the child was occupied in clearing the table, the old man
+said:
+
+'I haven't seemed to thank you, sir, for what you have done to-night,
+but I do thank you humbly and heartily, and so does she, and her thanks
+are better worth than mine. I should be sorry that you went away, and
+thought I was unmindful of your goodness, or careless of her--I am not
+indeed.'
+
+I was sure of that, I said, from what I had seen. 'But,' I added, 'may
+I ask you a question?'
+
+'Ay, sir,' replied the old man, 'What is it?'
+
+'This delicate child,' said I, 'with so much beauty and
+intelligence--has she nobody to care for her but you? Has she no other
+companion or advisor?'
+
+'No,' he returned, looking anxiously in my face, 'no, and she wants no
+other.'
+
+'But are you not fearful,' said I, 'that you may misunderstand a charge
+so tender? I am sure you mean well, but are you quite certain that you
+know how to execute such a trust as this? I am an old man, like you,
+and I am actuated by an old man's concern in all that is young and
+promising. Do you not think that what I have seen of you and this
+little creature to-night must have an interest not wholly free from
+pain?'
+
+'Sir,' rejoined the old man after a moment's silence. 'I have no right
+to feel hurt at what you say. It is true that in many respects I am the
+child, and she the grown person--that you have seen already. But waking
+or sleeping, by night or day, in sickness or health, she is the one
+object of my care, and if you knew of how much care, you would look on
+me with different eyes, you would indeed. Ah! It's a weary life for an
+old man--a weary, weary life--but there is a great end to gain and that
+I keep before me.'
+
+Seeing that he was in a state of excitement and impatience, I turned to
+put on an outer coat which I had thrown off on entering the room,
+purposing to say no more. I was surprised to see the child standing
+patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, and in her hand a hat, and
+stick.
+
+'Those are not mine, my dear,' said I.
+
+'No,' returned the child, 'they are grandfather's.'
+
+'But he is not going out to-night.'
+
+'Oh, yes, he is,' said the child, with a smile.
+
+'And what becomes of you, my pretty one?'
+
+'Me! I stay here of course. I always do.'
+
+I looked in astonishment towards the old man, but he was, or feigned to
+be, busied in the arrangement of his dress. From him I looked back to
+the slight gentle figure of the child. Alone! In that gloomy place all
+the long, dreary night.
+
+She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, but cheerfully helped the
+old man with his cloak, and when he was ready took a candle to light us
+out. Finding that we did not follow as she expected, she looked back
+with a smile and waited for us.  The old man showed by his face that he
+plainly understood the cause of my hesitation, but he merely signed to
+me with an inclination of the head to pass out of the room before him,
+and remained silent. I had no resource but to comply.
+
+When we reached the door, the child setting down the candle, turned to
+say good night and raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the old
+man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.
+
+'Sleep soundly, Nell,' he said in a low voice, 'and angels guard thy
+bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.'
+
+'No, indeed,' answered the child fervently, 'they make me feel so
+happy!'
+
+'That's well; I know they do; they should,' said the old man. 'Bless
+thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.'
+
+'You'll not ring twice,' returned the child. 'The bell wakes me, even
+in the middle of a dream.'
+
+With this, they separated. The child opened the door (now guarded by a
+shutter which I had heard the boy put up before he left the house) and
+with another farewell whose clear and tender note I have recalled a
+thousand times, held it until we had passed out. The old man paused a
+moment while it was gently closed and fastened on the inside, and
+satisfied that this was done, walked on at a slow pace. At the
+street-corner he stopped, and regarding me with a troubled countenance
+said that our ways were widely different and that he must take his
+leave. I would have spoken, but summoning up more alacrity than might
+have been expected in one of his appearance, he hurried away. I could
+see that twice or thrice he looked back as if to ascertain if I were
+still watching him, or perhaps to assure himself that I was not
+following at a distance. The obscurity of the night favoured his
+disappearance, and his figure was soon beyond my sight.
+
+I remained standing on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to
+depart, and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked wistfully
+into the street we had lately quitted, and after a time directed my
+steps that way. I passed and repassed the house, and stopped and
+listened at the door; all was dark, and silent as the grave.
+
+Yet I lingered about, and could not tear myself away, thinking of all
+possible harm that might happen to the child--of fires and robberies
+and even murder--and feeling as if some evil must ensue if I turned my
+back upon the place. The closing of a door or window in the street
+brought me before the curiosity-dealer's once more; I crossed the road
+and looked up at the house to assure myself that the noise had not come
+from there. No, it was black, cold, and lifeless as before.
+
+There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and
+pretty well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by, and
+now and then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he reeled
+homewards, but these interruptions were not frequent and soon ceased.
+The clocks struck one. Still I paced up and down, promising myself that
+every time should be the last, and breaking faith with myself on some
+new plea as often as I did so.
+
+The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks and
+bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I had
+a strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good purpose. I
+had only come to know the fact through the innocence of the child, and
+though the old man was by at the time, and saw my undisguised surprise,
+he had preserved a strange mystery upon the subject and offered no word
+of explanation. These reflections naturally recalled again more
+strongly than before his haggard face, his wandering manner, his
+restless anxious looks. His affection for the child might not be
+inconsistent with villany of the worst kind; even that very affection
+was in itself an extraordinary contradiction, or how could he leave her
+thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of him, I never doubted that his
+love for her was real. I could not admit the thought, remembering what
+had passed between us, and the tone of voice in which he had called her
+by her name.
+
+'Stay here of course,' the child had said in answer to my question, 'I
+always do!' What could take him from home by night, and every night! I
+called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and secret
+deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a long series
+of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not find one
+adapted to this mystery, which only became the more impenetrable, in
+proportion as I sought to solve it.
+
+Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all tending
+to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long hours;
+at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered by
+fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first, I engaged
+the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was blazing on the
+hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me with its old
+familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and cheering, and in happy
+contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted.
+
+But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred
+and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever before
+me the old dark murky rooms--the gaunt suits of mail with their ghostly
+silent air--the faces all awry, grinning from wood and stone--the dust
+and rust and worm that lives in wood--and alone in the midst of all
+this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful child in her gentle
+slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to
+revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already
+detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I
+would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early
+in the morning.
+
+I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with
+that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious that
+the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very
+acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not
+appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I
+continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered this
+irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer's warehouse.
+
+The old man and another person were together in the back part, and
+there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices
+which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my entering,
+and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a tremulous tone
+that he was very glad I had come.
+
+'You interrupted us at a critical moment,' said he, pointing to the man
+whom I had found in company with him; 'this fellow will murder me one
+of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if he had dared.'
+
+'Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,' returned the other,
+after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; 'we all know that!'
+
+'I almost think I could,' cried the old man, turning feebly upon him.
+'If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I
+would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.'
+
+'I know it,' returned the other. 'I said so, didn't I? But neither
+oaths, or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and
+mean to live.'
+
+'And his mother died!' cried the old man, passionately clasping his
+hands and looking upward; 'and this is Heaven's justice!'
+
+The other stood lounging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him
+with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty or
+thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the expression
+of his face was far from prepossessing, having in common with his
+manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent air which repelled
+one.
+
+'Justice or no justice,' said the young fellow, 'here I am and here I
+shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for
+assistance to put me out--which you won't do, I know. I tell you again
+that I want to see my sister.'
+
+'YOUR sister!' said the old man bitterly.
+
+'Ah! You can't change the relationship,' returned the other. 'If you
+could, you'd have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you
+keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and
+pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and add
+a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly count. I
+want to see her; and I will.'
+
+'Here's a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here's a generous spirit
+to scorn scraped-up shillings!' cried the old man, turning from him to
+me. 'A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only upon
+those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon society
+which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,' he added, in
+a lower voice as he drew closer to me, 'who knows how dear she is to
+me, and seeks to wound me even there, because there is a stranger
+nearby.'
+
+'Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,' said the young fellow
+catching at the word, 'nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is
+to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mine. There's a friend
+of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to wait some
+time, I'll call him in, with your leave.'
+
+Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street
+beckoned several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from the
+air of impatience with which these signals were accompanied, required a
+great quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At length there
+sauntered up, on the opposite side of the way--with a bad pretense of
+passing by accident--a figure conspicuous for its dirty smartness,
+which after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in resistance of
+the invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was brought into the
+shop.
+
+'There. It's Dick Swiveller,' said the young fellow, pushing him in.
+'Sit down, Swiveller.'
+
+'But is the old min agreeable?' said Mr Swiveller in an undertone.
+
+Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propitiatory smile,
+observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and this week
+was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst standing by
+the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with a straw in
+his mouth issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which appearance he
+augured that another fine week for the ducks was approaching, and that
+rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore took occasion to apologize
+for any negligence that might be perceptible in his dress, on the
+ground that last night he had had 'the sun very strong in his eyes'; by
+which expression he was understood to convey to his hearers in the most
+delicate manner possible, the information that he had been extremely
+drunk.
+
+'But what,' said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, 'what is the odds so long as
+the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing
+of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the
+spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the
+least happiest of our existence!'
+
+'You needn't act the chairman here,' said his friend, half aside.
+
+'Fred!' cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, 'a word to the wise is
+sufficient for them--we may be good and happy without riches, Fred.
+Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only one
+little whisper, Fred--is the old min friendly?'
+
+'Never you mind,' replied his friend.
+
+'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word,
+and caution is the act.' with that, he winked as if in preservation of
+some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair,
+looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity.
+
+It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had already
+passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the effects of
+the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if no such
+suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair, dull eyes,
+and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses against him. His
+attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable for the  nicest
+arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the
+idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat
+with a great many brass buttons up the front and only one behind, a
+bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and
+a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in
+the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket
+from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very
+ill-favoured handkerchief; his dirty wristbands were pulled on as far
+as possible and ostentatiously folded back over his cuffs; he displayed
+no gloves, and carried a yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with
+the semblance of a ring on its little finger and a black ball in its
+grasp. With all these personal advantages (to which may be added a
+strong savour of tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of
+appearance) Mr Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on
+the ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key,
+obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and
+then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.
+
+The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands, looked
+sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion, as if
+he were utterly powerless and had no resource but to leave them to do
+as they pleased. The young man reclined against a table at no great
+distance from his friend, in apparent indifference to everything that
+had passed; and I--who felt the difficulty of any interference,
+notwithstanding that the old man had appealed to me, both by words and
+looks--made the best feint I could of being occupied in examining some
+of the goods that were disposed for sale, and paying very little
+attention to a person before me.
+
+The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after favouring
+us with several melodious assurances that his heart was in the
+Highlands, and that he wanted but his Arab steed as a preliminary to
+the achievement of great feats of valour and loyalty, removed his eyes
+from the ceiling and subsided into prose again.
+
+'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly
+occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before,
+'is the old min friendly?'
+
+'What does it matter?' returned his friend peevishly.
+
+'No, but IS he?' said Dick.
+
+'Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?'
+
+Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general
+conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our
+attention.
+
+He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the
+abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with
+ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to
+be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of
+expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded to
+observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and
+that the young gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast
+quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious
+friends, were usually detected in consequence of their heads possessing
+this remarkable property; when he concluded that if the Royal Society
+would turn their attention to the circumstance, and endeavour to find
+in the resources of science a means of preventing such untoward
+revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as benefactors to
+mankind. These opinions being equally incontrovertible with those he
+had already pronounced, he went on to inform us that Jamaica rum,
+though unquestionably an agreeable spirit of great richness and
+flavour, had the drawback of remaining constantly present to the taste
+next day; and nobody being venturous enough to argue this point either,
+he increased in confidence and became yet more companionable and
+communicative.
+
+'It's a devil of a thing, gentlemen,' said Mr Swiveller, 'when
+relations fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never
+moult a feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but
+be always expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and grandfather
+peg away at each other with mutual wiolence when all might be bliss and
+concord. Why not jine hands and forgit it?'
+
+'Hold your tongue,' said his friend.
+
+'Sir,' replied Mr Swiveller, 'don't you interrupt the chair.
+Gentlemen, how does the case stand, upon the present occasion?  Here is
+a jolly old grandfather--I say it with the utmost respect--and here is
+a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the wild
+young grandson, "I have brought you up and educated you, Fred; I have
+put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted a little out
+of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never have another
+chance, nor the ghost of half a one."  The wild young grandson makes
+answer to this and says, "You're as rich as rich can be; you have been
+at no uncommon expense on my account, you're saving up piles of money
+for my little sister that lives with you in a secret, stealthy,
+hugger-muggering kind of way and with no manner of enjoyment--why can't
+you stand a trifle for your grown-up relation?" The jolly old
+grandfather unto this, retorts, not only that he declines to fork out
+with that cheerful readiness which is always so agreeable and pleasant
+in a gentleman of his time of life, but that he will bow up, and call
+names, and make reflections whenever they meet. Then the plain question
+is, an't it a pity that this state of things should continue, and how
+much better would it be for the gentleman to hand over a reasonable
+amount of tin, and make it all right and comfortable?'
+
+Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes of
+the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into his
+mouth as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his speech
+by adding one other word.
+
+'Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!' said the old man
+turning to his grandson. 'Why do you bring your prolifigate companions
+here? How often am I to tell you that my life is one of care and
+self-denial, and that I am poor?'
+
+'How often am I to tell you,' returned the other, looking coldly at
+him, 'that I know better?'
+
+'You have chosen your own path,' said the old man. 'Follow it.  Leave
+Nell and me to toil and work.'
+
+'Nell will be a woman soon,' returned the other, 'and, bred in your
+faith, she'll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.'
+
+'Take care,' said the old man with sparkling eyes, 'that she does not
+forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that the
+day don't come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she rides by
+in a gay carriage of her own.'
+
+'You mean when she has your money?' retorted the other. 'How like a
+poor man he talks!'
+
+'And yet,' said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one
+who thinks aloud, 'how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause is
+a young child's guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes well
+with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!'
+
+These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the
+young men.  Mr Swiveller appeared to think that they implied some mental
+struggle consequent upon the powerful effect of his address, for he
+poked his friend with his cane and whispered his conviction that he had
+administered 'a clincher,' and that he expected a commission on the
+profits. Discovering his mistake after a while, he appeared to grow
+rather sleepy and discontented, and had more than once suggested the
+propriety of an immediate departure, when the door opened, and the
+child herself appeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably hard
+features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be quite a
+dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a
+giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his mouth and
+chin, bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and his
+complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or wholesome.
+But what added most to the grotesque expression of his face was a
+ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of habit and to
+have no connection with any mirthful or complacent feeling, constantly
+revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet scattered in his
+mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. His dress consisted of
+a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair of capacious shoes,
+and a dirty white neckerchief sufficiently limp and crumpled to
+disclose the greater portion of his wiry throat. Such hair as he had
+was of a grizzled black, cut short and straight upon his temples, and
+hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands, which were of a
+rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his fingernails were crooked,
+long, and yellow.
+
+There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they
+were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some moments
+elapsed before any one broke silence. The child advanced timidly
+towards her brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we may call
+him so) glanced keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer, who
+plainly had not expected his uncouth visitor, seemed disconcerted and
+embarrassed.
+
+'Ah!' said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes
+had been surveying the young man attentively, 'that should be your
+grandson, neighbour!'
+
+'Say rather that he should not be,' replied the old man. 'But he is.'
+
+'And that?' said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.
+
+'Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,' said the old man.
+
+'And that?' inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight at
+me.
+
+'A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night when
+she lost her way, coming from your house.'
+
+The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his
+wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and
+bent his head to listen.
+
+'Well, Nelly,' said the young fellow aloud. 'Do they teach you to hate
+me, eh?'
+
+'No, no. For shame. Oh, no!' cried the child.
+
+'To love me, perhaps?' pursued her brother with a sneer.
+
+'To do neither,' she returned. 'They never speak to me about you.
+Indeed they never do.'
+
+'I dare be bound for that,' he said, darting a bitter look at the
+grandfather. 'I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!'
+
+'But I love you dearly, Fred,' said the child.
+
+'No doubt!'
+
+'I do indeed, and always will,' the child repeated with great emotion,
+'but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy, then
+I could love you more.'
+
+'I see!' said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child,
+and having kissed her, pushed her from him: 'There--get you away now
+you have said your lesson. You needn't whimper. We part good friends
+enough, if that's the matter.'
+
+He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained
+her little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf,
+said abruptly,
+
+'Harkee, Mr--'
+
+'Meaning me?' returned the dwarf. 'Quilp is my name. You might
+remember. It's not a long one--Daniel Quilp.'
+
+'Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,' pursued the other, 'You have some influence
+with my grandfather there.'
+
+'Some,' said Mr Quilp emphatically.
+
+'And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.'
+
+'A few,' replied Quilp, with equal dryness.
+
+'Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into
+and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell
+here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of
+her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and
+dreaded as if I brought the plague? He'll tell you that I have no
+natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake,
+than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of coming
+to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see her when I
+please. That's my point. I came here to-day to maintain it, and I'll
+come here again fifty times with the same object and always with the
+same success. I said I would stop till I had gained it.  I have done
+so, and now my visit's ended. Come Dick.'
+
+'Stop!' cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the door.
+'Sir!'
+
+'Sir, I am your humble servant,' said Mr Quilp, to whom the
+monosyllable was addressed.
+
+'Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light,
+sir,' said Mr Swiveller, 'I will with your permission, attempt a slight
+remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old
+min was friendly.'
+
+'Proceed, sir,' said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden
+stop.
+
+'Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling
+as a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the
+sort of thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social
+harmony of the contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a
+course which is THE course to be adopted to the present occasion.  Will
+you allow me to whisper half a syllable, sir?'
+
+Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped up
+to the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to get at
+his ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all present,
+
+'The watch-word to the old min is--fork.'
+
+'Is what?' demanded Quilp.
+
+'Is fork, sir, fork,' replied Mr Swiveller slapping his pocket. 'You
+are awake, sir?'
+
+The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise, then drew
+a little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these means he in
+time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to attract the
+dwarf's attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in dumb show,
+the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy.  Having performed
+the serious pantomime that was necessary for the due conveyance of
+these idea, he cast himself upon his friend's track, and vanished.
+
+'Humph!' said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his shoulders,
+'so much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge none! Nor need you
+either,' he added, turning to the old man, 'if you were not as weak as
+a reed, and nearly as senseless.'
+
+'What would you have me do?' he retorted in a kind of helpless
+desperation. 'It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?'
+
+'What would I do if I was in your case?' said the dwarf.
+
+'Something violent, no doubt.'
+
+'You're right there,' returned the little man, highly gratified by the
+compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a
+devil as he rubbed his dirty hands together. 'Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty Mrs
+Quilp, obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me--I have
+left her all alone, and she will be anxious and know not a moment's
+peace till I return. I know she's always in that condition when I'm
+away, thought she doesn't dare to say so, unless I lead her on and tell
+her she may speak freely and I won't be angry with her.  Oh!
+well-trained Mrs Quilp.'
+
+The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and little
+body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round
+again--with something fantastic even in his manner of performing this
+slight action--and, dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in
+the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp
+might have copied and appropriated to himself.
+
+'Here,' he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the
+old man as he spoke; 'I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as,
+being in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in
+her bag. She need be accustomed to such loads betimes though,
+neighbor, for she will carry weight when you are dead.'
+
+'Heaven send she may! I hope so,' said the old man with something like
+a groan.
+
+'Hope so!' echoed the dwarf, approaching close to his ear; 'neighbour,
+I would I knew in what good investment all these supplies are sunk. But
+you are a deep man, and keep your secret close.'
+
+'My secret!' said the other with a haggard look. 'Yes, you're
+right--I--I--keep it close--very close.'
+
+He said no more, but taking the money turned away with a slow,
+uncertain step, and pressed his hand upon his head like a weary and
+dejected man. The dwarf watched him sharply, while he passed into the
+little sitting-room and locked it in an iron safe above the
+chimney-piece; and after musing for a short space, prepared to take his
+leave, observing that unless he made good haste, Mrs Quilp would
+certainly be in fits on his return.
+
+'And so, neighbour,' he added, 'I'll turn my face homewards, leaving my
+love for Nelly and hoping she may never lose her way again, though her
+doing so HAS procured me an honour I didn't expect.' With that he bowed
+and leered at me, and with a keen glance around which seemed to
+comprehend every object within his range of vision, however, small or
+trivial, went his way.
+
+I had several times essayed to go myself, but the old man had always
+opposed it and entreated me to remain. As he renewed his entreaties on
+our being left along, and adverted with many thanks to the former
+occasion of our being together, I willingly yielded to his persuasions,
+and sat down, pretending to examine some curious miniatures and a few
+old medals which he placed before me. It needed no great pressing to
+induce me to stay, for if my curiosity has been excited on the occasion
+of my first visit, it certainly was not diminished now.
+
+Nell joined us before long, and bringing some needle-work to the table,
+sat by the old man's side. It was pleasant to observe the fresh flowers
+in the room, the pet bird with a green bough shading his little cage,
+the breath of freshness and youth which seemed to rustle through the
+old dull house and hover round the child. It was curious, but not so
+pleasant, to turn from the beauty and grace of the girl, to the
+stooping figure, care-worn face, and jaded aspect of the old man.  As
+he grew weaker and more feeble, what would become of this lonely little
+creature; poor protector as he was, say that he died--what would be her
+fate, then?
+
+The old man almost answered my thoughts, as he laid his hand on hers,
+and spoke aloud.
+
+'I'll be of better cheer, Nell,' he said; 'there must be good fortune
+in store for thee--I do not ask it for myself, but thee. Such miseries
+must fall on thy innocent head without it, that I cannot believe but
+that, being tempted, it will come at last!'
+
+She looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer.
+
+'When I think,' said he, 'of the many years--many in thy short
+life--that thou has lived with me; of my monotonous existence, knowing
+no companions of thy own age nor any childish pleasures; of the
+solitude in which thou has grown to be what thou art, and in which thou
+hast lived apart from nearly all thy kind but one old man; I sometimes
+fear I have dealt hardly by thee, Nell.'
+
+'Grandfather!' cried the child in unfeigned surprise.
+
+'Not in intention--no no,' said he. 'I have ever looked forward to the
+time that should enable thee to mix among the gayest and prettiest, and
+take thy station with the best. But I still look forward, Nell, I still
+look forward, and if I should be forced to leave thee, meanwhile, how
+have I fitted thee for struggles with the world? The poor bird yonder
+is as well qualified to encounter it, and be turned adrift upon its
+mercies--Hark! I hear Kit outside. Go to him, Nell, go to him.'
+
+She rose, and hurrying away, stopped, turned back, and put her arms
+about the old man's neck, then left him and hurried away again--but
+faster this time, to hide her falling tears.
+
+'A word in your ear, sir,' said the old man in a hurried whisper. 'I
+have been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can
+only plead that I have done all for the best--that it is too late to
+retract, if I could (though I cannot)--and that I hope to triumph yet.
+All is for her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would spare
+her the sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare her the
+miseries that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an early grave.
+I would leave her--not with resources which could be easily spent or
+squandered away, but with what would place her beyond the reach of want
+for ever. You mark me sir? She shall have no pittance, but a
+fortune--Hush! I can say no more than that, now or at any other time,
+and she is here again!'
+
+The eagerness with which all this was poured into my ear, the trembling
+of the hand with which he clasped my arm, the strained and starting
+eyes he fixed upon me, the wild vehemence and agitation of his manner,
+filled me with amazement. All that I had heard and seen, and a great
+part of what he had said himself, led me to suppose that he was a
+wealthy man. I could form no comprehension of his character, unless he
+were one of those miserable wretches who, having made gain the sole end
+and object of their lives and having succeeded in amassing great
+riches, are constantly tortured by the dread of poverty, and beset by
+fears of loss and ruin. Many things he had said which I had been at a
+loss to understand, were quite reconcilable with the idea thus
+presented to me, and at length I concluded that beyond all doubt he was
+one of this unhappy race.
+
+The opinion was not the result of hasty consideration, for which indeed
+there was no opportunity at that time, as the child came directly, and
+soon occupied herself in preparations for giving Kit a writing lesson,
+of which it seemed he had a couple every week, and one regularly on
+that evening, to the great mirth and enjoyment both of himself and his
+instructress. To relate how it was a long time before his modesty could
+be so far prevailed upon as it admit of his sitting down in the
+parlour, in the presence of an unknown gentleman--how, when he did set
+down, he tucked up his sleeves and squared his elbows and put his face
+close to the copy-book and squinted horribly at the lines--how, from
+the very first moment of having the pen in his hand, he began to wallow
+in blots, and to daub himself with ink up to the very roots of his
+hair--how, if he did by accident form a letter properly, he immediately
+smeared it out again with his arm in his preparations to make
+another--how, at every fresh mistake, there was a fresh burst of
+merriment from the child and louder and not less hearty laugh from poor
+Kit himself--and how there was all the way through, notwithstanding, a
+gentle wish on her part to teach, and an anxious desire on his to
+learn--to relate all these particulars would no doubt occupy more space
+and time than they deserve. It will be sufficient to say that the
+lesson was given--that evening passed and night came on--that the old
+man again grew restless and impatient--that he quitted the house
+secretly at the same hour as before--and that the child was once more
+left alone within its gloomy walls.
+
+And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character and
+introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the convenience
+of the narrative detach myself from its further course, and leave those
+who have prominent and necessary parts in it to speak and act for
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+Mr and Mrs Quilp resided on Tower Hill; and in her bower on Tower Hill
+Mrs Quilp was left to pine the absence of her lord, when he quitted her
+on the business which he had already seen to transact.
+
+Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or
+calling, though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations
+numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets
+and alleys by the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty
+officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers
+mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very nose
+of the Custom House, and made appointments on 'Change with men in
+glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the Surrey side
+of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called 'Quilp's
+Wharf,' in which were a little wooden counting-house burrowing all awry
+in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed into the
+ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings;
+some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper,
+crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp's Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a
+ship-breaker, yet to judge from these appearances he must either have
+been a ship-breaker on a very small scale, or have broken his ships up
+very small indeed. Neither did the place present any extraordinary
+aspect of life or activity, as its only human occupant was an
+amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole change of occupation was
+from sitting on the head of a pile and throwing stones into the mud
+when the tide was out, to standing with his hands in his pockets gazing
+listlessly on the motion and on the bustle of the river at high-water.
+
+The dwarf's lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful
+accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet for
+that lady's mother, who resided with the couple and waged perpetual war
+with Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in no slight dread.
+Indeed, the ugly creature contrived by some means or other--whether by
+his ugliness or his ferocity or his natural cunning is no great
+matter--to impress with a wholesome fear of his anger, most of those
+with whom he was brought into daily contact and communication. Over
+nobody had he such complete ascendance as Mrs Quilp herself--a pretty
+little, mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman, who having allied herself in
+wedlock to the dwarf in one of those strange infatuations of which
+examples are by no means scarce, performed a sound practical penance
+for her folly, every day of her life.
+
+It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her bower
+she was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of whom
+mention has recently been made, there were present some half-dozen
+ladies of the neighborhood who had happened by a strange accident (and
+also by a little understanding among themselves) to drop in one after
+another, just about tea-time. This being a season favourable to
+conversation, and the room being a cool, shady, lazy kind of place,
+with some plants at the open window shutting out the dust, and
+interposing pleasantly enough between the tea table within and the old
+Tower without, it is no wonder that the ladies felt an inclination to
+talk and linger, especially when there are taken into account the
+additional inducements of fresh butter, new bread, shrimps, and
+watercresses.
+
+Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was
+extremely natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity of
+mankind to tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that developed
+upon the weaker sex to resist that tyranny and assert their rights and
+dignity. It was natural for four reasons: firstly, because Mrs Quilp
+being a young woman and notoriously under the dominion of her husband
+ought to be excited to rebel; secondly, because Mrs Quilp's parent was
+known to be laudably shrewish in her disposition and inclined to resist
+male authority; thirdly, because each visitor wished to show for
+herself how superior she was in this respect to the generality of her
+sex; and fourthly, because the company being accustomed to scandalise
+each other in pairs, were deprived of their usual subject of
+conversation now that they were all assembled in close friendship, and
+had consequently no better employment than to attack the common enemy.
+
+Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings by
+inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr Quilp was;
+whereunto Mr Quilp's wife's mother replied sharply, 'Oh! He was well
+enough--nothing much was every the matter with him--and ill weeds were
+sure to thrive.' All the ladies then sighed in concert, shook their
+heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr.
+
+'Ah!' said the spokeswoman, 'I wish you'd give her a little of your
+advice, Mrs Jiniwin'--Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should be
+observed--'nobody knows better than you, ma'am, what us women owe to
+ourselves.'
+
+'Owe indeed, ma'am!' replied Mrs Jiniwin. 'When my poor husband, her
+dear father, was alive, if he had ever ventured a cross word to me, I'd
+have--' The good old lady did not finish the sentence, but she twisted
+off the head of a shrimp with a vindictiveness which seemed to imply
+that the action was in some degree a substitute for words. In this
+light it was clearly understood by the other party, who immediately
+replied with great approbation, 'You quite enter into my feelings,
+ma'am, and it's jist what I'd do myself.'
+
+'But you have no call to do it,' said Mrs Jiniwin. 'Luckily for you,
+you have no more occasion to do it than I had.'
+
+'No woman need have, if she was true to herself,' rejoined the stout
+lady.
+
+'Do you hear that, Betsy?' said Mrs Jiniwin, in a warning voice.  'How
+often have I said the same words to you, and almost gone down my knees
+when I spoke 'em!'
+
+Poor Mrs Quilp, who had looked in a state of helplessness from one face
+of condolence to another, coloured, smiled, and shook her head
+doubtfully. This was the signal for a general clamour, which beginning
+in a low murmur gradually swelled into a great noise in which everybody
+spoke at once, and all said that she being a young woman had no right
+to set up her opinions against the experiences of those who knew so
+much better; that it was very wrong of her not to take the advice of
+people who had nothing at heart but her good; that it was next door to
+being downright ungrateful to conduct herself in that manner; that if
+she had no respect for herself she ought to have some for other women,
+all of whom she compromised by her meekness; and that if she had no
+respect for other women, the time would come when other women would
+have no respect for her; and she would be very sorry for that, they
+could tell her. Having dealt out these admonitions, the ladies fell to
+a more powerful assault than they had yet made upon the  mixed tea, new
+bread, fresh butter, shrimps, and watercresses, and said that their
+vexation was so great to see her going on like that, that they could
+hardly bring themselves to eat a single morsel.
+
+It's all very fine to talk,' said Mrs Quilp with much simplicity, 'but
+I know that if I was to die to-morrow, Quilp could marry anybody he
+pleased--now that he could, I know!'
+
+There was quite a scream of indignation at this idea. Marry whom he
+pleased! They would like to see him dare to think of marrying any of
+them; they would like to see the faintest approach to such a thing.
+One lady (a widow) was quite certain she should stab him if he hinted
+at it.
+
+'Very well,' said Mrs Quilp, nodding her head, 'as I said just now,
+it's very easy to talk, but I say again that I know--that I'm
+sure--Quilp has such a way with him when he likes, that the best
+looking woman here couldn't refuse him if I was dead, and she was free,
+and he chose to make love to her. Come!'
+
+Everybody bridled up at this remark, as much as to say, 'I know you
+mean me. Let him try--that's all.' and yet for some hidden reason they
+were all angry with the widow, and each lady whispered in her
+neighbour's ear that it was very plain that said widow thought herself
+the person referred to, and what a puss she was!
+
+'Mother knows,' said Mrs Quilp, 'that what I say is quite correct, for
+she often said so before we were married. Didn't you say so, mother?'
+
+This inquiry involved the respected lady in rather a delicate position,
+for she certainly had been an active party in making her daughter Mrs
+Quilp, and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to
+encourage the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else would
+have. On the other hand, to exaggerate the captivating qualities of her
+son-in-law would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in which all her
+energies were deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing considerations,
+Mrs Jiniwin admitted the powers of insinuation, but denied the right to
+govern, and with a timely compliment to the stout lady brought back the
+discussion to the point from which it had strayed.
+
+'Oh! It's a sensible and proper thing indeed, what Mrs George has
+said!' exclaimed the old lady. 'If women are only true to
+themselves!--But Betsy isn't, and more's the shame and pity.'
+
+'Before I'd let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,' said Mrs
+George, 'before I'd consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of
+him, I'd--I'd kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it!'
+
+This remark being loudly commended and approved of, another lady (from
+the Minories) put in her word:
+
+'Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,' said this lady, 'and I supposed
+there's no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs Jiniwin
+says he is, and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still he is not
+quite a--what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young man neither,
+which might be a little excuse for him if anything could be; whereas
+his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman--which is the
+greatest thing after all.'
+
+This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a
+corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the lady
+went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and unreasonable
+with such a wife, then--
+
+'If he is!' interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and
+brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn
+declaration. 'If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she
+daren't call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and
+even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn't the spirit
+to give him a word back, no, not a single word.'
+
+Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all the
+tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every
+tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this
+official communication was no sooner made than they all began to talk
+at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility.  Mrs
+George remarked that people would talk, that people had often said this
+to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had told her so
+twenty times, that she had always said, 'No, Henrietta Simmons, unless
+I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears, I never will
+believe it.' Mrs Simmons corroborated this testimony and added strong
+evidence of her own. The lady from the Minories recounted a successful
+course of treatment under which she had placed her own husband, who,
+from manifesting one month after marriage unequivocal symptoms of the
+tiger, had by this means become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another
+lady recounted her own personal struggle and final triumph, in the
+course whereof she had found it necessary to call in her mother and two
+aunts, and to weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third,
+who in the general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened
+herself upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst
+them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and
+happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the
+weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole
+thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The noise
+was at its height, and half the company had elevated their voices into
+a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other half, when
+Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her forefinger
+stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not until then,
+Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this clamour, was
+observed to be in the room, looking on and listening with profound
+attention.
+
+'Go on, ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to
+stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and
+palatable.'
+
+'I--I--didn't ask them to tea, Quilp,' stammered his wife. 'It's quite
+an accident.'
+
+'So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always the
+pleasantest,' said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he seemed
+to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they were
+encrusted, little charges for popguns. 'What! Not going, ladies, you
+are not going, surely!'
+
+His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their
+respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs
+Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a faint
+struggle to sustain the character.
+
+'And why not stop to supper, Quilp,' said the old lady, 'if my daughter
+had a mind?'
+
+'To be sure,' rejoined Daniel. 'Why not?'
+
+'There's nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?' said Mrs
+Jiniwin.
+
+'Surely not,' returned the dwarf. 'Why should there be? Nor anything
+unwholesome, either, unless there's lobster-salad or prawns, which I'm
+told are not good for digestion.'
+
+'And you wouldn't like your wife to be attacked with that, or anything
+else that would make her uneasy would you?' said Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'Not for a score of worlds,' replied the dwarf with a grin. 'Not even
+to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time--and what a blessing
+that would be!'
+
+'My daughter's your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,' said the old lady with
+a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be
+reminded of the fact; 'your wedded wife.'
+
+'So she is, certainly. So she is,' observed the dwarf.
+
+'And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,' said the
+old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of
+her impish son-in-law.
+
+'Hope she has!' he replied. 'Oh! Don't you know she has? Don't you know
+she has, Mrs Jiniwin?
+
+'I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my way
+of thinking.'
+
+'Why an't you of your mother's way of thinking, my dear?' said the
+dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, 'why don't you always
+imitate your mother, my dear? She's the ornament of her sex--your
+father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.'
+
+'Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty thousand of
+some people,' said Mrs Jiniwin; 'twenty hundred million thousand.'
+
+'I should like to have known him,' remarked the dwarf. 'I dare say he
+was a blessed creature then; but I'm sure he is now. It was a happy
+release. I believe he had suffered a long time?'
+
+The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with
+the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his
+tongue.
+
+'You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too
+much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to
+bed.'
+
+'I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.'
+
+'But please to do now. Do please to go now,' said the dwarf.
+
+The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and
+falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and
+bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding
+downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a
+corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted
+himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a
+long time without speaking.
+
+'Mrs Quilp,' he said at last.
+
+'Yes, Quilp,' she replead meekly.
+
+Instead of pursuing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms
+again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted
+her eyes and kept them on the ground.
+
+'Mrs Quilp.'
+
+'Yes, Quilp.'
+
+'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'
+
+With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave
+him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her
+clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before
+him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship's
+locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face
+squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted on the table.
+
+'Now, Mrs Quilp,' he said; 'I feel in a smoking humour, and shall
+probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in
+case I want you.'
+
+His wife returned no other reply than the necessary 'Yes, Quilp,' and
+the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first
+glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower
+turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the
+room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red,
+but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position,
+and staring listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on
+his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of
+restlessness or fatigue; and then it expanded into a grin of delight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time,
+or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is
+that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the
+ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the
+assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after
+hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural
+desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he
+showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a
+suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like
+one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth.
+
+At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of
+early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered
+sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute
+appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding
+him by an occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her
+penance had been of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked
+his cigar and drank his rum without heeding her; and it was not until
+the sun had some time risen, and the activity and noise of city day
+were rife in the street, that he deigned to recognize her presence by
+any word or sign. He might not have done so even then, but for certain
+impatient tapping at the door he seemed to denote that some pretty hard
+knuckles were actively engaged upon the other side.
+
+'Why dear me!' he said looking round with a malicious grin, 'it's day.
+Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!'
+
+His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.
+
+Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for,
+supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her
+feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and
+character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room
+appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on the
+previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.
+
+Nothing escaped the hawk's eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly
+understanding what passed in the old lady's mind, turned uglier still
+in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a
+leer or triumph.
+
+'Why, Betsy,' said the old woman, 'you haven't been--you don't mean to
+say you've been a--'
+
+'Sitting up all night?' said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the
+sentence. 'Yes she has!'
+
+'All night?' cried Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?' said Quilp, with a smile of
+which a frown was part. 'Who says man and wife are bad company?  Ha ha!
+The time has flown.'
+
+'You're a brute!' exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'Come come,' said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, 'you
+mustn't call her names. She's married now, you know. And though she did
+beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly
+careful of me as to be out of humour with her.  Bless you for a dear
+old lady. Here's to your health!'
+
+'I am much obliged to you,' returned the old woman, testifying by a
+certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her
+matronly fist at her son-in-law. 'Oh! I'm very much obliged to you!'
+
+'Grateful soul!' cried the dwarf. 'Mrs Quilp.'
+
+'Yes, Quilp,' said the timid sufferer.
+
+'Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the wharf
+this morning--the earlier the better, so be quick.'
+
+Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in
+a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute
+determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her
+daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt
+faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next
+apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied herself
+to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.
+
+While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room,
+and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance
+with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his
+complexion rather more cloudy than it was before.  But, while he was
+thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for
+with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in
+this short process, and stood listening for any conversation in the
+next room, of which he might be the theme.
+
+'Ah!' he said after a short effort of attention, 'it was not the towel
+over my ears, I thought it wasn't. I'm a little hunchy villain and a
+monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!'
+
+The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full
+force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very
+doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.
+
+Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing
+there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin happening to be
+behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist
+at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she
+did so and accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye
+in the glass, catching her in the very act. The same glance at the
+mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and
+distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and the next instant the
+dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and placid look, inquired
+in a tone of great affection.
+
+'How are you now, my dear old darling?'
+
+Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a
+little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old
+woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and suffered
+herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the breakfast-table.
+Here he by no means diminished the impression he had just produced, for
+he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the
+heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time
+and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking,
+bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so
+many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened
+out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human
+creature. At last, having gone through these proceedings and many
+others which were equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them,
+reduced to a very obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the
+river-side, where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed
+his name.
+
+It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to
+cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on,
+some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a
+wrong-headed, dogged, obstinate way, bumping up against the larger
+craft, running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of
+nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on all
+sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long
+sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some lumbering
+fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands were busily
+engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry, taking in or
+discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible but two or
+three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to and fro upon the
+deck or scrambling up to look over the side and bark the louder for the
+view. Coming slowly on through the forests of masts was a great
+steamship, beating the water in short impatient strokes with her heavy
+paddles as though she wanted room to breathe, and advancing in her huge
+bulk like a sea monster among the minnows of the Thames. On either hand
+were long black tiers of colliers; between them vessels slowly working
+out of harbour with sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on
+board, re-echoed from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was
+in active motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old
+grey Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire
+shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their
+chafing, restless neighbour.
+
+Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save in so
+far as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused
+himself to be put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither
+through a narrow lane which, partaking of the amphibious character of
+its frequenters, had as much water as mud in its composition, and a
+very liberal supply of both. Arrived at his destination, the first
+object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly
+shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which remarkable
+appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an eccentric spirit
+and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now standing on his head
+and contemplating the aspect of the river under these uncommon
+circumstances. He was speedily brought on his heels by the sound of his
+master's voice, and as soon as his head was in its right position, Mr
+Quilp, to speak expressively in the absence of a better verb, 'punched
+it' for him.
+
+'Come, you let me alone,' said the boy, parrying Quilp's hand with both
+his elbows alternatively. 'You'll get something you won't like if you
+don't and so I tell you.'
+
+'You dog,' snarled Quilp, 'I'll beat you with an iron rod, I'll scratch
+you with a rusty nail, I'll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me--I will.'
+
+With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously diving
+in between the elbows and catching the boy's head as it dodged from
+side to side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having now
+carried his point and insisted on it, he left off.
+
+'You won't do it agin,' said the boy, nodding his head and drawing
+back, with the elbows ready in case of the worst; 'now--'
+
+'Stand still, you dog,' said Quilp. 'I won't do it again, because I've
+done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.'
+
+'Why don't you hit one of your size?' said the boy approaching very
+slowly.
+
+'Where is there one of my size, you dog?' returned Quilp. 'Take the
+key, or I'll brain you with it'--indeed he gave him a smart tap with
+the handle as he spoke. 'Now, open the counting-house.'
+
+The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he
+looked round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady look.
+And here it may be remarked, that between this boy and the dwarf there
+existed a strange kind of mutual liking. How born or bred, and or
+nourished upon blows and threats on one side, and retorts and defiances
+on the other, is not to the purpose. Quilp would certainly suffer
+nobody to contract him but the boy, and the boy would assuredly not
+have submitted to be so knocked about by anybody but Quilp, when he had
+the power to run away at any time he chose.
+
+'Now,' said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, 'you mind
+the wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I'll cut one of your feet
+off.'
+
+The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in, stood
+on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the back and
+stood on his head there, and then to the opposite side and repeated the
+performance. There were indeed four sides to the counting-house, but he
+avoided that one where the window was, deeming it probable that Quilp
+would be looking out of it. This was prudent, for in point of fact, the
+dwarf, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance
+from the sash armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and
+jagged and studded in many parts with broken nails, might possibly have
+hurt him.
+
+It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but
+an old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an
+inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock
+which hadn't gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the
+minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp pulled
+his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top)
+and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with ease of an
+old practitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the
+deprivation of last night's rest, by a long and sound nap.
+
+Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been
+asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust in
+his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp was a
+light sleeper and started up directly.
+
+'Here's somebody for you,' said the boy.
+
+'Who?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'Ask!' said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and
+throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy
+disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. 'Ask, you
+dog.'
+
+Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy
+discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who
+now presented herself at the door.
+
+'What, Nelly!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Yes,' said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the
+dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him and
+a yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to behold;
+it's only me, sir.'
+
+'Come in,' said Quilp, without getting off the desk. 'Come in. Stay.
+Just look out into the yard, and see whether there's a boy standing on
+his head.'
+
+'No, sir,' replied Nell. 'He's on his feet.'
+
+'You're sure he is?' said Quilp. 'Well. Now, come in and shut the door.
+What's your message, Nelly?'
+
+The child handed him a letter. Mr Quilp, without changing his position
+further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his chin
+on his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its contents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance
+of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that
+while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was
+much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque
+attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful
+anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it
+disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this
+impulse and restrained it more effectually than she could possibly have
+done by any efforts of her own.
+
+That Mr Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree, by
+the contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had got
+through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes very
+wide and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused him to
+scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when he came to
+the conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of surprise and
+dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he bit the nails
+of all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and taking it up
+sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all appearance as
+unsatisfactory as the first, and plunged him into a profound reverie
+from which he awakened to another assault upon his nails and a long
+stare at the child, who with her eyes turned towards the ground awaited
+his further pleasure.
+
+'Halloa here!' he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness,
+which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her
+ear. 'Nelly!'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Do you know what's inside this letter, Nell?'
+
+'No, sir!'
+
+'Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?'
+
+'Quite sure, sir.'
+
+'Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?' said the dwarf.
+
+'Indeed I don't know,' returned the child.
+
+'Well!' muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. 'I believe you.
+Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What the devil has
+he done with it, that's the mystery!'
+
+This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once
+more. While he was thus employed his features gradually relaxed into
+what was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man would
+have been a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked up again
+she found that he was regarding her with extraordinary favour and
+complacency.
+
+'You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you tired,
+Nelly?'
+
+'No, sir. I'm in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I am
+away.'
+
+'There's no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,' said Quilp. 'How
+should you like to be my number two, Nelly?'
+
+'To be what, sir?'
+
+'My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf.
+
+The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr
+Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more distinctly.
+
+'To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead, sweet
+Nell,' said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him
+with his bent forefinger, 'to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked,
+red-lipped wife. Say that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only four,
+you'll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a
+very good girl, and see if one of these days you don't come to be Mrs
+Quilp of Tower Hill.'
+
+So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful prospect,
+the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled violently.
+Mr Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded him a
+constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to contemplate the
+death of Mrs Quilp number one, and the elevation of Mrs Quilp number
+two to her post and title, or because he was determined from purposes
+of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at that particular time,
+only laughed and feigned to take no heed of her alarm.
+
+'You shall come with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs Quilp that is,
+directly,' said the dwarf. 'She's very fond of you, Nell, though not so
+fond as I am. You shall come home with me.'
+
+'I must go back indeed,' said the child. 'He told me to return directly
+I had the answer.'
+
+'But you haven't it, Nelly,' retorted the dwarf, 'and won't have it,
+and can't have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your
+errand, you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and we'll go
+directly.' With that, Mr Quilp suffered himself to roll gradually off
+the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when he got upon them
+and led the way from the counting-house to the wharf outside, when the
+first objects that presented themselves were the boy who had stood on
+his head and another young gentleman of about his own stature, rolling
+in the mud together, locked in a tight embrace, and cuffing each other
+with mutual heartiness.
+
+'It's Kit!' cried Nelly, clasping her hand, 'poor Kit who came with me!
+Oh, pray stop them, Mr Quilp!'
+
+'I'll stop 'em,' cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and
+returning with a thick stick, 'I'll stop 'em. Now, my boys, fight away.
+I'll fight you both. I'll take both of you, both together, both
+together!'
+
+With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing round
+the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind
+of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on the other, in a most
+desperate manner, always aiming at their heads and dealing such blows
+as none but the veriest little savage would have inflicted. This being
+warmer work than they had calculated upon, speedily cooled the courage
+of the belligerents, who scrambled to their feet and called for quarter.
+
+'I'll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,' said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to
+get near either of them for a parting blow. 'I'll bruise you until
+you're copper-coloured, I'll break your faces till you haven't a
+profile between you, I will.'
+
+'Come, you drop that stick or it'll be worse for you,' said his boy,
+dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; 'you drop
+that stick.'
+
+'Come a little nearer, and I'll drop it on your skull, you dog,' said
+Quilp, with gleaming eyes; 'a little nearer--nearer yet.'
+
+But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a
+little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to
+wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily
+kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power,
+when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he
+fell violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr
+Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as
+at a most irresistible jest.
+
+'Never mind,' said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the same
+time; 'you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because they say
+you're an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a penny, that's
+all.'
+
+'Do you mean to say, I'm not, you dog?' returned Quilp.
+
+'No!' retorted the boy.
+
+'Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?' said Quilp.
+
+'Because he said so,' replied the boy, pointing to Kit, 'not because you
+an't.'
+
+'Then why did he say,' bawled Kit, 'that Miss Nelly was ugly, and that
+she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked?  Why did
+he say that?'
+
+'He said what he did because he's a fool, and you said what you did
+because you're very wise and clever--almost too clever to live, unless
+you're very careful of yourself, Kit.' said Quilp, with great suavity
+in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes and mouth.
+'Here's sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth.  At all times,
+Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring me
+the key.'
+
+The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told,
+and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a
+dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into
+his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and
+the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the
+extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed the
+river.
+
+There was only Mrs Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the return
+of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing slumber when
+the sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely time to seem to
+be occupied in some needle-work, when he entered, accompanied by the
+child; having left Kit downstairs.
+
+'Here's Nelly Trent, dear Mrs Quilp,' said her husband. 'A glass of
+wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She'll sit
+with you, my soul, while I write a letter.'
+
+Mrs Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse's face to know what this
+unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she saw in
+his gesture, followed him into the next room.
+
+'Mind what I say to you,' whispered Quilp. 'See if you can get out of
+her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live,
+or what he tells her. I've my reasons for knowing, if I can. You women
+talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you have a soft,
+mild way with you that'll win upon her. Do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, Quilp.'
+
+'Go then. What's the matter now?'
+
+'Dear Quilp,' faltered his wife. 'I love the child--if you could do
+without making me deceive her--'
+
+The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some weapon
+with which to inflict condign punishment upon his disobedient wife. The
+submissive little woman hurriedly entreated him not to be angry, and
+promised to do as he bade her.
+
+'Do you hear me,' whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; 'worm
+yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I'm listening, recollect. If
+you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and woe betide you if I
+have to creak it much. Go!'
+
+Mrs Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband,
+ensconcing himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his ear
+close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and
+attention.
+
+Poor Mrs Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or what
+kind of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door,
+creaking in a very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without further
+consideration, that the sound of her voice was heard.
+
+'How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to Mr
+Quilp, my dear.'
+
+'I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,' returned Nell
+innocently.
+
+'And what has he said to that?'
+
+'Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched that
+if you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you could not
+have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!'
+
+'It often does.' returned Mrs Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards it.
+'But your grandfather--he used not to be so wretched?'
+
+'Oh, no!' said the child eagerly, 'so different! We were once so happy
+and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad change
+has fallen on us since.'
+
+'I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!' said Mrs
+Quilp. And she spoke the truth.
+
+'Thank you,' returned the child, kissing her cheek, 'you are always
+kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one
+else about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel
+happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me
+sometimes to see him alter so.'
+
+'He'll alter again, Nelly,' said Mrs Quilp, 'and be what he was before.'
+
+'Oh, if God would only let that come about!' said the child with
+streaming eyes; 'but it is a long time now, since he first began to--I
+thought I saw that door moving!'
+
+'It's the wind,' said Mrs Quilp, faintly. 'Began to--'
+
+'To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way of
+spending the time in the long evenings,' said the child. 'I used to
+read to him by the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped
+and we began to talk, he told me about my mother, and how she once
+looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then he used
+to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that she was not
+lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky
+where nothing died or ever grew old--we were very happy once!'
+
+'Nelly, Nelly!' said the poor woman, 'I can't bear to see one as young
+as you so sorrowful. Pray don't cry.'
+
+'I do so very seldom,' said Nell, 'but I have kept this to myself a
+long time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into my
+eyes and I cannot keep them back. I don't mind telling you my grief,
+for I know you will not tell it to any one again.'
+
+Mrs Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.
+
+'Then,' said the child, 'we often walked in the fields and among the
+green trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for
+being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark and
+rather dull, we used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only made
+us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look forward to
+our next one. But now we never have these walks, and though it is the
+same house it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be,
+indeed!'
+
+She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs Quilp
+said nothing.
+
+'Mind you don't suppose,' said the child earnestly, 'that grandfather
+is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day,
+and is kinder and more affectionate than he was the day before. You do
+not know how fond he is of me!'
+
+'I am sure he loves you dearly,' said Mrs Quilp.
+
+'Indeed, indeed he does!' cried Nell, 'as dearly as I love him. But I
+have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never
+breathe again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he
+takes by day in his easy chair; for every night and nearly all night
+long he is away from home.'
+
+'Nelly!'
+
+'Hush!' said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking round.
+'When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just before day,
+I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I
+saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were bloodshot, and
+that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone to bed again, I
+heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him, and heard him say,
+before he knew that I was there, that he could not bear his life much
+longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish to die. What shall
+I do! Oh! What shall I do!'
+
+The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by the
+weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she had
+ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been
+received, hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst
+into a passion of tears.
+
+In a few minutes Mr Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost surprise
+to find her in this condition, which he did very naturally and with
+admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to
+him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it.
+
+'She's tired you see, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf, squinting in a
+hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. 'It's a
+long way from her home to the wharf, and then she was alarmed to see a
+couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the water
+besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor Nell!'
+
+Mr Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have
+devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the
+head. Such an application from any other hand might not have produced a
+remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from his touch and
+felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach, that she rose
+directly and declared herself ready to return.
+
+'But you'd better wait, and dine with Mrs Quilp and me.' said the dwarf.
+
+'I have been away too long, sir, already,' returned Nell, drying her
+eyes.
+
+'Well,' said Mr Quilp, 'if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here's the
+note. It's only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next
+day, and that I couldn't do that little business for him this morning.
+Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d'ye hear?'
+
+Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so
+needless an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening
+manner, as if he doubted whether he might not have been the cause of
+Nelly shedding tears, and felt more than half disposed to revenge the
+fact upon him on the mere suspicion, turned about and followed his
+young mistress, who had by this time taken her leave of Mrs Quilp and
+departed.
+
+'You're a keen questioner, an't you, Mrs Quilp?' said the dwarf,
+turning upon her as soon as they were left alone.
+
+'What more could I do?' returned his wife mildly.
+
+'What more could you do!' sneered Quilp, 'couldn't you have done
+something less? Couldn't you have done what you had to do, without
+appearing in your favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?'
+
+'I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,' said his wife. 'Surely I've
+done enough. I've led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were
+alone; and you were by, God forgive me.'
+
+'You led her on! You did a great deal truly!' said Quilp. 'What did I
+tell you about making me creak the door? It's lucky for you that from
+what she let fall, I've got the clue I want, for if I hadn't, I'd have
+visited the failure upon you, I can tell you.'
+
+Mrs Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband
+added with some exultation,
+
+'But you may thank your fortunate stars--the same stars that made you
+Mrs Quilp--you may thank them that I'm upon the old gentleman's track,
+and have got a new light. So let me hear no more about this matter now
+or at any other time, and don't get anything too nice for dinner, for I
+shan't be home to it.'
+
+So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quilp,
+who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she
+had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head
+in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less
+tender-hearted persons would have mourned a much greater offence; for,
+in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible
+article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a
+great variety of circumstances. Some people by prudent management and
+leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather,
+even contrive, in time, to dispense with it altogether; but there be
+others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure; and
+this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one
+most in vogue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller, 'remember the once popular melody of Begone
+dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of
+friendship; and pass the rosy wine.'
+
+Mr Richard Swiveller's apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury
+Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the
+advantage of being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled to
+procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the
+staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a
+snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller made use of the
+expressions above recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his
+desponding friend; and it may not be uninteresting or improper to
+remark that even these brief observations partook in a double sense of
+the figurative and poetical character of Mr Swiveller's mind, as the
+rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water,
+which was replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon
+the table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of
+tumblers which, as Mr Swiveller's was a bachelor's establishment, may
+be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single
+chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged
+times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as 'apartments'
+for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following up the hint, never
+failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers,
+conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leaving
+their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls, at
+pleasure.
+
+In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece
+of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which
+occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy
+suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr
+Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and
+nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the
+existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts.
+No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to
+its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most
+intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article
+of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all
+circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and
+repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he
+cherished it.
+
+'Fred!' said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been
+productive of no effect. 'Pass the rosy.'
+
+Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and
+fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly
+roused.
+
+'I'll give you, Fred,' said his friend, stirring the mixture, 'a little
+sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here's May the--'
+
+'Pshaw!' interposed the other. 'You worry me to death with your
+chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.'
+
+'Why, Mr Trent,' returned Dick, 'there is a proverb which talks about
+being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can't
+be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can't be
+merry. I'm one of the first sort. If the proverb's a good 'un, I
+suppose it's better to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I'd
+rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one nor t'other.'
+
+'Bah!' muttered his friend, peevishly.
+
+'With all my heart,' said Mr Swiveller. 'In the polite circles I
+believe this sort of thing isn't usually said to a gentleman in his own
+apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,' adding to this
+retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be
+rather 'cranky' in point of temper, Richard Swiveller finished the
+rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in
+which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an
+imaginary company.
+
+'Gentlemen, I'll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family
+of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular--Mr
+Richard, gentlemen,' said Dick with great emphasis, 'who spends all his
+money on his friends and is Bah!'d for his pains. Hear, hear!'
+
+'Dick!' said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the
+room twice or thrice, 'will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I
+show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?'
+
+'You've shown me so many,' returned Dick; 'and nothing has come of any
+one of 'em but empty pockets--'
+
+'You'll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is
+over,' said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. 'You saw my
+sister Nell?'
+
+'What about her?' returned Dick.
+
+'She has a pretty face, has she not?'
+
+'Why, certainly,' replied Dick. 'I must say for her that there's not
+any very strong family likeness between her and you.'
+
+'Has she a pretty face,' repeated his friend impatiently.
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, 'she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of
+that?'
+
+'I'll tell you,' returned his friend. 'It's very plain that the old man
+and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I
+have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?'
+
+'A bat might see that, with the sun shining,' said Dick.
+
+'It's equally plain that the money which the old flint--rot him--first
+taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all
+be hers, is it not?'
+
+'I should said it was,' replied Dick; 'unless the way in which I put
+the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was
+powerful, Fred. 'Here is a jolly old grandfather'--that was strong, I
+thought--very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?'
+
+'It didn't strike him,' returned the other, 'so we needn't discuss it.
+Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.'
+
+'Fine girl of her age, but small,' observed Richard Swiveller
+parenthetically.
+
+'If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,' returned Trent, fretting
+at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation.
+'Now I'm coming to the point.'
+
+'That's right,' said Dick.
+
+'The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may,
+at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand,
+I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to
+my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme
+would take a week to tell) what's to prevent your marrying her?'
+
+Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler
+while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great
+energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he
+evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the
+monosyllable:
+
+'What!'
+
+'I say, what's to prevent,' repeated the other with a steadiness of
+manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured
+by long experience, 'what's to prevent your marrying her?'
+
+'And she "nearly fourteen"!' cried Dick.
+
+'I don't mean marrying her now'--returned the brother angrily; 'say in
+two year's time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a
+long-liver?'
+
+'He don't look like it,' said Dick shaking his head, 'but these old
+people--there's no trusting them, Fred. There's an aunt of mine down in
+Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years old, and
+hasn't kept her word yet. They're so aggravating, so unprincipled, so
+spiteful--unless there's apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can't
+calculate upon 'em, and even then they deceive you just as often as
+not.'
+
+'Look at the worst side of the question then,' said Trent as steadily
+as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. 'Suppose he lives.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Dick. 'There's the rub.'
+
+'I say,' resumed his friend, 'suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if
+the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with
+you. What do you think would come of that?'
+
+'A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep 'em on,' said
+Richard Swiveller after some reflection.
+
+'I tell you,' returned the other with an increased earnestness, which,
+whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion,
+'that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound
+up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of
+disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of
+obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do
+it. You or any other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he
+chooses.'
+
+'It seems improbable certainly,' said Dick, musing.
+
+'It seems improbable because it is improbable,' his friend returned.
+'If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you,
+let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between
+you and me--let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of
+course--and he'll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will
+wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is
+concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to?  That
+you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks,
+that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a
+beautiful young wife.'
+
+'I suppose there's no doubt about his being rich'--said Dick.
+
+'Doubt! Did you hear what he let fall the other day when we were
+there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?'
+
+It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful
+windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of
+Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity,
+interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to
+look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other
+inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition
+stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same side. To these
+impulses must be added the complete ascendancy which his friend had
+long been accustomed to exercise over him--an ascendancy exerted in the
+beginning sorely at the expense of his friend's vices, and was in nine
+cases out of ten looked upon as his designing tempter when he was
+indeed nothing but his thoughtless, light-headed tool.
+
+The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which
+Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to
+their own development, require no present elucidation. The negotiation
+was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in the act of
+stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to
+marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could
+be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by
+a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying 'Come in.'
+
+The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a
+strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop
+downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a
+servant-girl, who being then and there engaged in cleaning the stairs
+had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter
+she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception
+of surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.
+
+Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction,
+and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it
+was one of the inconveniences of being a lady's man, and that it was
+very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten
+her.
+
+'Her. Who?' demanded Trent.
+
+'Sophy Wackles,' said Dick.
+
+'Who's she?'
+
+'She's all my fancy painted her, sir, that's what she is,' said Mr
+Swiveller, taking a long pull at 'the rosy' and looking gravely at his
+friend. 'She's lovely, she's divine. You know her.'
+
+'I remember,' said his companion carelessly. 'What of her?'
+
+'Why, sir,' returned Dick, 'between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble
+individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender
+sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and
+inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase,
+is not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell
+you that.'
+
+'Am I to believe there's anything real in what you say?' demanded his
+friend; 'you don't mean to say that any love-making has been going on?'
+
+'Love-making, yes. Promising, no,' said Dick. 'There can be no action
+for breach, that's one comfort. I've never committed myself in writing,
+Fred.'
+
+'And what's in the letter, pray?'
+
+'A reminder, Fred, for to-night--a small party of twenty, making two
+hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman
+to have the proper complement. I must go, if it's only to begin
+breaking off the affair--I'll do it, don't you be afraid. I should like
+to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any
+bar to her happiness, it's affecting, Fred.'
+
+To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and
+ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her
+own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum's sake no
+doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr
+Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she was
+extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr Swiveller
+heard this account with a degree of admiration not altogether
+consistent with the project in which he had just concurred, but his
+friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this respect,
+probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to control
+Richard Swiveller's proceedings in this or any other matter, whenever
+he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes, to
+exert it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+Business disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being
+nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be
+endangered by longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest
+eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens
+for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having experience
+of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending back for answer
+that if Mr Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps he would be so
+obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with him, as grace
+before meat, the amount of a certain small account which had long been
+outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this rebuff, but rather
+sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swiveller forwarded the same message
+to another and more distant eating-house, adding to it by way of rider
+that the gentleman was induced to send so far, not only by the great
+fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the
+extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurant cook's shop,
+which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for
+any human consumption. The good effect of this politic course was
+demonstrated by the speedy arrival of a small pewter pyramid, curiously
+constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates
+formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being
+resolved into its component parts afforded all things requisite and
+necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his friend
+applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.
+
+'May the present moment,' said Dick, sticking his fork into a large
+carbuncular potato, 'be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of
+sending 'em with the peel on; there's a charm in drawing a potato from
+its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and
+powerful are strangers. Ah! "Man wants but little here below, nor wants
+that little long!" How true that is!--after dinner.'
+
+'I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may
+not want that little long,' returned his companion; but I suspect
+you've no means of paying for this!'
+
+'I shall be passing present, and I'll call,' said Dick, winking his eye
+significantly. 'The waiter's quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred,
+and there's an end of it.'
+
+In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome
+truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was
+informed by Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would call
+and settle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some
+perturbation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about 'payment on
+delivery' and 'no trust,' and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain
+to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the
+gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the
+beef, greens, and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time.
+Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety,
+replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven
+minutes past; and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation,
+Richard Swiveller took a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket and
+made an entry therein.
+
+'Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?' said Trent
+with a sneer.
+
+'Not exactly, Fred,' replied the imperturbable Richard, continuing to
+write with a businesslike air. 'I enter in this little book the names
+of the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This
+dinner today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen
+Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There's only one
+avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that
+to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every
+direction, that in a month's time, unless my aunt sends me a
+remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get
+over the way.'
+
+'There's no fear of failing, in the end?' said Trent.
+
+'Why, I hope not,' returned Mr Swiveller, 'but the average number of
+letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far
+as eight without any effect at all. I'll write another to-morrow
+morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out
+of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. "I'm in such a state of
+mind that I hardly know what I write"--blot--"if you could see me at
+this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct"--pepper-castor--"my
+hand trembles when I think"--blot again--if that don't produce the
+effect, it's all over.'
+
+By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced
+his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly
+grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time
+for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was
+accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own
+meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.
+
+'It's rather sudden,' said Dick shaking his head with a look of
+infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with
+scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; 'when the heart
+of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss
+Wackles appears; she's a very nice girl. She's like the red red rose
+that's newly sprung in June--there's no denying that--she's also like a
+melody that's sweetly played in tune. It's really very sudden. Not that
+there's any need, on account of Fred's little sister, to turn cool
+directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I
+must begin at once, I see that. There's the chance of an action for
+breach, that's another. There's the chance of--no, there's no chance of
+that, but it's as well to be on the safe side.'
+
+This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller sought to
+conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of
+Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by linking his fortunes to
+hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further their
+notable scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these
+reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay,
+and casting about for a pretext determined in favour of groundless
+jealousy.  Having made up his mind on this important point, he
+circulated the glass (from his right hand to left, and back again)
+pretty freely, to enable him to act his part with the greater
+discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his
+toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of
+his meditations.
+
+The spot was at Chelsea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her
+widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained
+a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions; a
+circumstance which was made known to the neighbourhood by an oval board
+over the front first-floor windows, whereupon appeared in circumambient
+flourishes the words 'Ladies' Seminary'; and which was further
+published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past
+nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of
+tender years standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making
+futile attempts to reach the knocker with a spelling-book. The several
+duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged.
+English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells,
+by Miss Melissa Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and
+general fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work,
+marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment,
+fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs Wackles. Miss Melissa
+Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and Miss Jane the
+youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty summers or
+thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal; Miss Sophy was a fresh, good
+humoured, buxom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane numbered scarcely sixteen
+years. Mrs Wackles was an excellent but rather venomous old lady of
+three-score.
+
+To this Ladies' Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs
+obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin
+white, embellished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him
+on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant
+preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little
+flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in
+windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the
+day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted curls
+of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole of the
+preceding day screwed up tight in a yellow play-bill; and the solemn
+gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and her eldest daughter,
+which struck Mr Swiveller as being uncommon but made no further
+impression upon him.
+
+The truth is--and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste
+so strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a
+wilful and malicious invention--the truth is that neither Mrs Wackles
+nor her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the
+pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of
+him as 'a gay young man' and to sigh and shake their heads ominously
+whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller's conduct in respect to
+Miss Sophy having been of that vague and dilatory kind which is usually
+looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young
+lady herself began in course of time to deem it highly desirable, that
+it should be brought to an issue one way or other. Hence she had at
+last consented to play off against Richard Swiveller a stricken
+market-gardner known to be ready with his offer on the smallest
+encouragement, and hence--as this occasion had been specially assigned
+for the purpose--that great anxiety on her part for Richard Swiveller's
+presence which had occasioned her to leave the note he has been seen to
+receive. 'If he has any expectations at all or any means of keeping a
+wife well,' said Mrs Wackles to her eldest daughter, 'he'll state 'em
+to us now or never.'--'If he really cares about me,' thought Miss
+Sophy, 'he must tell me so, to-night.'
+
+But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr
+Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind
+how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that
+occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own
+sister, which would have served his turn as well, when the company
+came, and among them the market-gardener, whose name was Cheggs. But Mr
+Cheggs came not alone or unsupported, for he prudently brought along
+with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who making straight to Miss Sophy and
+taking her by both hands, and kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an
+audible whisper that they had not come too early.
+
+'Too early, no!' replied Miss Sophy.
+
+'Oh, my dear,' rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before,
+'I've been so tormented, so worried, that it's a mercy we were not here
+at four o'clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state of
+impatience to come! You'd hardly believe that he was dressed before
+dinner-time and has been looking at the clock and teasing me ever
+since. It's all your fault, you naughty thing.'
+
+Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr Cheggs (who was bashful before
+ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy's mother and sisters, to prevent Mr
+Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and attentions upon him,
+and left Richard Swiveller to take care of himself. Here was the very
+thing he wanted, here was good cause reason and foundation for
+pretending to be angry; but having this cause reason and foundation
+which he had come expressly to seek, not expecting to find, Richard
+Swiveller was angry in sound earnest, and wondered what the devil
+Cheggs meant by his impudence.
+
+However, Mr Swiveller had Miss Sophy's hand for the first quadrille
+(country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an
+advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and
+contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved through
+the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller had of the
+market-gardener, for determining to show the family what quality of man
+they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he
+performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls as filled the
+company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long
+gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite
+transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles forgot for the
+moment to snub three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy,
+and could not repress a rising thought that to have such a dancer as
+that in the family would be a pride indeed.
+
+At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous and
+useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles
+a contempt for Mr Swiveller's accomplishments, she took every
+opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy's ear expressions of
+condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a ridiculous
+creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest Alick should
+fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and entreating
+Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick gleamed with love
+and fury; passions, it may be observed, which being too much for his
+eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it with a crimson glow.
+
+'You must dance with Miss Cheggs,' said Miss Sophy to Dick Swiviller,
+after she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and made great show
+of encouraging his advances. 'She's a nice girl--and her brother's
+quite delightful.'
+
+'Quite delightful, is he?' muttered Dick. 'Quite delighted too, I
+should say, from the manner in which he's looking this way.'
+
+Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her
+many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr Cheggs
+was.
+
+'Jealous! Like his impudence!' said Richard Swiviller.
+
+'His impudence, Mr Swiviller!' said Miss Jane, tossing her head.  'Take
+care he don't hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.'
+
+'Oh, pray, Jane--' said Miss Sophy.
+
+'Nonsense!' replied her sister. 'Why shouldn't Mr Cheggs be jealous if
+he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be
+jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon
+if he hasn't already. You know best about that, Sophy!'
+
+Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister,
+originating in humane intentions and having for its object the inducing
+Mr Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for
+Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are prematurely shrill
+and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr Swiviller
+retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs and conveying a
+defiance into his looks which that gentleman indignantly returned.
+
+'Did you speak to me, sir?' said Mr Cheggs, following him into a
+corner. 'Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be
+suspected. Did you speak to me, sir'?
+
+Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg's toes, then
+raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin, from
+that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg,
+until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to
+button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up the middle
+of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said abruptly,
+
+'No, sir, I didn't.'
+
+`'Hem!' said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, 'have the goodness
+to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me, sir.'
+
+'No, sir, I didn't do that, either.'
+
+'Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,' said Mr Cheggs
+fiercely.
+
+At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr Chegg's
+face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat
+and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and carefully surveyed
+him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up the other leg, and
+thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his
+eyes, 'No sir, I haven't.'
+
+'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Mr Cheggs. 'I'm glad to hear it. You know where
+I'm to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to
+say to me?'
+
+'I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.'
+
+'There's nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?'
+
+'Nothing more, sir'--With that they closed the tremendous dialog by
+frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophy,
+and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state.
+
+Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking
+on at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs
+occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the
+figure, and made some remark or other which was gall and wormwood to
+Richard Swiviller's soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs and Miss Wackles
+for encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable on a
+couple of hard stools, were two of the day-scholars; and when Miss
+Wackles smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the
+stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious
+acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down
+instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an
+impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their
+respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being
+of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this
+offense they were both filed off immediately, with a dreadful
+promptitude that struck terror into the souls of all the pupils.
+
+'I've got such news for you,' said Miss Cheggs approaching once more,
+'Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word, you know,
+it's quite serious and in earnest, that's clear.'
+
+'What's he been saying, my dear?' demanded Mrs Wackles.
+
+'All manner of things,' replied Miss Cheggs, 'you can't think how out
+he has been speaking!'
+
+Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking
+advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs to
+pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful
+assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way
+Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was holding a
+flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had) with a
+feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss
+Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr Cheggs, and
+by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few
+parting words.
+
+'My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass
+this door I will say farewell to thee,' murmured Dick, looking gloomily
+upon her.
+
+'Are you going?' said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at the
+result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference
+notwithstanding.
+
+'Am I going!' echoed Dick bitterly. 'Yes, I am. What then?'
+
+'Nothing, except that it's very early,' said Miss Sophy; 'but you are
+your own master, of course.'
+
+'I would that I had been my own mistress too,' said Dick, 'before I had
+ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true,
+and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e'er I knew, a
+girl so fair yet so deceiving.'
+
+Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after
+Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.
+
+'I came here,' said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he
+had really come, 'with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my
+sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that
+may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that
+desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a
+stifler!'
+
+'I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,' said Miss Sophy
+with downcast eyes. 'I'm very sorry if--'
+
+'Sorry, Ma'am!' said Dick, 'sorry in the possession of a Cheggs! But I
+wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that
+there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has
+not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has
+requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a
+regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise.
+It's a gratifying circumstance which you'll be glad to hear, that a
+young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account,
+and is now saving up for me. I thought I'd mention it. I have now
+merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention. Good
+night.'
+
+'There's one good thing springs out of all this,' said Richard
+Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the
+candle with the extinguisher in his hand, 'which is, that I now go
+heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about
+little Nelly, and right glad he'll be to find me so strong upon it. He
+shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the meantime, as it's
+rather late, I'll try and get a wink of the balmy.'
+
+'The balmy' came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few
+minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married
+Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power
+was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it into a
+brick-field.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly described
+the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud
+which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth.  Besides
+that it was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately
+acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and
+loneliness, a constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the
+old man to whom she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even
+in the midst of her heart's overflowing, and made her timid of allusion
+to the main cause of her anxiety and distress.
+
+For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and
+uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary
+evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every
+slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the
+knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily wounded
+spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell.  To see the old man struck
+down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering
+and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that
+his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning
+of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of
+these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might,
+they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care
+about them--these were causes of depression and anxiety that might have
+sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer
+and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom
+they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that
+could keep such thoughts in restless action!
+
+And yet, to the old man's vision, Nell was still the same.  When he
+could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted
+and brooded on it always, there was his young companion with the same
+smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same
+love and care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been
+present to him through his whole life.  And so he went on, content to
+read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little
+dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and
+murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy.
+
+She had been once.  She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and
+moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making
+them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and
+cheerful presence.  But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and
+when she left her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and
+sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate
+occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes--hoarse from their
+long silence--with her voice.
+
+In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the
+child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night,
+alone and thoughtful.  None are so anxious as those who watch and wait;
+at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds.
+
+She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as they
+passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the
+opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that
+in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her
+sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their
+heads again.  There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the
+roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had fancied ugly faces
+that were frowning over at her and trying to peer into the room; and
+she felt glad when it grew too dark to make them out, though she was
+sorry too, when the man came to light the lamps in the street--for it
+made it late, and very dull inside.  Then, she would draw in her head
+to look round the room and see that everything was in its place and
+hadn't moved; and looking out into the street again, would perhaps see
+a man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others
+silently following him to a house where somebody lay dead; which made
+her shudder and think of such things until they suggested afresh the
+old man's altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and
+speculations.  If he were to die--if sudden illness had happened to
+him, and he were never to come home again, alive--if, one night, he
+should come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had
+gone to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly,
+and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come
+creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door!  These
+thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have
+recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and more
+silent than before.  The shops were closing fast, and lights began to
+shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to bed.  By
+degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were replaced, here and
+there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn all night.  Still,
+there was one late shop at no great distance which sent forth a ruddy
+glare upon the pavement even yet, and looked bright and companionable.
+But, in a little time, this closed, the light was extinguished, and all
+was gloomy and quiet, except when some stray footsteps sounded on the
+pavement, or a neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at
+his house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates.
+
+When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had) the
+child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs, thinking as
+she went that if one of those hideous faces below, which often mingled
+with her dreams, were to meet her by the way, rendering itself visible
+by some strange light of its own, how terrified she would be.  But
+these fears vanished before a well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect
+of her own room.  After praying fervently, and with many bursting
+tears, for the old man, and the restoration of his peace of mind and
+the happiness they had once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the
+pillow and sob herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the
+day-light came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary
+summons which had roused her from her slumber.
+
+One night, the third after Nelly's interview with Mrs Quilp, the old
+man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not leave home.
+The child's eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her joy subsided
+when they reverted to his worn and sickly face.
+
+'Two days,' he said, 'two whole, clear, days have passed, and there is
+no reply.  What did he tell thee, Nell?'
+
+'Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.'
+
+'True,' said the old man, faintly.  'Yes.  But tell me again, Nell.  My
+head fails me.  What was it that he told thee?  Nothing more than that
+he would see me to-morrow or next day?  That was in the note.'
+
+'Nothing more,' said the child.  'Shall I go to him again to-morrow,
+dear grandfather?  Very early?  I will be there and back, before
+breakfast.'
+
+The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her towards
+him.
+
+''Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use.  But if he deserts me,
+Nell, at this moment--if he deserts me now, when I should, with his
+assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I have lost, and
+all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes me what you see, I
+am ruined, and--worse, far worse than that--have ruined thee, for whom
+I ventured all.  If we are beggars--!'
+
+'What if we are?' said the child boldly.  'Let us be beggars, and be
+happy.'
+
+'Beggars--and happy!' said the old man.  'Poor child!'
+
+'Dear grandfather,' cried the girl with an energy which shone in her
+flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, 'I am not a
+child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that we may
+beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty living, rather
+than live as we do now.'
+
+'Nelly!' said the old man.
+
+'Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,' the child repeated, more
+earnestly than before.  'If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be
+sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every day,
+let me be your nurse and try to comfort you.  If you are poor, let us
+be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with you; do not
+let me see such change and not know why, or I shall break my heart and
+die.  Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg
+our way from door to door.'
+
+The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow
+of the couch on which he lay.
+
+'Let us be beggars,' said the child passing an arm round his neck, 'I
+have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall.  Let us walk
+through country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never
+think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at
+nights, and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank
+God together!  Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy
+houses, any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go; and
+when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place
+that we can find, and I will go and beg for both.'
+
+The child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man's
+neck; nor did she weep alone.
+
+These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other eyes.
+And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in all that
+passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no less a person
+than Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when the child first
+placed herself at the old man's side, refrained--actuated, no doubt, by
+motives of the purest delicacy--from interrupting the conversation, and
+stood looking on with his accustomed grin.  Standing, however, being a
+tiresome attitude to a gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the
+dwarf being one of that kind of persons who usually make themselves at
+home, he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with
+uncommon agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon
+the seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort
+to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for doing
+something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions had strong
+possession of him.  Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked carelessly over
+the other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his head turned a
+little on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent
+grimace.  And in this position the old man, happening in course of time
+to look that way, at length chanced to see him: to his unbounded
+astonishment.
+
+The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable
+figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not knowing
+what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked shrinkingly at it.
+Not at all disconcerted by this reception, Daniel Quilp preserved the
+same attitude, merely nodding twice or thrice with great condescension.
+At length, the old man pronounced his name, and inquired how he came
+there.
+
+'Through the door,' said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his
+thumb.  'I'm not quite small enough to get through key-holes.  I wish I
+was.  I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in private.
+With nobody present, neighbour.  Good-bye, little Nelly.'
+
+Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed her
+cheek.
+
+'Ah!' said the dwarf, smacking his lips, 'what a nice kiss that
+was--just upon the rosy part.  What a capital kiss!'
+
+Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark.  Quilp looked
+after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the door, fell
+to complimenting the old man upon her charms.
+
+'Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,' said Quilp,
+nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; 'such a
+chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!'
+
+The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with
+a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience.  It was not
+lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody
+else, when he could.
+
+'She's so,' said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite
+absorbed in the subject, 'so small, so compact, so beautifully
+modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin,
+and such little feet, and such winning ways--but bless me, you're
+nervous!  Why neighbour, what's the matter?  I swear to you,' continued
+the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a
+careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which
+he had sprung up unheard, 'I swear to you that I had no idea old blood
+ran so fast or kept so warm.  I thought it was sluggish in its course,
+and cool, quite cool.  I am pretty sure it ought to be.  Yours must be
+out of order, neighbour.'
+
+'I believe it is,' groaned the old man, clasping his head with both
+hands.  'There's burning fever here, and something now and then to
+which I fear to give a name.'
+
+The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced
+restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat.
+Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time,
+and then suddenly raising it, said,
+
+'Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?'
+
+'No!' returned Quilp.
+
+'Then,' said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking
+upwards, 'the child and I are lost!'
+
+'Neighbour,' said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand
+twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention, 'let
+me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the
+cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more.  You have no secret
+from me now.'
+
+The old man looked up, trembling.
+
+'You are surprised,' said Quilp.  'Well, perhaps that's natural.  You
+have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one.  For now, I know, that
+all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies
+that you have had from me, have found their way to--shall I say the
+word?'
+
+'Aye!' replied the old man, 'say it, if you will.'
+
+'To the gaming-table,' rejoined Quilp, 'your nightly haunt.  This was
+the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the secret
+certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money (if I had
+been the fool you took me for); this was your inexhaustible mine of
+gold, your El Dorado, eh?'
+
+'Yes,' cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, 'it was.
+It is.  It will be, till I die.'
+
+'That I should have been blinded,' said Quilp looking contemptuously at
+him, 'by a mere shallow gambler!'
+
+'I am no gambler,' cried the old man fiercely.  'I call Heaven to
+witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that at
+every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan's name and
+called on Heaven to bless the venture;--which it never did.  Whom did
+it prosper?  Who were those with whom I played?  Men who lived by
+plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill, and
+propagating vice and evil.  My winnings would have been from them, my
+winnings would have been bestowed to the last farthing on a young
+sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy.
+What would they have contracted?  The means of corruption,
+wretchedness, and misery.  Who would not have hoped in such a cause?
+Tell me that!  Who would not have hoped as I did?'
+
+'When did you first begin this mad career?' asked Quilp, his taunting
+inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man's grief and wildness.
+
+'When did I first begin?' he rejoined, passing his hand across his
+brow.  'When was it, that I first began?  When should it be, but when I
+began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save
+at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she
+would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to
+keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty; then it was that I
+began to think about it.'
+
+'After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to
+sea?' said Quilp.
+
+'Shortly after that,' replied the old man.  'I thought of it a long
+time, and had it in my sleep for months.  Then I began.  I found no
+pleasure in it, I expected none.  What has it ever brought me but
+anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of
+mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!'
+
+'You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me.
+While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were) you
+were making yourself a beggar, eh?  Dear me!  And so it comes to pass
+that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a bill of
+sale upon the--upon the stock and property,' said Quilp standing up and
+looking about him, as if to assure himself that none of it had been
+taken away.  'But did you never win?'
+
+'Never!' groaned the old man.  'Never won back my loss!'
+
+'I thought,' sneered the dwarf, 'that if a man played long enough he
+was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a loser.'
+
+'And so he is,' cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his
+state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent excitement, 'so
+he is; I have felt that from the first, I have always known it, I've
+seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now.  Quilp, I
+have dreamed, three nights, of winning the same large sum, I never
+could dream that dream before, though I have often tried.  Do not
+desert me, now I have this chance.  I have no resource but you, give me
+some help, let me try this one last hope.'
+
+The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
+
+'See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,' said the old man, drawing some
+scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the
+dwarf's arm, 'only see here.  Look at these figures, the result of long
+calculation, and painful and hard experience.  I MUST win.  I only want
+a little help once more, a few pounds, but two score pounds, dear
+Quilp.'
+
+'The last advance was seventy,' said the dwarf; 'and it went in one
+night.'
+
+'I know it did,' answered the old man, 'but that was the very worst
+fortune of all, and the time had not come then.  Quilp, consider,
+consider,' the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the
+papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind, 'that
+orphan child!  If I were alone, I could die with gladness--perhaps even
+anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally: coming, as it
+does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and shunning the needy
+and afflicted, and all who court it in their despair--but what I have
+done, has been for her.  Help me for her sake I implore you; not for
+mine; for hers!'
+
+'I'm sorry I've got an appointment in the city,' said Quilp, looking at
+his watch with perfect self-possession, 'or I should have been very
+glad to have spent half an hour with you while you composed yourself,
+very glad.'
+
+'Nay, Quilp, good Quilp,' gasped the old man, catching at his skirts,
+'you and I have talked together, more than once, of her poor mother's
+story.  The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps been bred in me
+by that.  Do not be hard upon me, but take that into account.  You are
+a great gainer by me.  Oh spare me the money for this one last hope!'
+
+'I couldn't do it really,' said Quilp with unusual politeness, 'though
+I tell you what--and this is a circumstance worth bearing in mind as
+showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in sometimes--I was so
+deceived by the penurious way in which you lived, alone with Nelly--'
+
+'All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her triumph
+greater,' cried the old man.
+
+'Yes, yes, I understand that now,' said Quilp; 'but I was going to say,
+I was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation you had
+among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated assurances
+that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple the interest
+you paid me, that I'd have advanced you, even now, what you want, on
+your simple note of hand, if I hadn't unexpectedly become acquainted
+with your secret way of life.'
+
+'Who is it,' retorted the old man desperately, 'that, notwithstanding
+all my caution, told you?  Come.  Let me know the name--the person.'
+
+The crafty dwarf, bethinking himself that his giving up the child would
+lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed, which, as
+nothing was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal, stopped short
+in his answer and said, 'Now, who do you think?'
+
+'It was Kit, it must have been the boy; he played the spy, and you
+tampered with him?' said the old man.
+
+'How came you to think of him?' said the dwarf in a tone of great
+commiseration.  'Yes, it was Kit.  Poor Kit!'
+
+So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave: stopping
+when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with
+extraordinary delight.
+
+'Poor Kit!' muttered Quilp.  'I think it was Kit who said I was an
+uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn't it.  Ha ha
+ha!  Poor Kit!'
+
+And with that he went his way, still chuckling as he went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man's house, unobserved.
+In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to one of the many
+passages which diverged from the main street, there lingered one, who,
+having taken up his position when the twilight first came on, still
+maintained it with undiminished patience, and leaning against the wall
+with the manner of a person who had a long time to wait, and being well
+used to it was quite resigned, scarcely changed his attitude for the
+hour together.
+
+This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those who
+passed, and bestowed as little upon them.  His eyes were constantly
+directed towards one object; the window at which the child was
+accustomed to sit.  If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to
+glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his
+sight once more in the old quarter with increased earnestness and
+attention.
+
+It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his
+place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was.  But as the
+time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the
+clock more frequently and at the window less hopefully than before.  At
+length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters,
+then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter
+past, and then the conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that
+it was no use tarrying there any longer.
+
+That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no means
+willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to quit the
+spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it, still looking
+over his shoulder at the same window; and from the precipitation with
+which he as often returned, when a fancied noise or the changing and
+imperfect light induced him to suppose it had been softly raised.  At
+length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless for that night, and suddenly
+breaking into a run as though to force himself away, scampered off at
+his utmost speed, nor once ventured to look behind him lest he should
+be tempted back again.
+
+Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this mysterious
+individual dashed on through a great many alleys and narrow ways until
+he at length arrived in a square paved court, when he subsided into a
+walk, and making for a small house from the window of which a light was
+shining, lifted the latch of the door and passed in.
+
+'Bless us!' cried a woman turning sharply round, 'who's that?  Oh!
+It's you, Kit!'
+
+'Yes, mother, it's me.'
+
+'Why, how tired you look, my dear!'
+
+'Old master an't gone out to-night,' said Kit; 'and so she hasn't been
+at the window at all.'  With which words, he sat down by the fire and
+looked very mournful and discontented.
+
+The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an
+extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it,
+nevertheless, which--or the spot must be a wretched one
+indeed--cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree.  Late
+as the Dutch clock showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at
+work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near
+the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very
+wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown
+very much too small for him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a
+clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes, and
+looking as if he had thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep
+any more; which, as he had already declined to take his natural rest
+and had been brought out of bed in consequence, opened a cheerful
+prospect for his relations and friends.  It was rather a queer-looking
+family: Kit, his mother, and the children, being all strongly alike.
+
+Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too
+often--but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping soundly,
+and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him
+to their mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning,
+and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured.
+So he rocked the cradle with his foot; made a face at the rebel in the
+clothes-basket, which put him in high good-humour directly; and stoutly
+determined to be talkative and make himself agreeable.
+
+'Ah, mother!' said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling upon a
+great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for him, hours
+before, 'what a one you are!  There an't many such as you, I know.'
+
+'I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,' said Mrs Nubbles;
+'and that there are, or ought to be, accordin' to what the parson at
+chapel says.'
+
+'Much he knows about it,' returned Kit contemptuously.  'Wait till he's
+a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does as much,
+and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I'll ask him what's o'clock
+and trust him for being right to half a second.'
+
+'Well,' said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, 'your beer's down there by
+the fender, Kit.'
+
+'I see,' replied her son, taking up the porter pot, 'my love to you,
+mother.  And the parson's health too if you like.  I don't bear him any
+malice, not I!'
+
+'Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn't gone out to-night?'
+inquired Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'Yes,' said Kit, 'worse luck!'
+
+'You should say better luck, I think,' returned his mother, 'because
+Miss Nelly won't have been left alone.'
+
+'Ah!' said Kit, 'I forgot that.  I said worse luck, because I've been
+watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her.'
+
+'I wonder what she'd say,' cried his mother, stopping in her work and
+looking round, 'if she knew that every night, when she--poor thing--is
+sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for
+fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place or
+come home to your bed though you're ever so tired, till such time as
+you think she's safe in hers.'
+
+'Never mind what she'd say,' replied Kit, with something like a blush
+on his uncouth face; 'she'll never know nothing, and consequently,
+she'll never say nothing.'
+
+Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming to
+the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she
+rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing
+until she had returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an
+alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and
+looking round with a smile, she observed:
+
+'I know what some people would say, Kit--'
+
+'Nonsense,' interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to
+follow.
+
+'No, but they would indeed.  Some people would say that you'd fallen in
+love with her, I know they would.'
+
+To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother 'get out,'
+and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied
+by sympathetic contortions of his face.  Not deriving from these means
+the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the
+bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the porter; by which
+artificial aids he choked himself and effected a diversion of the
+subject.
+
+'Speaking seriously though, Kit,' said his mother, taking up the theme
+afresh, after a time, 'for of course I was only in joke just now, it's
+very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let
+anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to know it, for
+I'm sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it very much.  It's
+a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there.  I don't wonder
+that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.'
+
+'He don't think it's cruel, bless you,' said Kit, 'and don't mean it to
+be so, or he wouldn't do it--I do consider, mother, that he wouldn't do
+it for all the gold and silver in the world.  No, no, that he wouldn't.
+I know him better than that.'
+
+'Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from
+you?' said Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'That I don't know,' returned her son.  'If he hadn't tried to keep it
+so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was his
+getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier than he
+used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on.  Hark!
+what's that?'
+
+'It's only somebody outside.'
+
+'It's somebody crossing over here,' said Kit, standing up to listen,
+'and coming very fast too.  He can't have gone out after I left, and
+the house caught fire, mother!'
+
+The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had
+conjured up, of the power to move.  The footsteps drew nearer, the door
+was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and
+breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried
+into the room.
+
+'Miss Nelly!  What is the matter!' cried mother and son together.
+
+'I must not stay a moment,' she returned, 'grandfather has been taken
+very ill.  I found him in a fit upon the floor--'
+
+'I'll run for a doctor'--said Kit, seizing his brimless hat.  'I'll be
+there directly, I'll--'
+
+'No, no,' cried Nell, 'there is one there, you're not wanted,
+you--you--must never come near us any more!'
+
+'What!' roared Kit.
+
+'Never again,' said the child.  'Don't ask me why, for I don't know.
+Pray don't ask me why, pray don't be sorry, pray don't be vexed with
+me!  I have nothing to do with it indeed!'
+
+Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut his
+mouth a great many times; but couldn't get out one word.
+
+'He complains and raves of you,' said the child, 'I don't know what you
+have done, but I hope it's nothing very bad.'
+
+'I done!' roared Kit.
+
+'He cried that you're the cause of all his misery,' returned the child
+with tearful eyes; 'he screamed and called for you; they say you must
+not come near him or he will die.  You must not return to us any more.
+I came to tell you.  I thought it would be better that I should come
+than somebody quite strange.  Oh, Kit, what have you done?  You, in
+whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend I had!'
+
+The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and
+with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and
+silent.
+
+'I have brought his money for the week,' said the child, looking to the
+woman and laying it on the table--'and--and--a little more, for he was
+always good and kind to me.  I hope he will be sorry and do well
+somewhere else and not take this to heart too much.  It grieves me very
+much to part with him like this, but there is no help.  It must be
+done.  Good night!'
+
+With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling
+with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had
+received, the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful
+and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door, and
+disappeared as rapidly as she had come.
+
+The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for
+relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by
+his not having advanced one word in his defence.  Visions of gallantry,
+knavery, robbery; and of the nightly absences from home for which he
+had accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful
+pursuit; flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question
+him.  She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping
+bitterly, but Kit made no attempt to comfort her and remained quite
+bewildered.  The baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the
+clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket upon him, and was
+seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit,
+insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter
+stupefaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no longer,
+beneath the roof that sheltered the child.  Next morning, the old man
+was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium; and sinking under the
+influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks in imminent peril of
+his life.  There was watching enough, now, but it was the watching of
+strangers who made a greedy trade of it, and who, in the intervals in
+their attendance upon the sick man huddled together with a ghastly
+good-fellowship, and ate and drank and made merry; for disease and
+death were their ordinary household gods.
+
+Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was more
+alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in her
+devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed; alone in her
+unfeigned sorrow, and her unpurchased sympathy.  Day after day, and
+night after night, found her still by the pillow of the unconscious
+sufferer, still anticipating his every want, still listening to those
+repetitions of her name and those anxieties and cares for her, which
+were ever uppermost among his feverish wanderings.
+
+The house was no longer theirs.  Even the sick chamber seemed to be
+retained, on the uncertain tenure of Mr Quilp's favour.  The old man's
+illness had not lasted many days when he took formal possession of the
+premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain legal powers to that
+effect, which few understood and none presumed to call in question.
+This important step secured, with the assistance of a man of law whom
+he brought with him for the purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish
+himself and his coadjutor in the house, as an assertion of his claim
+against all comers; and then set about making his quarters comfortable,
+after his own fashion.
+
+To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first put an
+effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop.  Having
+looked out, from among the old furniture, the handsomest and most
+commodious chair he could possibly find (which he reserved for his own
+use) and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one (which he
+considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend) he
+caused them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in
+great state.  The apartment was very far removed from the old man's
+chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it prudent, as a precaution against
+infection from fever, and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to
+smoke, himself, without cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal
+friend did the like.  Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the
+tumbling boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit
+himself down in another chair just inside the door, continually to
+smoke a great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to
+take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for one
+minute at a time, if he dared.  These arrangements completed, Mr Quilp
+looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked that he
+called that comfort.
+
+The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called
+it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he could by no
+exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard,
+angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that tobacco-smoke always
+caused him great internal discomposure and annoyance.  But as he was
+quite a creature of Mr Quilp's and had a thousand reasons for
+conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile, and nodded his
+acquiescence with the best grace he could assume.
+
+This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in
+the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen,
+a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red.  He
+wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black
+trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey.  He had a
+cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were
+so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least
+repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper
+that he might only scowl.
+
+Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking very
+much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered when he
+happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly fanned the
+smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee.
+
+'Smoke away, you dog,' said Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your pipe
+again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put the
+sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon your
+tongue.'
+
+Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small
+lime-kiln if anybody had treated him with it.  Wherefore, he only
+muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered.
+
+'Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like the
+Grand Turk?' said Quilp.
+
+Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk's feelings were by no
+means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no doubt he
+felt very like that Potentate.
+
+'This is the way to keep off fever,' said Quilp, 'this is the way to
+keep off every calamity of life!  We'll never leave off, all the time
+we stop here--smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the pipe!'
+
+'Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?' inquired his legal friend, when
+the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition.
+
+'We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is dead,'
+returned Quilp.
+
+'He he he!' laughed Mr Brass, 'oh! very good!'
+
+'Smoke away!' cried Quilp.  'Never stop!  You can talk as you smoke.
+Don't lose time.'
+
+'He he he!' cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the
+odious pipe.  'But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?'
+
+'Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,' returned the dwarf.
+
+'How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!' said Brass.  'Some
+people, Sir, would have sold or removed the goods--oh dear, the very
+instant the law allowed 'em.  Some people, Sir, would have been all
+flintiness and granite.  Some people, sir, would have--'
+
+'Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a
+parrot as you,' interposed the dwarf.
+
+'He he he!' cried Brass.  'You have such spirits!'
+
+The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without
+taking his pipe from his lips, growled,
+
+'Here's the gal a comin' down.'
+
+'The what, you dog?' said Quilp.
+
+'The gal,' returned the boy.  'Are you deaf?'
+
+'Oh!' said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he were
+taking soup, 'you and I will have such a settling presently; there's
+such a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear young friend!
+Aha! Nelly!  How is he now, my duck of diamonds?'
+
+'He's very bad,' replied the weeping child.
+
+'What a pretty little Nell!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,' said Brass.  'Quite charming.'
+
+'Has she come to sit upon Quilp's knee,' said the dwarf, in what he
+meant to be a soothing tone, 'or is she going to bed in her own little
+room inside here?  Which is poor Nelly going to do?'
+
+'What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!' muttered Brass,
+as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; 'upon my word it's
+quite a treat to hear him.'
+
+'I'm not going to stay at all,' faltered Nell.  'I want a few things
+out of that room, and then I--I--won't come down here any more.'
+
+'And a very nice little room it is!' said the dwarf looking into it as
+the child entered.  'Quite a bower!  You're sure you're not going to
+use it; you're sure you're not coming back, Nelly?'
+
+'No,' replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of dress
+she had come to remove; 'never again!  Never again.'
+
+'She's very sensitive,' said Quilp, looking after her.  'Very
+sensitive; that's a pity.  The bedstead is much about my size.  I think
+I shall make it MY little room.'
+
+Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any other
+emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try the effect.
+This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the bed with his pipe
+in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and smoking violently.  Mr
+Brass applauding this picture very much, and the bed being soft and
+comfortable, Mr Quilp determined to use it, both as a sleeping place by
+night and as a kind of Divan by day; and in order that it might be
+converted to the latter purpose at once, remained where he was, and
+smoked his pipe out.  The legal gentleman being by this time rather
+giddy and perplexed in his ideas (for this was one of the operations of
+the tobacco on his nervous system), took the opportunity of slinking
+away into the open air, where, in course of time, he recovered
+sufficiently to return with a countenance of tolerable composure.  He
+was soon led on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into a relapse,
+and in that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning.
+
+Such were Mr Quilp's first proceedings on entering upon his new
+property.  He was, for some days, restrained by business from
+performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well occupied
+between taking, with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute inventory of
+all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his other concerns
+which happily engaged him for several hours at a time.  His avarice and
+caution being, now, thoroughly awakened, however, he was never absent
+from the house one night; and his eagerness for some termination, good
+or bad, to the old man's disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time
+passed by, soon began to vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations
+of impatience.
+
+Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf's advances towards conversation,
+and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were the lawyer's smiles
+less terrible to her than Quilp's grimaces.  She lived in such
+continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them on the
+stairs or in the passages if she stirred from her grandfather's
+chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment, until late at night,
+when the silence encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer
+air of some empty room.
+
+One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting there
+very sorrowfully--for the old man had been worse that day--when she
+thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the street.
+Looking down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to attract her
+attention had roused her from her sad reflections.
+
+'Miss Nell!' said the boy in a low voice.
+
+'Yes,' replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any
+communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old
+favourite still; 'what do you want?'
+
+'I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,' the boy replied,
+'but the people below have driven me away and wouldn't let me see you.
+You don't believe--I hope you don't really believe--that I deserve to
+be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?'
+
+'I must believe it,' returned the child.  'Or why would grandfather
+have been so angry with you?'
+
+'I don't know,' replied Kit.  'I'm sure I never deserved it from him,
+no, nor from you.  I can say that, with a true and honest heart, any
+way.  And then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how
+old master was--!'
+
+'They never told me that,' said the child.  'I didn't know it indeed.
+I wouldn't have had them do it for the world.'
+
+'Thank'ee, miss,' returned Kit, 'it's comfortable to hear you say that.
+I said I never would believe that it was your doing.'
+
+'That was right!' said the child eagerly.
+
+'Miss Nell,' cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in a
+lower tone, 'there are new masters down stairs.  It's a change for you.'
+
+'It is indeed,' replied the child.
+
+'And so it will be for him when he gets better,' said the boy, pointing
+towards the sick room.
+
+'--If he ever does,' added the child, unable to restrain her tears.
+
+'Oh, he'll do that, he'll do that,' said Kit.  'I'm sure he will.  You
+mustn't be cast down, Miss Nell.  Now don't be, pray!'
+
+These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said,
+but they affected the child and made her, for the moment, weep the more.
+
+'He'll be sure to get better now,' said the boy anxiously, 'if you
+don't give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would make
+him worse and throw him back, just as he was recovering.  When he does,
+say a good word--say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!'
+
+'They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long
+time,' rejoined the child, 'I dare not; and even if I might, what good
+would a kind word do you, Kit?  We shall be very poor.  We shall
+scarcely have bread to eat.'
+
+'It's not that I may be taken back,' said the boy, 'that I ask the
+favour of you.  It isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've been
+waiting about so long in hopes to see you.  Don't think that I'd come
+in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.'
+
+The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he might
+speak again.
+
+'No, it's not that,' said Kit hesitating, 'it's something very
+different from that.  I haven't got much sense, I know, but if he could
+be brought to believe that I'd been a faithful servant to him, doing
+the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn't--'
+
+Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out,
+and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window.
+
+'Perhaps he mightn't think it over venturesome of me to say--well then,
+to say this,' cried Kit with sudden boldness.  'This home is gone from
+you and him.  Mother and I have got a poor one, but that's better than
+this with all these people here; and why not come there, till he's had
+time to look about, and find a better!'
+
+The child did not speak.  Kit, in the relief of having made his
+proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour
+with his utmost eloquence.
+
+'You think,' said the boy, 'that it's very small and inconvenient.  So
+it is, but it's very clean.  Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but
+there's not a quieter court than ours in all the town.  Don't be afraid
+of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very
+good--besides, I'd mind 'em.  They wouldn't vex you much, I'm sure.  Do
+try, Miss Nell, do try.  The little front room up stairs is very
+pleasant.  You can see a piece of the church-clock, through the
+chimneys, and almost tell the time; mother says it would be just the
+thing for you, and so it would, and you'd have her to wait upon you
+both, and me to run of errands.  We don't mean money, bless you; you're
+not to think of that!  Will you try him, Miss Nell?  Only say you'll
+try him.  Do try to make old master come, and ask him first what I have
+done.  Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?'
+
+Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the
+street-door opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped head
+called in a surly voice, 'Who's there!'  Kit immediately glided away,
+and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room.
+
+Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also
+embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked
+carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the
+house, from the opposite side.  Finding that there was nobody in sight,
+he presently returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting
+(as the child heard from the staircase), that there was a league and
+plot against him; that he was in danger of being robbed and plundered
+by a band of conspirators who prowled about the house at all seasons;
+and that he would delay no longer but take immediate steps for
+disposing of the property and returning to his own peaceful roof.
+Having growled forth these, and a great many other threats of the same
+nature, he coiled himself once more in the child's little bed, and Nell
+crept softly up the stairs.
+
+It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with Kit
+should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her dreams
+that night and her recollections for a long, long time.  Surrounded by
+unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and
+meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little regard or
+sympathy even from the women about her, it is not surprising that the
+affectionate heart of the child should have been touched to the quick
+by one kind and generous spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it
+dwelt.  Thank Heaven that the temples of such spirits are not made with
+hands, and that they may be even more worthily hung with poor
+patch-work than with purple and fine linen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+At length, the crisis of the old man's disorder was past, and he began
+to mend.  By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness came back;
+but the mind was weakened and its functions were impaired.  He was
+patient, and quiet; often sat brooding, but not despondently, for a
+long space; was easily amused, even by a sun-beam on the wall or
+ceiling; made no complaint that the days were long, or the nights
+tedious; and appeared indeed to have lost all count of time, and every
+sense of care or weariness.  He would sit, for hours together, with
+Nell's small hand in his, playing with the fingers and stopping
+sometimes to smooth her hair or kiss her brow; and, when he saw that
+tears were glistening in her eyes, would look, amazed, about him for
+the cause, and forget his wonder even while he looked.
+
+The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and the
+child beside him.  They were hand in hand as usual.  The noise and
+motion in the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was not
+surprised, or curious, or pleased, or irritated.  He was asked if he
+remembered this, or that.  'O yes,' he said, 'quite well--why not?'
+Sometimes he turned his head, and looked, with earnest gaze and
+outstretched neck, after some stranger in the crowd, until he
+disappeared from sight; but, to the question why he did this, he
+answered not a word.
+
+He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool beside
+him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter.  'Yes,' he
+said without emotion, 'it was Quilp, he knew.  Quilp was master there.
+Of course he might come in.'  And so he did.
+
+'I'm glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,' said the dwarf,
+sitting down opposite him.  'You're quite strong now?'
+
+'Yes,' said the old man feebly, 'yes.'
+
+'I don't want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,' said the dwarf,
+raising his voice, for the old man's senses were duller than they had
+been; 'but, as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings, the
+better.'
+
+'Surely,' said the old man.  'The better for all parties.'
+
+'You see,' pursued Quilp after a short pause, 'the goods being once
+removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.'
+
+'You say true,' returned the old man.  'Poor Nell too, what would she
+do?'
+
+'Exactly,' bawled the dwarf nodding his head; 'that's very well
+observed.  Then will you consider about it, neighbour?'
+
+'I will, certainly,' replied the old man.  'We shall not stop here.'
+
+'So I supposed,' said the dwarf.  'I have sold the things.  They have
+not yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty
+well--pretty well.  To-day's Tuesday.  When shall they be moved?
+There's no hurry--shall we say this afternoon?'
+
+'Say Friday morning,' returned the old man.
+
+'Very good,' said the dwarf.  'So be it--with the understanding that I
+can't go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.'
+
+'Good,' returned the old man.  'I shall remember it.'
+
+Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way in
+which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and
+repeated 'on Friday morning.  I shall remember it,' he had no excuse
+for dwelling on the subject any further, and so took a friendly leave
+with many expressions of good-will and many compliments to his friend
+on his looking so remarkably well; and went below stairs to report
+progress to Mr Brass.
+
+All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state.  He
+wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various rooms,
+as if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he referred
+neither by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the interview of
+the morning or the necessity of finding some other shelter.  An
+indistinct idea he had, that the child was desolate and in want of
+help; for he often drew her to his bosom and bade her be of good cheer,
+saying that they would not desert each other; but he seemed unable to
+contemplate their real position more distinctly, and was still the
+listless, passionless creature that suffering of mind and body had left
+him.
+
+We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow
+mockery of it, that death is of sleep.  Where, in the dull eyes of
+doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety
+that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope
+that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming?  Where, in
+the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty
+of slumber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and
+gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come?  Lay death and
+sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin.  Send
+forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that
+libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and
+distorted image.
+
+Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man.  But a
+change came upon him that evening as he and the child sat silently
+together.
+
+In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree--green and
+flourishing enough, for such a place--and as the air stirred among its
+leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall.  The old man sat
+watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of light, until the
+sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon was slowly rising,
+he still sat in the same spot.
+
+To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these few
+green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished among
+chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things.  They suggested quiet
+places afar off, and rest, and peace.  The child thought, more than
+once that he was moved: and had forborne to speak.  But now he shed
+tears--tears that it lightened her aching heart to see--and making as
+though he would fall upon his knees, besought her to forgive him.
+
+'Forgive you--what?' said Nell, interposing to prevent his purpose.
+'Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?'
+
+'All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was done
+in that uneasy dream,' returned the old man.
+
+'Do not talk so,' said the child.  'Pray do not.  Let us speak of
+something else.'
+
+'Yes, yes, we will,' he rejoined.  'And it shall be of what we talked
+of long ago--many months--months is it, or weeks, or days?  which is it
+Nell?'
+
+'I do not understand you,' said the child.
+
+'It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we have
+been sitting here.  I bless thee for it, Nell!'
+
+'For what, dear grandfather?'
+
+'For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell.  Let us speak
+softly.  Hush!  for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they would
+cry that I was mad and take thee from me.  We will not stop here
+another day.  We will go far away from here.'
+
+'Yes, let us go,' said the child earnestly.  'Let us begone from this
+place, and never turn back or think of it again.  Let us wander
+barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.'
+
+'We will,' answered the old man, 'we will travel afoot through the
+fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God
+in the places where He dwells.  It is far better to lie down at night
+beneath an open sky like that yonder--see how bright it is--than to
+rest in close rooms which are always full of care and weary dreams.
+Thou and I together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy yet, and learn to
+forget this time, as if it had never been.'
+
+'We will be happy,' cried the child.  'We never can be here.'
+
+'No, we never can again--never again--that's truly said,' rejoined the
+old man.  'Let us steal away to-morrow morning--early and softly, that
+we may not be seen or heard--and leave no trace or track for them to
+follow by.  Poor Nell!  Thy cheek is pale, and thy eyes are heavy with
+watching and weeping for me--I know--for me; but thou wilt be well
+again, and merry too, when we are far away.  To-morrow morning, dear,
+we'll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and
+happy as the birds.'
+
+And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in a
+few broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up and
+down together, and never part more until Death took one or other of the
+twain.
+
+The child's heart beat high with hope and confidence.  She had no
+thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering.  She saw in this,
+but a return of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed, a relief
+from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape from the
+heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her late time of
+trial, the restoration of the old man's health and peace, and a life of
+tranquil happiness.  Sun, and stream, and meadow, and summer days,
+shone brightly in her view, and there was no dark tint in all the
+sparkling picture.
+
+The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she was
+yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight.  There were a few
+articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him; old
+garments, such as became their fallen fortunes, laid out to wear; and a
+staff to support his feeble steps, put ready for his use.  But this was
+not all her task; for now she must visit the old rooms for the last
+time.
+
+And how different the parting with them was, from any she had expected,
+and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured to herself.
+How could she ever have thought of bidding them farewell in triumph,
+when the recollection of the many hours she had passed among them rose
+to her swelling heart, and made her feel the wish a cruelty: lonely and
+sad though many of those hours had been!  She sat down at the window
+where she had spent so many evenings--darker far than this--and every
+thought of hope or cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place
+came vividly upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful
+associations in an instant.
+
+Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and prayed
+at night--prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning now--the
+little room where she had slept so peacefully, and dreamed such
+pleasant dreams!  It was hard not to be able to glance round it once
+more, and to be forced to leave it without one kind look or grateful
+tear.  There were some trifles there--poor useless things--that she
+would have liked to take away; but that was impossible.
+
+This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet.  She
+wept bitterly for the loss of this little creature--until the idea
+occurred to her--she did not know how, or why, it came into her
+head--that it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit who
+would keep it for her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had left it
+behind in the hope that he might have it, and as an assurance that she
+was grateful to him.  She was calmed and comforted by the thought, and
+went to rest with a lighter heart.
+
+From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but with
+some vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through them all,
+she awoke to find that it was yet night, and that the stars were
+shining brightly in the sky.  At length, the day began to glimmer, and
+the stars to grow pale and dim.  As soon as she was sure of this, she
+arose, and dressed herself for the journey.
+
+The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb him,
+she left him to slumber on, until the sun rose.  He was anxious that
+they should leave the house without a minute's loss of time, and was
+soon ready.
+
+The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and
+cautiously down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and
+often stopping to listen.  The old man had forgotten a kind of wallet
+which contained the light burden he had to carry; and the going back a
+few steps to fetch it seemed an interminable delay.
+
+At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the snoring
+of Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in their ears
+than the roars of lions.  The bolts of the door were rusty, and
+difficult to unfasten without noise.  When they were all drawn back, it
+was found to be locked, and worst of all, the key was gone.  Then the
+child remembered, for the first time, one of the nurses having told her
+that Quilp always locked both the house-doors at night, and kept the
+keys on the table in his bedroom.
+
+It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell slipped
+off her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old curiosities,
+where Mr Brass--the ugliest piece of goods in all the stock--lay
+sleeping on a mattress, passed into her own little chamber.
+
+Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at the
+sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he almost
+seemed to be standing on his head, and who, either from the uneasiness
+of this posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was gasping and
+growling with his mouth wide open, and the whites (or rather the dirty
+yellows) of his eyes distinctly visible.  It was no time, however, to
+ask whether anything ailed him; so, possessing herself of the key after
+one hasty glance about the room, and repassing the prostrate Mr Brass,
+she rejoined the old man in safety.  They got the door open without
+noise, and passing into the street, stood still.
+
+'Which way?' said the child.
+
+The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then to
+the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head.  It was
+plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader.  The child felt
+it, but had no doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in his, led
+him gently away.
+
+It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a
+cloud, and teeming with brilliant light.  The streets were, as yet,
+nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the
+healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping
+town.
+
+The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate
+with hope and pleasure.  They were alone together, once again; every
+object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by
+contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind; church
+towers and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now shone in the
+sun; each humble nook and corner rejoiced in light; and the sky, dimmed
+only by excessive distance, shed its placid smile on everything beneath.
+
+Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor
+adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+Daniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the
+city of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty's attornies of the Courts
+of the King's Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a solicitor of
+the High Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious and unsuspicious
+of any mischance, until a knocking on the street door, often repeated
+and gradually mounting up from a modest single rap to a perfect battery
+of knocks, fired in long discharges with a very short interval between,
+caused the said Daniel Quilp to struggle into a horizontal position,
+and to stare at the ceiling with a drowsy indifference, betokening that
+he heard the noise and rather wondered at the same, and couldn't be at
+the trouble of bestowing any further thought upon the subject.
+
+As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his lazy
+state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if in
+earnest remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that he had
+once opened his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to comprehend the
+possibility of there being somebody at the door; and thus he gradually
+came to recollect that it was Friday morning, and he had ordered Mrs
+Quilp to be in waiting upon him at an early hour.
+
+Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes, and
+often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that which is
+usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the season, was
+by this time awake also.  Seeing that Mr Quilp invested himself in his
+every-day garments, he hastened to do the like, putting on his shoes
+before his stockings, and thrusting his legs into his coat sleeves, and
+making such other small mistakes in his toilet as are not uncommon to
+those who dress in a hurry, and labour under the agitation of having
+been suddenly roused.
+
+While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was groping under the
+table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and mankind in
+general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to Mr Brass
+the question, 'what's the matter?'
+
+'The key,' said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, 'the
+door-key--that's the matter.  D'ye know anything of it?'
+
+'How should I know anything of it, sir?' returned Mr Brass.
+
+'How should you?' repeated Quilp with a sneer.  'You're a nice lawyer,
+an't you?  Ugh, you idiot!'
+
+Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that the
+loss of a key by another person could scarcely be said to affect his
+(Brass's) legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr Brass humbly
+suggested that it must have been forgotten over night, and was,
+doubtless, at that moment in its native key-hole.  Notwithstanding that
+Mr Quilp had a strong conviction to the contrary, founded on his
+recollection of having carefully taken it out, he was fain to admit
+that this was possible, and therefore went grumbling to the door where,
+sure enough, he found it.
+
+Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with great
+astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking came again
+with the most irritating violence, and the daylight which had been
+shining through the key-hole was intercepted on the outside by a human
+eye.  The dwarf was very much exasperated, and wanting somebody to
+wreak his ill-humour upon, determined to dart out suddenly, and favour
+Mrs Quilp with a gentle acknowledgment of her attention in making that
+hideous uproar.
+
+With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and
+opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the other
+side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another
+application, and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his
+hands and feet together, and biting the air in the fulness of his
+malice.
+
+So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no resistance
+and implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the arms of the
+individual whom he had taken for his wife than he found himself
+complimented with two staggering blows on the head, and two more, of
+the same quality, in the chest; and closing with his assailant, such a
+shower of buffets rained down upon his person as sufficed to convince
+him that he was in skilful and experienced hands.  Nothing daunted by
+this reception, he clung tight to his opponent, and bit and hammered
+away with such good-will and heartiness, that it was at least a couple
+of minutes before he was dislodged.  Then, and not until then, Daniel
+Quilp found himself, all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the
+street, with Mr Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him
+and requiring to know 'whether he wanted any more?'
+
+'There's plenty more of it at the same shop,' said Mr Swiveller, by
+turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, 'a large and
+extensive assortment always on hand--country orders executed with
+promptitude and despatch--will you have a little more, Sir--don't say
+no, if you'd rather not.'
+
+'I thought it was somebody else,' said Quilp, rubbing his shoulders,
+'why didn't you say who you were?'
+
+'Why didn't you say who YOU were?' returned Dick, 'instead of flying
+out of the house like a Bedlamite?'
+
+'It was you that--that knocked,' said the dwarf, getting up with a
+short groan, 'was it?'
+
+'Yes, I am the man,' replied Dick.  'That lady had begun when I came,
+but she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.'  As he said this, he
+pointed towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little distance.
+
+'Humph!' muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, 'I
+thought it was your fault!  And you, sir--don't you know there has been
+somebody ill here, that you knock as if you'd beat the door down?'
+
+'Damme!' answered Dick, 'that's why I did it.  I thought there was
+somebody dead here.'
+
+'You came for some purpose, I suppose,' said Quilp.  'What is it you
+want?'
+
+'I want to know how the old gentleman is,' rejoined Mr Swiveller, 'and
+to hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a little
+talk.  I'm a friend of the family, sir--at least I'm the friend of one
+of the family, and that's the same thing.'
+
+'You'd better walk in then,' said the dwarf.  'Go on, sir, go on.  Now,
+Mrs Quilp--after you, ma'am.'
+
+Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted.  And it was not a contest
+of politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she knew very well
+that her husband wished to enter the house in this order, that he might
+have a favourable opportunity of inflicting a few pinches on her arms,
+which were seldom free from impressions of his fingers in black and
+blue colours.  Mr Swiveller, who was not in the secret, was a little
+surprised to hear a suppressed scream, and, looking round, to see Mrs
+Quilp following him with a sudden jerk; but he did not remark on these
+appearances, and soon forgot them.
+
+'Now, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf when they had entered the shop, 'go
+you up stairs, if you please, to Nelly's room, and tell her that she's
+wanted.'
+
+'You seem to make yourself at home here,' said Dick, who was
+unacquainted with Mr Quilp's authority.
+
+'I AM at home, young gentleman,' returned the dwarf.
+
+Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what the
+presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying down
+stairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty.
+
+'Empty, you fool!' said the dwarf.
+
+'I give you my word, Quilp,' answered his trembling wife, 'that I have
+been into every room and there's not a soul in any of them.'
+
+'And that,' said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an emphasis,
+'explains the mystery of the key!'
+
+Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and
+frowningly at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment from
+any of them, hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down again,
+confirming the report which had already been made.
+
+'It's a strange way of going,' he said, glancing at Swiveller, 'very
+strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and intimate
+friend of his!  Ah! he'll write to me no doubt, or he'll bid Nelly
+write--yes, yes, that's what he'll do.  Nelly's very fond of me.
+Pretty Nell!'
+
+Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment.  Still
+glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and observed, with
+assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere with the removal of
+the goods.
+
+'For indeed,' he added, 'we knew that they'd go away to-day, but not
+that they'd go so early, or so quietly.  But they have their reasons,
+they have their reasons.'
+
+'Where in the devil's name are they gone?' said the wondering Dick.
+
+Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which implied
+that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say.
+
+'And what,' said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, 'what do you
+mean by moving the goods?'
+
+'That I have bought 'em, Sir,' rejoined Quilp.  'Eh?  What then?'
+
+'Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a
+tranquil cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing
+sea?' said Dick, in great bewilderment.
+
+'Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be visited
+too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted friends, eh?'
+added the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; 'I say nothing, but is that
+your meaning?'
+
+Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration of
+circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the project
+in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip his prospects
+in the bud.  Having only received from Frederick Trent, late on the
+previous night, information of the old man's illness, he had come upon
+a visit of condolence and inquiry to Nell, prepared with the first
+instalment of that long train of fascinations which was to fire her
+heart at last.  And here, when he had been thinking of all kinds of
+graceful and insinuating approaches, and meditating on the fearful
+retaliation which was slowly working against Sophy Wackles--here were
+Nell, the old man, and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he
+knew not whither, as if with a fore-knowledge of the scheme and a
+resolution to defeat it in the very outset, before a step was taken.
+
+In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled by
+the flight which had been made.  It had not escaped his keen eye that
+some indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the fugitives,
+and knowing the old man's weak state of mind, he marvelled what that
+course of proceeding might be in which he had so readily procured the
+concurrence of the child.  It must not be supposed (or it would be a
+gross injustice to Mr Quilp) that he was tortured by any disinterested
+anxiety on behalf of either.  His uneasiness arose from a misgiving
+that the old man had some secret store of money which he had not
+suspected; and the idea of its escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him
+with mortification and self-reproach.
+
+In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that
+Richard Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated and
+disappointed by the same cause.  It was plain, thought the dwarf, that
+he had come there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole or frighten the
+old man out of some small fraction of that wealth of which they
+supposed him to have an abundance.  Therefore, it was a relief to vex
+his heart with a picture of the riches the old man hoarded, and to
+expatiate on his cunning in removing himself even beyond the reach of
+importunity.
+
+'Well,' said Dick, with a blank look, 'I suppose it's of no use my
+staying here.'
+
+'Not the least in the world,' rejoined the dwarf.
+
+'You'll mention that I called, perhaps?' said Dick.
+
+Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time he
+saw them.
+
+'And say,' added Mr Swiveller, 'say, sir, that I was wafted here upon
+the pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake of
+friendship, the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and to sow
+in their place, the germs of social harmony.  Will you have the
+goodness to charge yourself with that commission, Sir?'
+
+'Certainly!' rejoined Quilp.
+
+'Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,' said Dick, producing a
+very small limp card, 'that that is my address, and that I am to be
+found at home every morning.  Two distinct knocks, sir, will produce
+the slavey at any time.  My particular friends, Sir, are accustomed to
+sneeze when the door is opened, to give her to understand that they ARE
+my friends and have no interested motives in asking if I'm at home.  I
+beg your pardon; will you allow me to look at that card again?'
+
+'Oh! by all means,' rejoined Quilp.
+
+'By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,' said Dick, substituting
+another in its stead, 'I had handed you the pass-ticket of a select
+convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of which I have the
+honour to be Perpetual Grand.  That is the proper document, Sir.  Good
+morning.'
+
+Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious
+Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it
+carelessly on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a
+flourish.
+
+By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the goods,
+and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of drawers and
+other trifles of that nature upon their heads, and performing muscular
+feats which heightened their complexions considerably.  Not to be
+behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising
+vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit;
+setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks;
+carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking
+the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting,
+with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr
+Brass, as he stood upon the door-steps to answer all the inquiries of
+curious neighbours, which was his department.  His presence and example
+diffused such alacrity among the persons employed, that, in a few
+hours, the house was emptied of everything, but pieces of matting,
+empty porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw.
+
+Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the
+dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and
+beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was
+prying in at the outer door.  Assured that it was Kit, though he saw
+little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon
+Kit came in and demanded what he wanted.
+
+'Come here, you sir,' said the dwarf.  'Well, so your old master and
+young mistress have gone?'
+
+'Where?' rejoined Kit, looking round.
+
+'Do you mean to say you don't know where?' answered Quilp sharply.
+'Where have they gone, eh?'
+
+'I don't know,' said Kit.
+
+'Come,' retorted Quilp, 'let's have no more of this!  Do you mean to
+say that you don't know they went away by stealth, as soon as it was
+light this morning?'
+
+'No,' said the boy, in evident surprise.
+
+'You don't know that?' cried Quilp.  'Don't I know that you were
+hanging about the house the other night, like a thief, eh?  Weren't you
+told then?'
+
+'No,' replied the boy.
+
+'You were not?' said Quilp.  'What were you told then; what were you
+talking about?'
+
+Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter secret
+now, related the purpose for which he had come on that occasion, and
+the proposal he had made.
+
+'Oh!' said the dwarf after a little consideration.  'Then, I think
+they'll come to you yet.'
+
+'Do you think they will?' cried Kit eagerly.
+
+'Aye, I think they will,' returned the dwarf.  'Now, when they do, let
+me know; d'ye hear?  Let me know, and I'll give you something.  I want
+to do 'em a kindness, and I can't do 'em a kindness unless I know where
+they are.  You hear what I say?'
+
+Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been agreeable
+to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf, who had been
+skulking about the room in search of anything that might have been left
+about by accident, had not happened to cry, 'Here's a bird!  What's to
+be done with this?'
+
+'Wring its neck,' rejoined Quilp.
+
+'Oh no, don't do that,' said Kit, stepping forward.  'Give it to me.'
+
+'Oh yes, I dare say,' cried the other boy.  'Come!  You let the cage
+alone, and let me wring its neck will you?  He said I was to do it.
+You let the cage alone will you.'
+
+'Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,' roared Quilp.  'Fight for it,
+you dogs, or I'll wring its neck myself!'
+
+Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other, tooth
+and nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and chopping
+the ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by his taunts
+and cries to fight more fiercely.  They were a pretty equal match, and
+rolled about together, exchanging blows which were by no means child's
+play, until at length Kit, planting a well-directed hit in his
+adversary's chest, disengaged himself, sprung nimbly up, and snatching
+the cage from Quilp's hands made off with his prize.
+
+He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face
+occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl
+dreadfully.
+
+'Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been doing?'
+cried Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'Never you mind, mother,' answered her son, wiping his face on the
+jack-towel behind the door.  'I'm not hurt, don't you be afraid for me.
+I've been a fightin' for a bird and won him, that's all.  Hold your
+noise, little Jacob.  I never see such a naughty boy in all my days!'
+
+'You have been fighting for a bird!' exclaimed his mother.
+
+'Ah!  Fightin' for a bird!' replied Kit, 'and here he is--Miss Nelly's
+bird, mother, that they was agoin' to wring the neck of!  I stopped
+that though--ha ha ha!  They wouldn't wring his neck and me by, no, no.
+It wouldn't do, mother, it wouldn't do at all.  Ha ha ha!'
+
+Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking out
+of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother laughed, and
+then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and then they all
+laughed in concert: partly because of Kit's triumph, and partly because
+they were very fond of each other.  When this fit was over, Kit
+exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and precious rarity--it
+was only a poor linnet--and looking about the wall for an old nail,
+made a scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with great
+exultation.
+
+'Let me see,' said the boy, 'I think I'll hang him in the winder,
+because it's more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there, if
+he looks up very much.  He's such a one to sing, I can tell you!'
+
+So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the poker
+for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to the
+immeasurable delight of the whole family.  When it had been adjusted
+and straightened a great many times, and he had walked backwards into
+the fire-place in his admiration of it, the arrangement was pronounced
+to be perfect.
+
+'And now, mother,' said the boy, 'before I rest any more, I'll go out
+and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some
+birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house was
+in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his passing
+it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable necessity,
+quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he could not choose
+but yield.  It is not uncommon for people who are much better fed and
+taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been, to make duties of their
+inclinations in matters of more doubtful propriety, and to take great
+credit for the self-denial with which they gratify themselves.
+
+There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being
+detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp's boy.
+The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy as if it
+had been so for months.  A rusty padlock was fastened on the door, ends
+of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily against the
+half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in the closed
+shutters below, were black with the darkness of the inside.  Some of
+the glass in the window he had so often watched, had been broken in the
+rough hurry of the morning, and that room looked more deserted and dull
+than any.  A group of idle urchins had taken possession of the
+door-steps; some were plying the knocker and listening with delighted
+dread to the hollow sounds it spread through the dismantled house;
+others were clustered about the keyhole, watching half in jest and half
+in earnest for 'the ghost,' which an hour's gloom, added to the mystery
+that hung about the late inhabitants, had already raised.  Standing all
+alone in the midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house
+looked a picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the
+cheerful fire that used to burn there on a winter's night and the no
+less cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite
+mournfully away.
+
+It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was by no
+means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that adjective
+in all his life.  He was only a soft-hearted grateful fellow, and had
+nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently, instead of going
+home again, in his grief, to kick the children and abuse his mother
+(for, when your finely strung people are out of sorts, they must have
+everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned his thoughts to the vulgar
+expedient of making them more comfortable if he could.
+
+Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding up
+and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held!  A good city
+speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to a
+fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of money
+was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding horses
+alone.  And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one, if only a
+twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had occasion to
+alight; but they had not; and it is often an ill-natured circumstance
+like this, which spoils the most ingenious estimate in the world.
+
+Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now lingering
+as some rider slackened his horse's pace and looked about him; and now
+darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a glimpse of some
+distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of the road, and
+promising to stop, at every door.  But on they all went, one after
+another, and there was not a penny stirring.  'I wonder,' thought the
+boy, 'if one of these gentlemen knew there was nothing in the cupboard
+at home, whether he'd stop on purpose, and make believe that he wanted
+to call somewhere, that I might earn a trifle?'
+
+He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of
+repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest,
+when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling
+four-wheeled chaise, drawn by a little obstinate-looking rough-coated
+pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old gentleman.  Beside
+the little old gentleman sat a little old lady, plump and placid like
+himself, and the pony was coming along at his own pace and doing
+exactly as he pleased with the whole concern.  If the old gentleman
+remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony replied by shaking his
+head.  It was plain that the utmost the pony would consent to do, was
+to go in his own way up any street that the old gentleman particularly
+wished to traverse, but that it was an understanding between them that
+he must do this after his own fashion or not at all.
+
+As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little
+turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him.  Kit rising and putting
+his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the pony that he
+wished to stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom objected to that
+part of his duty) graciously acceded.
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Kit.  'I'm sorry you stopped, sir.  I
+only meant did you want your horse minded.'
+
+'I'm going to get down in the next street,' returned the old gentleman.
+'If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.'
+
+Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed.  The pony ran off at a sharp
+angle to inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and then
+went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side.  Having
+satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and materials, he
+came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation.
+
+'Will you go on, sir,' said the old gentleman, gravely, 'or are we to
+wait here for you till it's too late for our appointment?'
+
+The pony remained immoveable.
+
+'Oh you naughty Whisker,' said the old lady.  'Fie upon you!  I'm
+ashamed of such conduct.'
+
+The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for he
+trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no more
+until he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the words
+'Witherden--Notary.'  Here the old gentleman got out and helped out the
+old lady, and then took from under the seat a nosegay resembling in
+shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan with the handle cut short
+off.  This, the old lady carried into the house with a staid and
+stately air, and the old gentleman (who had a club-foot) followed close
+upon her.
+
+They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices, into
+the front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office.  The day being
+very warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were wide open; and
+it was easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all that passed inside.
+
+At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet,
+succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed by
+the listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to
+exclaim a great many times, 'oh, delicious!' 'oh, fragrant, indeed!'
+and a nose, also supposed to be the property of that gentleman, was
+heard to inhale the scent with a snuffle of exceeding pleasure.
+
+'I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,' said the old lady.
+
+'Ah! an occasion indeed, ma'am, an occasion which does honour to me,
+ma'am, honour to me,' rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary.  'I have had
+many a gentleman articled to me, ma'am, many a one.  Some of them are
+now rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion and friend,
+ma'am, others are in the habit of calling upon me to this day and
+saying, "Mr Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours I ever spent in my
+life were spent in this office--were spent, Sir, upon this very stool";
+but there was never one among the number, ma'am, attached as I have
+been to many of them, of whom I augured such bright things as I do of
+your only son.'
+
+'Oh dear!' said the old lady.  'How happy you do make us when you tell
+us that, to be sure!'
+
+'I tell you, ma'am,' said Mr Witherden, 'what I think as an honest man,
+which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God.  I agree with
+the poet in every particular, ma'am.  The mountainous Alps on the one
+hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing, in point of
+workmanship, to an honest man--or woman--or woman.'
+
+'Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,' observed a small quiet
+voice, 'I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.'
+
+'It's a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,' said the
+Notary, 'to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and I
+hope I know how to appreciate it.  I trust, Mr Garland, my dear Sir,
+that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this auspicious
+occasion.'
+
+To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might.
+There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and when
+it was over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it who should
+not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort to his parents
+than Abel Garland had been to his.
+
+'Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting for
+a great many years, until we were well enough off--coming together when
+we were no longer young, and then being blessed with one child who has
+always been dutiful and affectionate--why, it's a source of great
+happiness to us both, sir.'
+
+'Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,' returned the Notary in a
+sympathising voice.  'It's the contemplation of this sort of thing,
+that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor.  There was a young
+lady once, sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of the first
+respectability--but that's a weakness.  Chuckster, bring in Mr Abel's
+articles.'
+
+'You see, Mr Witherden,' said the old lady, 'that Abel has not been
+brought up like the run of young men.  He has always had a pleasure in
+our society, and always been with us.  Abel has never been absent from
+us, for a day; has he, my dear?'
+
+'Never, my dear,' returned the old gentleman, 'except when he went to
+Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher at that
+school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he was very ill
+after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a dissipation.'
+
+'He was not used to it, you know,' said the old lady, 'and he couldn't
+bear it, that's the truth.  Besides he had no comfort in being there
+without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself with.'
+
+'That was it, you know,' interposed the same small quiet voice that had
+spoken once before.  'I was quite abroad, mother, quite desolate, and
+to think that the sea was between us--oh, I never shall forget what I
+felt when I first thought that the sea was between us!'
+
+'Very natural under the circumstances,' observed the Notary.  'Mr
+Abel's feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your nature,
+ma'am, and his father's nature, and human nature.  I trace the same
+current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive
+proceedings.--I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot of
+the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my finger
+upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am constrained to
+remark in a distinct tone of voice--don't be alarmed, ma'am, it is
+merely a form of law--that I deliver this, as my act and deed.  Mr Abel
+will place his name against the other wafer, repeating the same
+cabalistic words, and the business is over.  Ha ha ha!  You see how
+easily these things are done!'
+
+There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through the
+prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of feet
+were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of
+wine-glasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody.  In
+about a quarter of an hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear and
+his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and condescending to
+address Kit by the jocose appellation of 'Young Snob,' informed him
+that the visitors were coming out.
+
+Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby,
+fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with extreme
+politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in arm.  Mr
+Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked nearly of
+the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful resemblance to him in
+face and figure, though wanting something of his full, round,
+cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a timid reserve.  In all
+other respects, in the neatness of the dress, and even in the
+club-foot, he and the old gentleman were precisely alike.
+
+Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the
+arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an
+indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little box
+behind which had evidently been made for his express accommodation, and
+smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning with his mother and
+ending with the pony.  There was then a great to-do to make the pony
+hold up his head that the bearing-rein might be fastened; at last even
+this was effected; and the old gentleman, taking his seat and the
+reins, put his hand in his pocket to find a sixpence for Kit.
+
+He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the
+Notary, nor Mr Chuckster.  The old gentleman thought a shilling too
+much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he gave
+it to the boy.
+
+'There,' he said jokingly, 'I'm coming here again next Monday at the
+same time, and mind you're here, my lad, to work it out.'
+
+'Thank you, Sir,' said Kit.  'I'll be sure to be here.'
+
+He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying so,
+especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to relish the
+joke amazingly.  As the pony, with a presentiment that he was going
+home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere else (which was
+the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had no time to justify
+himself, and went his way also.  Having expended his treasure in such
+purchases as he knew would be most acceptable at home, not forgetting
+some seed for the wonderful bird, he hastened back as fast as he could,
+so elated with his success and great good fortune, that he more than
+half expected Nell and the old man would have arrived before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on the
+morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled sensation
+of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly seen in the
+clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest Kit.  But
+although she would gladly have given him her hand and thanked him for
+what he had said at their last meeting, it was always a relief to find,
+when they came nearer to each other, that the person who approached was
+not he, but a stranger; for even if she had not dreaded the effect
+which the sight of him might have wrought upon her fellow-traveller,
+she felt that to bid farewell to anybody now, and most of all to him
+who had been so faithful and so true, was more than she could bear.  It
+was enough to leave dumb things behind, and objects that were
+insensible both to her love and sorrow.  To have parted from her only
+other friend upon the threshold of that wild journey, would have wrung
+her heart indeed.
+
+Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and
+while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say
+it?  On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends
+who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual
+pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow,
+while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of
+uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be.  Should
+possibilities be worse to bear than certainties?  We do not shun our
+dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them,
+whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the
+whole remainder of a life.
+
+The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and
+distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams
+dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain
+before sleepers' eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the
+shadows of the night.  Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark,
+felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little
+cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled
+timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat
+winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the
+door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside.  The
+nobler beasts confined in dens, stood motionless behind their bars and
+gazed on fluttering boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little
+window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed--then trod impatiently
+the track their prisoned feet had worn--and stopped and gazed again.
+Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the
+stone that no bright sky could warm.  The flowers that sleep by night,
+opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day.  The light,
+creation's mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its power.
+
+The two pilgrims, often pressing each other's hands, or exchanging a
+smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence.  Bright and happy
+as it was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted streets,
+from which, like bodies without souls, all habitual character and
+expression had departed, leaving but one dead uniform repose, that made
+them all alike.  All was so still at that early hour, that the few pale
+people whom they met seemed as much unsuited to the scene, as the
+sickly lamp which had been here and there left burning, was powerless
+and faint in the full glory of the sun.
+
+Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men's abodes
+which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect began to melt
+away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place.  Some straggling carts
+and coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm, then others came, then
+others yet more active, then a crowd.  The wonder was, at first, to see
+a tradesman's window open, but it was a rare thing soon to see one
+closed; then, smoke rose slowly from the chimneys, and sashes were
+thrown up to let in air, and doors were opened, and servant girls,
+looking lazily in all directions but their brooms, scattered brown
+clouds of dust into the eyes of shrinking passengers, or listened
+disconsolately to milkmen who spoke of country fairs, and told of
+waggons in the mews, with awnings and all things complete, and gallant
+swains to boot, which another hour would see upon their journey.
+
+This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and great
+traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was already
+rife.  The old man looked about him with a startled and bewildered
+gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun.  He pressed his
+finger on his lip, and drew the child along by narrow courts and
+winding ways, nor did he seem at ease until they had left it far
+behind, often casting a backward look towards it, murmuring that ruin
+and self-murder were crouching in every street, and would follow if
+they scented them; and that they could not fly too fast.
+
+Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling neighbourhood,
+where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and windows patched with
+rags and paper, told of the populous poverty that sheltered there.  The
+shops sold goods that only poverty could buy, and sellers and buyers
+were pinched and griped alike.  Here were poor streets where faded
+gentility essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its
+last feeble stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as
+elsewhere, and the poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less
+squalid and manifest than that which had long ago submitted and given
+up the game.
+
+This was a wide, wide track--for the humble followers of the camp of
+wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile--but its
+character was still the same.  Damp rotten houses, many to let, many
+yet building, many half-built and mouldering away--lodgings, where it
+would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who let or those
+who came to take--children, scantily fed and clothed, spread over every
+street, and sprawling in the dust--scolding mothers, stamping their
+slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the pavement--shabby fathers,
+hurrying with dispirited looks to the occupation which brought them
+'daily bread' and little more--mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers,
+tailors, chandlers, driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and
+back room and garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same
+roof--brick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or
+timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered by
+the flames--mounds of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and
+oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusion--small dissenting chapels to
+teach, with no lack of illustration, the miseries of Earth, and plenty
+of new churches, erected with a little superfluous wealth, to show the
+way to Heaven.
+
+At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and
+dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering the
+road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of old
+timber or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough cabbage-stalks
+that grew about it, and grottoed at the seams with toad-stools and
+tight-sticking snails.  To these succeeded pert cottages, two and two
+with plots of ground in front, laid out in angular beds with stiff box
+borders and narrow paths between, where footstep never strayed to make
+the gravel rough.  Then came the public-house, freshly painted in green
+and white, with tea-gardens and a bowling green, spurning its old
+neighbour with the horse-trough where the waggons stopped; then,
+fields; and then, some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns,
+some even with a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife.  Then came a
+turnpike; then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill,
+and on the top of that, the traveller might stop, and--looking back at
+old Saint Paul's looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above the
+cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and casting
+his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he traced it down to
+the furthest outposts of the invading army of bricks and mortar whose
+station lay for the present nearly at his feet--might feel at last that
+he was clear of London.
+
+Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and his
+little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were bound)
+sat down to rest.  She had had the precaution to furnish her basket
+with some slices of bread and meat, and here they made their frugal
+breakfast.
+
+The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the
+waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand
+exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air--deep joys to most
+of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live
+solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well--sunk into
+their breasts and made them very glad.  The child had repeated her
+artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had
+ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her
+lips again.  The old man took off his hat--he had no memory for the
+words--but he said amen, and that they were very good.
+
+There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, with strange
+plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole
+evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where those
+distant countries with the curious names might be.  As she looked back
+upon the place they had left, one part of it came strongly on her mind.
+
+'Dear grandfather,' she said, 'only that this place is prettier and a
+great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like it, I
+feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this grass all the
+cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.'
+
+'No--never to return--never to return'--replied the old man, waving his
+hand towards the city.  'Thou and I are free of it now, Nell.  They
+shall never lure us back.'
+
+'Are you tired?' said the child, 'are you sure you don't feel ill from
+this long walk?'
+
+'I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,' was his
+reply.  'Let us be stirring, Nell.  We must be further away--a long,
+long way further.  We are too near to stop, and be at rest.  Come!'
+
+There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved
+her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk
+again.  She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and
+making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her
+hands, and dried it with her simple dress.
+
+'I can do nothing for myself, my darling,' said the grandfather; 'I
+don't know how it is, I could once, but the time's gone.  Don't leave
+me, Nell; say that thou'lt not leave me.  I loved thee all the while,
+indeed I did.  If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!'
+
+He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously.  The time had
+been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have
+restrained her tears and must have wept with him.  But now she soothed
+him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking they could
+ever part, and rallied him cheerfully upon the jest.  He was soon
+calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice, like a
+little child.
+
+He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey.  The road was
+pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn, about
+which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled out her
+happy song.  The air came laden with the fragrance it caught upon its
+way, and the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed forth their
+drowsy satisfaction as they floated by.
+
+They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and
+scattered at long intervals, often miles apart.  Occasionally they came
+upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put
+across the open door to keep the scrambling children from the road,
+others shut up close while all the family were working in the fields.
+These were often the commencement of a little village: and after an
+interval came a wheelwright's shed or perhaps a blacksmith's forge;
+then a thriving farm with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses
+peering over the low wall and scampering away when harnessed horses
+passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom.  There
+were dull pigs too, turning up the ground in search of dainty food, and
+grunting their monotonous grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed
+each other in their quest; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or
+strutting on the eaves; and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their
+own conceit, waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing
+glibly on its surface.  The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn;
+the humbler beer-shop; and the village tradesman's; then the lawyer's
+and the parson's, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled; the
+church then peeped out modestly from a clump of trees; then there were
+a few more cottages; then the cage, and pound, and not unfrequently, on
+a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty well.  Then came the
+trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road again.
+
+They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds
+were let to travellers.  Next morning they were afoot again, and though
+jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long and proceeded
+briskly forward.
+
+They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time, and
+still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the morning.  It
+was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, when drawing near another
+cluster of labourers' huts, the child looked wistfully in each,
+doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile, and buy a
+draught of milk.
+
+It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of being
+repulsed.  Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife.  In this,
+the people seemed too poor; in that, too many.  At length she stopped
+at one where the family were seated round the table--chiefly because
+there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair beside the hearth,
+and she thought he was a grandfather and would feel for hers.
+
+There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young sturdy
+children, brown as berries.  The request was no sooner preferred, than
+granted.  The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged
+two stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother's
+gown, and looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand.
+
+'God save you, master,' said the old cottager in a thin piping voice;
+'are you travelling far?'
+
+'Yes, Sir, a long way'--replied the child; for her grandfather appealed
+to her.
+
+'From London?' inquired the old man.
+
+The child said yes.
+
+Ah!  He had been in London many a time--used to go there often once,
+with waggons.  It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there
+last, and he did hear say there were great changes.  Like enough!  He
+had changed, himself, since then.  Two-and-thirty year was a long time
+and eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that
+had lived to very hard upon a hundred--and not so hearty as he,
+neither--no, nothing like it.
+
+'Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,' said the old man, knocking
+his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply.  'Take a
+pinch out o' that box; I don't take much myself, for it comes dear, but
+I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye're but a boy to me.  I should
+have a son pretty nigh as old as you if he'd lived, but they listed him
+for a so'ger--he come back home though, for all he had but one poor
+leg.  He always said he'd be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb
+upon when he was a baby, did my poor boy, and his words come true--you
+can see the place with your own eyes; we've kept the turf up, ever
+since.'
+
+He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said
+she needn't be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more.
+He didn't wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by
+what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.
+
+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, 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 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
+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 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, and
+going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and claiming
+fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her.  At sight of
+the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she started up in alarm,
+wondering how she had been moved from the familiar chamber in which she
+seemed to have fallen asleep last night, and whither she had been
+conveyed.  But, another glance around called to her mind all that had
+lately passed, and she sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.
+
+It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked out
+into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with her
+feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer than in
+others, that she might not tread upon the graves.  She felt a curious
+kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the dead, and read
+the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a great number of
+good people were buried there), passing on from one to another with
+increasing interest.
+
+It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the
+cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of
+some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the
+air.  First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as it swung
+and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance as it
+would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but talking to
+himself.  Another answered, and he called again, but louder than
+before; then another spoke and then another; and each time the first,
+aggravated by contradiction, insisted on his case more strongly.  Other
+voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs lower down and higher up
+and midway, and to the right and left, and from the tree-tops; and
+others, arriving hastily from the grey church turrets and old belfry
+window, joined the clamour which rose and fell, and swelled and dropped
+again, and still went on; and all this noisy contention amidst a
+skimming to and fro, and lighting on fresh branches, and frequent
+change of place, which satirised the old restlessness of those who lay
+so still beneath the moss and turf below, and the strife in which they
+had worn away their lives.
+
+Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came down,
+and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than perfect
+silence would have done, the child loitered from grave to grave, now
+stopping to replace with careful hands the bramble which had started
+from some green mound it helped to keep in shape, and now peeping
+through one of the low latticed windows into the church, with its
+worm-eaten books upon the desks, and baize of whitened-green mouldering
+from the pew sides and leaving the naked wood to view.  There were the
+seats where the poor old people sat, worn spare, and yellow like
+themselves; the rugged font where children had their names, the homely
+altar where they knelt in after life, the plain black tressels that
+bore their weight on their last visit to the cool old shady church.
+Everything told of long use and quiet slow decay; the very bell-rope in
+the porch was frayed into a fringe, and hoary with old age.
+
+She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had
+died at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she heard a
+faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble woman bent
+with the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of that same grave
+and asked her to read the writing on the stone.  The old woman thanked
+her when she had done, saying that she had had the words by heart for
+many a long, long year, but could not see them now.
+
+'Were you his mother?' said the child.
+
+'I was his wife, my dear.'
+
+She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty!  Ah, true!  It was
+fifty-five years ago.
+
+'You wonder to hear me say that,' remarked the old woman, shaking her
+head.  'You're not the first.  Older folk than you have wondered at the
+same thing before now.  Yes, I was his wife.  Death doesn't change us
+more than life, my dear.'
+
+'Do you come here often?' asked the child.
+
+'I sit here very often in the summer time,' she answered, 'I used to
+come here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago, bless
+God!'
+
+'I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,' said the old
+woman after a short silence.  'I like no flowers so well as these, and
+haven't for five-and-fifty years.  It's a long time, and I'm getting
+very old.'
+
+Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener
+though it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and moaned
+and prayed to die herself, when this happened; and how when she first
+came to that place, a young creature strong in love and grief, she had
+hoped that her heart was breaking as it seemed to be.  But that time
+passed by, and although she continued to be sad when she came there,
+still she could bear to come, and so went on until it was pain no
+longer, but a solemn pleasure, and a duty she had learned to like.  And
+now that five-and-fifty years were gone, she spoke of the dead man as
+if he had been her son or grandson, with a kind of pity for his youth,
+growing out of her own old age, and an exalting of his strength and
+manly beauty as compared with her own weakness and decay; and yet she
+spoke about him as her husband too, and thinking of herself in
+connexion with him, as she used to be and not as she was now, talked of
+their meeting in another world, as if he were dead but yesterday, and
+she, separated from her former self, were thinking of the happiness of
+that comely girl who seemed to have died with him.
+
+The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave, and
+thoughtfully retraced her steps.
+
+The old man was by this time up and dressed.  Mr Codlin, still doomed
+to contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing among his
+linen the candle-ends which had been saved from the previous night's
+performance; while his companion received the compliments of all the
+loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to separate him from the
+master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in importance to that merry
+outlaw, and loved him scarcely less.  When he had sufficiently
+acknowledged his popularity he came in to breakfast, at which meal they
+all sat down together.
+
+'And where are you going to-day?' said the little man, addressing
+himself to Nell.
+
+'Indeed I hardly know--we have not determined yet,' replied the child.
+
+'We're going on to the races,' said the little man.  'If that's your
+way and you like to have us for company, let us travel together.  If
+you prefer going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we
+shan't trouble you.'
+
+'We'll go with you,' said the old man.  'Nell--with them, with them.'
+
+The child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must shortly
+beg, and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place than where
+crowds of rich ladies and gentlemen were assembled together for
+purposes of enjoyment and festivity, determined to accompany these men
+so far.  She therefore thanked the little man for his offer, and said,
+glancing timidly towards his friend, that if there was no objection to
+their accompanying them as far as the race town--
+
+'Objection!' said the little man.  'Now be gracious for once, Tommy,
+and say that you'd rather they went with us.  I know you would.  Be
+gracious, Tommy.'
+
+'Trotters,' said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very
+greedily, as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes;
+'you're too free.'
+
+'Why what harm can it do?' urged the other.
+
+'No harm at all in this particular case, perhaps,' replied Mr Codlin;
+'but the principle's a dangerous one, and you're too free I tell you.'
+
+'Well, are they to go with us or not?'
+
+'Yes, they are,' said Mr Codlin; 'but you might have made a favour of
+it, mightn't you?'
+
+The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually merged
+into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the prefatory
+adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason of the small
+size of his legs.  Short Trotters however, being a compound name,
+inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, the gentleman on whom it had
+been bestowed was known among his intimates either as 'Short,' or
+'Trotters,' and was seldom accosted at full length as Short Trotters,
+except in formal conversations and on occasions of ceremony.
+
+Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the
+remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer calculated
+to turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with great relish to
+the cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and butter, strongly impressed
+upon his companions that they should do the like.  Mr Codlin indeed
+required no such persuasion, as he had already eaten as much as he
+could possibly carry and was now moistening his clay with strong ale,
+whereof he took deep draughts with a silent relish and invited nobody
+to partake--thus again strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of
+mind.
+
+Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and charging
+the ale to the company generally (a practice also savouring of
+misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and equal parts,
+assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the other to Nelly and
+her grandfather.  These being duly discharged and all things ready for
+their departure, they took farewell of the landlord and landlady and
+resumed their journey.
+
+And here Mr Codlin's false position in society and the effect it
+wrought upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for whereas
+he had been last night accosted by Mr Punch as 'master,' and had by
+inference left the audience to understand that he maintained that
+individual for his own luxurious entertainment and delight, here he
+was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of that same Punch's
+temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders on a sultry day and
+along a dusty road.  In place of enlivening his patron with a constant
+fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his quarter-staff on the heads of
+his relations and acquaintance, here was that beaming Punch utterly
+devoid of spine, all slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs
+doubled up round his neck, and not one of his social qualities
+remaining.
+
+Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals
+with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally.  Short led the
+way; with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not extensive)
+tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his
+shoulder-blade.  Nell and her grandfather walked next him on either
+hand, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear.
+
+When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house of
+good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and
+carolled a fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to Punches
+and their consorts.  If people hurried to the windows, Mr Codlin
+pitched the temple, and hastily unfurling the drapery and concealing
+Short therewith, flourished hysterically on the pipes and performed an
+air.  Then the entertainment began as soon as might be; Mr Codlin
+having the responsibility of deciding on its length and of protracting
+or expediting the time for the hero's final triumph over the enemy of
+mankind, according as he judged that the after-crop of half-pence would
+be plentiful or scant.  When it had been gathered in to the last
+farthing, he resumed his load and on they went again.
+
+Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and once
+exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the collector,
+being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to have it to
+himself.  There was one small place of rich promise in which their
+hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the play having
+gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling wooden-headed fellow was
+held to be a libel on the beadle, for which reason the authorities
+enforced a quick retreat; but they were generally well received, and
+seldom left a town without a troop of ragged children shouting at their
+heels.
+
+They made a long day's journey, despite these interruptions, and were
+yet upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky.  Short beguiled
+the time with songs and jests, and made the best of everything that
+happened.  Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his fate, and all the
+hollow things of earth (but Punch especially), and limped along with
+the theatre on his back, a prey to the bitterest chagrin.
+
+They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads met,
+and Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery and
+seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal eyes and
+disdainful of the company of his fellow creatures, when two monstrous
+shadows were seen stalking towards them from a turning in the road by
+which they had come.  The child was at first quite terrified by the
+sight of these gaunt giants--for such they looked as they advanced with
+lofty strides beneath the shadow of the trees--but Short, telling her
+there was nothing to fear, blew a blast upon the trumpet, which was
+answered by a cheerful shout.
+
+'It's Grinder's lot, an't it?' cried Mr Short in a loud key.
+
+'Yes,' replied a couple of shrill voices.
+
+'Come on then,' said Short.  'Let's have a look at you.  I thought it
+was you.'
+
+Thus invited, 'Grinder's lot' approached with redoubled speed and soon
+came up with the little party.
+
+Mr Grinder's company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young
+gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who used
+his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his back a
+drum.  The public costume of the young people was of the Highland kind,
+but the night being damp and cold, the young gentleman wore over his
+kilt a man's pea jacket reaching to his ankles, and a glazed hat; the
+young lady too was muffled in an old cloth pelisse and had a
+handkerchief tied about her head.  Their Scotch bonnets, ornamented
+with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr Grinder carried on his instrument.
+
+'Bound for the races, I see,' said Mr Grinder coming up out of breath.
+'So are we.  How are you, Short?'  With that they shook hands in a very
+friendly manner.  The young people being too high up for the ordinary
+salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion.  The young
+gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on the shoulder,
+and the young lady rattled her tambourine.
+
+'Practice?' said Short, pointing to the stilts.
+
+'No,' returned Grinder.  'It comes either to walkin' in 'em or carryin'
+of 'em, and they like walkin' in 'em best.  It's wery pleasant for the
+prospects.  Which road are you takin'?  We go the nighest.'
+
+'Why, the fact is,' said Short, 'that we are going the longest way,
+because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on.  But
+three or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and if
+you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.'
+
+'Where's your partner?' inquired Grinder.
+
+'Here he is,' cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face in
+the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of
+countenance not often seen there; 'and he'll see his partner boiled
+alive before he'll go on to-night.  That's what he says.'
+
+'Well, don't say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted to
+something pleasanter,' urged Short.  'Respect associations, Tommy, even
+if you do cut up rough.'
+
+'Rough or smooth,' said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little
+footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of his
+legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to exhibit
+them to popular admiration, 'rough or smooth, I won't go further than
+the mile and a half to-night.  I put up at the Jolly Sandboys and
+nowhere else.  If you like to come there, come there.  If you like to
+go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without me if you can.'
+
+So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately
+presented himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at a
+jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility.
+
+Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was fain
+to part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his morose
+companion.  After lingering at the finger-post for a few minutes to see
+the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the bearer of the drum
+toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes upon the trumpet as a
+parting salute, and hastened with all speed to follow Mr Codlin.  With
+this view he gave his unoccupied hand to Nell, and bidding her be of
+good cheer as they would soon be at the end of their journey for that
+night, and stimulating the old man with a similar assurance, led them
+at a pretty swift pace towards their destination, which he was the less
+unwilling to make for, as the moon was now overcast and the clouds were
+threatening rain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+The Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn of pretty ancient date,
+with a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with
+as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post
+on the opposite side of the road.  As the travellers had observed that
+day many indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race
+town, such as gipsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths and their
+appurtenances, itinerant showmen of various kinds, and beggars and
+trampers of every degree, all wending their way in the same direction,
+Mr Codlin was fearful of finding the accommodations forestalled; this
+fear increasing as he diminished the distance between himself and the
+hostelry, he quickened his pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had
+to carry, maintained a round trot until he reached the threshold.  Here
+he had the gratification of finding that his fears were without
+foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the door-post looking
+lazily at the rain, which had by this time begun to descend heavily,
+and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor boisterous shout, nor noisy
+chorus, gave note of company within.
+
+'All alone?' said Mr Codlin, putting down his burden and wiping his
+forehead.
+
+'All alone as yet,' rejoined the landlord, glancing at the sky, 'but we
+shall have more company to-night I expect.  Here one of you boys, carry
+that show into the barn.  Make haste in out of the wet, Tom; when it
+came on to rain I told 'em to make the fire up, and there's a glorious
+blaze in the kitchen, I can tell you.'
+
+Mr Codlin followed with a willing mind, and soon found that the
+landlord had not commended his preparations without good reason.  A
+mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney
+with a cheerful sound, which a large iron cauldron, bubbling and
+simmering in the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell.  There was a
+deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the landlord stirred the
+fire, sending the flames skipping and leaping up--when he took off the
+lid of the iron pot and there rushed out a savoury smell, while the
+bubbling sound grew deeper and more rich, and an unctuous steam came
+floating out, hanging in a delicious mist above their heads--when he
+did this, Mr Codlin's heart was touched.  He sat down in the
+chimney-corner and smiled.
+
+Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as
+with a roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning that
+his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery, suffered the
+delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest.  The glow of the
+fire was upon the landlord's bald head, and upon his twinkling eye, and
+upon his watering mouth, and upon his pimpled face, and upon his round
+fat figure.  Mr Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips, and said in a
+murmuring voice, 'What is it?'
+
+'It's a stew of tripe,' said the landlord smacking his lips, 'and
+cow-heel,' smacking them again, 'and bacon,' smacking them once more,
+'and steak,' smacking them for the fourth time, 'and peas,
+cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together
+in one delicious gravy.'  Having come to the climax, he smacked his
+lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the
+fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air
+of one whose toils on earth were over.
+
+'At what time will it be ready?' asked Mr Codlin faintly.
+
+'It'll be done to a turn,' said the landlord looking up to the
+clock--and the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and
+looked a clock for jolly Sandboys to consult--'it'll be done to a turn
+at twenty-two minutes before eleven.'
+
+'Then,' said Mr Codlin, 'fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don't let
+nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time
+arrives.'
+
+Nodding his approval of this decisive and manly course of procedure,
+the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it,
+applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped
+funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire
+and getting at the bright places.  This was soon done, and he handed it
+over to Mr Codlin with that creamy froth upon the surface which is one
+of the happy circumstances attendant on mulled malt.
+
+Greatly softened by this soothing beverage, Mr Codlin now bethought him
+of his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys that their
+arrival might be shortly looked for.  The rain was rattling against the
+windows and pouring down in torrents, and such was Mr Codlin's extreme
+amiability of mind, that he more than once expressed his earnest hope
+that they would not be so foolish as to get wet.
+
+At length they arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a most
+miserable appearance, notwithstanding that Short had sheltered the
+child as well as he could under the skirts of his own coat, and they
+were nearly breathless from the haste they had made.  But their steps
+were no sooner heard upon the road than the landlord, who had been at
+the outer door anxiously watching for their coming, rushed into the
+kitchen and took the cover off.  The effect was electrical.  They all
+came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping from their
+clothes upon the floor, and Short's first remark was, 'What a delicious
+smell!'
+
+It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a
+cheerful fire, and in a bright room.  They were furnished with slippers
+and such dry garments as the house or their own bundles afforded, and
+ensconcing themselves, as Mr Codlin had already done, in the warm
+chimney-corner, soon forgot their late troubles or only remembered them
+as enhancing the delights of the present time.  Overpowered by the
+warmth and comfort and the fatigue they had undergone, Nelly and the
+old man had not long taken their seats here, when they fell asleep.
+
+'Who are they?' whispered the landlord.
+
+Short shook his head, and wished he knew himself.
+
+'Don't you know?' asked the host, turning to Mr Codlin.
+
+'Not I,' he replied.  'They're no good, I suppose.'
+
+'They're no harm,' said Short.  'Depend upon that.  I tell you
+what--it's plain that the old man an't in his right mind--'
+
+'If you haven't got anything newer than that to say,' growled Mr
+Codlin, glancing at the clock, 'you'd better let us fix our minds upon
+the supper, and not disturb us.'
+
+'Hear me out, won't you?' retorted his friend.  'It's very plain to me,
+besides, that they're not used to this way of life.  Don't tell me that
+that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about as she's
+done these last two or three days.  I know better.'
+
+'Well, who DOES tell you she has?' growled Mr Codlin, again glancing at
+the clock and from it to the cauldron, 'can't you think of anything
+more suitable to present circumstances than saying things and then
+contradicting 'em?'
+
+'I wish somebody would give you your supper,' returned Short, 'for
+there'll be no peace till you've got it.  Have you seen how anxious the
+old man is to get on--always wanting to be furder away--furder away.
+Have you seen that?'
+
+'Ah! what then?' muttered Thomas Codlin.
+
+'This, then,' said Short.  'He has given his friends the slip.  Mind
+what I say--he has given his friends the slip, and persuaded this
+delicate young creetur all along of her fondness for him to be his
+guide and travelling companion--where to, he knows no more than the man
+in the moon.  Now I'm not a going to stand that.'
+
+'YOU'RE not a going to stand that!' cried Mr Codlin, glancing at the
+clock again and pulling his hair with both hands in a kind of frenzy,
+but whether occasioned by his companion's observation or the tardy pace
+of Time, it was difficult to determine.  'Here's a world to live in!'
+
+'I,' repeated Short emphatically and slowly, 'am not a-going to stand
+it.  I am not a-going to see this fair young child a falling into bad
+hands, and getting among people that she's no more fit for, than they
+are to get among angels as their ordinary chums.  Therefore when they
+dewelope an intention of parting company from us, I shall take measures
+for detaining of 'em, and restoring 'em to their friends, who I dare
+say have had their disconsolation pasted up on every wall in London by
+this time.'
+
+'Short,' said Mr Codlin, who with his head upon his hands, and his
+elbows on his knees, had been shaking himself impatiently from side to
+side up to this point and occasionally stamping on the ground, but who
+now looked up with eager eyes; 'it's possible that there may be
+uncommon good sense in what you've said.  If there is, and there should
+be a reward, Short, remember that we're partners in everything!'
+
+His companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this position, for
+the child awoke at the instant.  They had drawn close together during
+the previous whispering, and now hastily separated and were rather
+awkwardly endeavouring to exchange some casual remarks in their usual
+tone, when strange footsteps were heard without, and fresh company
+entered.
+
+These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in
+one after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly
+mournful aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had got
+as far as the door, erected himself upon his hind legs and looked round
+at his companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs, in a
+grave and melancholy row.  Nor was this the only remarkable
+circumstance about these dogs, for each of them wore a kind of little
+coat of some gaudy colour trimmed with tarnished spangles, and one of
+them had a cap upon his head, tied very carefully under his chin, which
+had fallen down upon his nose and completely obscured one eye; add to
+this, that the gaudy coats were all wet through and discoloured with
+rain, and that the wearers were splashed and dirty, and some idea may
+be formed of the unusual appearance of these new visitors to the Jolly
+Sandboys.
+
+Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in the
+least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry's dogs and that
+Jerry could not be far behind.  So there the dogs stood, patiently
+winking and gaping and looking extremely hard at the boiling pot, until
+Jerry himself appeared, when they all dropped down at once and walked
+about the room in their natural manner.  This posture it must be
+confessed did not much improve their appearance, as their own personal
+tails and their coat tails--both capital things in their way--did not
+agree together.
+
+Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-whiskered
+man in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the landlord and his
+guests and accosted them with great cordiality.  Disencumbering himself
+of a barrel organ which he placed upon a chair, and retaining in his
+hand a small whip wherewith to awe his company of comedians, he came up
+to the fire to dry himself, and entered into conversation.
+
+'Your people don't usually travel in character, do they?' said Short,
+pointing to the dresses of the dogs.  'It must come expensive if they
+do?'
+
+'No,' replied Jerry, 'no, it's not the custom with us.  But we've been
+playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a new
+wardrobe at the races, so I didn't think it worth while to stop to
+undress.  Down, Pedro!'
+
+This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who being a new member
+of the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his unobscured
+eye anxiously on his master, and was perpetually starting upon his hind
+legs when there was no occasion, and falling down again.
+
+'I've got a animal here,' said Jerry, putting his hand into the
+capacious pocket of his coat, and diving into one corner as if he were
+feeling for a small orange or an apple or some such article, 'a animal
+here, wot I think you know something of, Short.'
+
+'Ah!' cried Short, 'let's have a look at him.'
+
+'Here he is,' said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his pocket.
+'He was once a Toby of yours, warn't he!'
+
+In some versions of the great drama of Punch there is a small dog--a
+modern innovation--supposed to be the private property of that
+gentleman, whose name is always Toby.  This Toby has been stolen in
+youth from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the confiding
+hero, who having no guile himself has no suspicion that it lurks in
+others; but Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection of his old
+master, and scorning to attach himself to any new patrons, not only
+refuses to smoke a pipe at the bidding of Punch, but to mark his old
+fidelity more strongly, seizes him by the nose and wrings the same with
+violence, at which instance of canine attachment the spectators are
+deeply affected.  This was the character which the little terrier in
+question had once sustained; if there had been any doubt upon the
+subject he would speedily have resolved it by his conduct; for not only
+did he, on seeing Short, give the strongest tokens of recognition, but
+catching sight of the flat box he barked so furiously at the pasteboard
+nose which he knew was inside, that his master was obliged to gather
+him up and put him into his pocket again, to the great relief of the
+whole company.
+
+The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which process
+Mr Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own knife and fork
+in the most convenient place and establishing himself behind them.
+When everything was ready, the landlord took off the cover for the last
+time, and then indeed there burst forth such a goodly promise of
+supper, that if he had offered to put it on again or had hinted at
+postponement, he would certainly have been sacrificed on his own hearth.
+
+However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead thereof assisted a
+stout servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into a large
+tureen; a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various hot splashes
+which fell upon their noses, watched with terrible eagerness.  At
+length the dish was lifted on the table, and mugs of ale having been
+previously set round, little Nell ventured to say grace, and supper
+began.
+
+At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind legs quite
+surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about to cast some
+morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself, hungry though she
+was, when their master interposed.
+
+'No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody's hand but mine if you
+please.  That dog,' said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the
+troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, 'lost a halfpenny to-day.  He
+goes without his supper.'
+
+The unfortunate creature dropped upon his fore-legs directly, wagged
+his tail, and looked imploringly at his master.
+
+'You must be more careful, Sir,' said Jerry, walking coolly to the
+chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop.  'Come here.
+Now, Sir, you play away at that, while we have supper, and leave off if
+you dare.'
+
+The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music.  His master
+having shown him the whip resumed his seat and called up the others,
+who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright as a file of
+soldiers.
+
+'Now, gentlemen,' said Jerry, looking at them attentively.  'The dog
+whose name's called, eats.  The dogs whose names an't called, keep
+quiet.  Carlo!'
+
+The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel
+thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle.  In this
+manner they were fed at the discretion of their master.  Meanwhile the
+dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick time,
+sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant.  When the
+knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an
+unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short
+howl, but he immediately checked it on his master looking round, and
+applied himself with increased diligence to the Old Hundredth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys two
+more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had been
+walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and heavy with
+water.  One of these was the proprietor of a giant, and a little lady
+without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a van; the other, a
+silent gentleman who earned his living by showing tricks upon the
+cards, and who had rather deranged the natural expression of his
+countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into his eyes and bringing
+them out at his mouth, which was one of his professional
+accomplishments.  The name of the first of these newcomers was Vuffin;
+the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon his ugliness, was called
+Sweet William.  To render them as comfortable as he could, the landlord
+bestirred himself nimbly, and in a very short time both gentlemen were
+perfectly at their ease.
+
+'How's the Giant?' said Short, when they all sat smoking round the fire.
+
+'Rather weak upon his legs,' returned Mr Vuffin.  'I begin to be afraid
+he's going at the knees.'
+
+'That's a bad look-out,' said Short.
+
+'Aye!  Bad indeed,' replied Mr Vuffin, contemplating the fire with a
+sigh.  'Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more
+about him than they do for a dead cabbage stalk.'
+
+'What becomes of old giants?' said Short, turning to him again after a
+little reflection.
+
+'They're usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,' said Mr
+Vuffin.
+
+'The maintaining of 'em must come expensive, when they can't be shown,
+eh?' remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.
+
+'It's better that, than letting 'em go upon the parish or about the
+streets,' said Mr Vuffin.  'Once make a giant common and giants will
+never draw again.  Look at wooden legs.  If there was only one man with
+a wooden leg what a property he'd be!'
+
+'So he would!' observed the landlord and Short both together.  'That's
+very true.'
+
+'Instead of which,' pursued Mr Vuffin, 'if you was to advertise
+Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs, it's my belief you wouldn't
+draw a sixpence.'
+
+'I don't suppose you would,' said Short.  And the landlord said so too.
+
+'This shows, you see,' said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an
+argumentative air, 'this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants
+still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all
+their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop there.  There
+was one giant--a black 'un--as left his carawan some year ago and took
+to carrying coach-bills about London, making himself as cheap as
+crossing-sweepers.  He died.  I make no insinuation against anybody in
+particular,' said Mr Vuffin, looking solemnly round, 'but he was
+ruining the trade;--and he died.'
+
+The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the dogs,
+who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered.
+
+'I know you do, Jerry,' said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning.  'I know
+you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served
+him right.  Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had
+three-and-twenty wans--I remember the time when old Maunders had in his
+cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season was over,
+eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was
+waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton
+stockings, and high-lows: and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly
+and wicious who whenever his giant wasn't quick enough to please him,
+used to stick pins in his legs, not being able to reach up any higher.
+I know that's a fact, for Maunders told it me himself.'
+
+'What about the dwarfs when they get old?' inquired the landlord.
+
+'The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,' returned Mr Vuffin; 'a
+grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion.  But a giant
+weak in the legs and not standing upright!--keep him in the carawan,
+but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be
+offered.'
+
+While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the
+time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm
+corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth of halfpence
+for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other
+feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to
+the company, who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed.  At length
+the weary child prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they
+withdrew, leaving the company yet seated round the fire, and the dogs
+fast asleep at a humble distance.
+
+After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor garret,
+but had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped at.  She
+opened it directly, and was a little startled by the sight of Mr Thomas
+Codlin, whom she had left, to all appearance, fast asleep down stairs.
+
+'What is the matter?' said the child.
+
+'Nothing's the matter, my dear,' returned her visitor.  'I'm your
+friend.  Perhaps you haven't thought so, but it's me that's your
+friend--not him.'
+
+'Not who?' the child inquired.
+
+'Short, my dear.  I tell you what,' said Codlin, 'for all his having a
+kind of way with him that you'd be very apt to like, I'm the real,
+open-hearted man.  I mayn't look it, but I am indeed.'
+
+The child began to be alarmed, considering that the ale had taken
+effect upon Mr Codlin, and that this commendation of himself was the
+consequence.
+
+'Short's very well, and seems kind,' resumed the misanthrope, 'but he
+overdoes it.  Now I don't.'
+
+Certainly if there were any fault in Mr Codlin's usual deportment, it
+was that he rather underdid his kindness to those about him, than
+overdid it.  But the child was puzzled, and could not tell what to say.
+
+'Take my advice,' said Codlin: 'don't ask me why, but take it.  As long
+as you travel with us, keep as near me as you can.  Don't offer to
+leave us--not on any account--but always stick to me and say that I'm
+your friend.  Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and always say that
+it was me that was your friend?'
+
+'Say so where--and when?' inquired the child innocently.
+
+'O, nowhere in particular,' replied Codlin, a little put out as it
+seemed by the question; 'I'm only anxious that you should think me so,
+and do me justice.  You can't think what an interest I have in you.
+Why didn't you tell me your little history--that about you and the poor
+old gentleman?  I'm the best adviser that ever was, and so interested
+in you--so much more interested than Short.  I think they're breaking
+up down stairs; you needn't tell Short, you know, that we've had this
+little talk together.  God bless you.  Recollect the friend.  Codlin's
+the friend, not Short.  Short's very well as far as he goes, but the
+real friend is Codlin--not Short.'
+
+Eking out these professions with a number of benevolent and protecting
+looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole away on tiptoe,
+leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise.  She was still
+ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor of the crazy
+stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the other travellers
+who were passing to their beds.  When they had all passed, and the
+sound of their footsteps had died away, one of them returned, and after
+a little hesitation and rustling in the passage, as if he were doubtful
+what door to knock at, knocked at hers.
+
+'Yes,' said the child from within.
+
+'It's me--Short'--a voice called through the keyhole.  'I only wanted
+to say that we must be off early to-morrow morning, my dear, because
+unless we get the start of the dogs and the conjuror, the villages
+won't be worth a penny.  You'll be sure to be stirring early and go
+with us?  I'll call you.'
+
+The child answered in the affirmative, and returning his 'good night'
+heard him creep away.  She felt some uneasiness at the anxiety of these
+men, increased by the recollection of their whispering together down
+stairs and their slight confusion when she awoke, nor was she quite
+free from a misgiving that they were not the fittest companions she
+could have stumbled on.  Her uneasiness, however, was nothing, weighed
+against her fatigue; and she soon forgot it in sleep.
+
+Very early next morning, Short fulfilled his promise, and knocking
+softly at her door, entreated that she would get up directly, as the
+proprietor of the dogs was still snoring, and if they lost no time they
+might get a good deal in advance both of him and the conjuror, who was
+talking in his sleep, and from what he could be heard to say, appeared
+to be balancing a donkey in his dreams.  She started from her bed
+without delay, and roused the old man with so much expedition that they
+were both ready as soon as Short himself, to that gentleman's
+unspeakable gratification and relief.
+
+After a very unceremonious and scrambling breakfast, of which the
+staple commodities were bacon and bread, and beer, they took leave of
+the landlord and issued from the door of the jolly Sandboys.  The
+morning was fine and warm, the ground cool to the feet after the late
+rain, the hedges gayer and more green, the air clear, and everything
+fresh and healthful.  Surrounded by these influences, they walked on
+pleasantly enough.
+
+They had not gone very far, when the child was again struck by the
+altered behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on
+sulkily by himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her, and
+when he had an opportunity of looking at her unseen by his companion,
+warned her by certain wry faces and jerks of the head not to put any
+trust in Short, but to reserve all confidences for Codlin.  Neither did
+he confine himself to looks and gestures, for when she and her
+grandfather were walking on beside the aforesaid Short, and that little
+man was talking with his accustomed cheerfulness on a variety of
+indifferent subjects, Thomas Codlin testified his jealousy and distrust
+by following close at her heels, and occasionally admonishing her
+ankles with the legs of the theatre in a very abrupt and painful manner.
+
+All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and
+suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to perform
+outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while he went
+through his share of the entertainments kept his eye steadily upon her
+and the old man, or with a show of great friendship and consideration
+invited the latter to lean upon his arm, and so held him tight until
+the representation was over and they again went forward.  Even Short
+seemed to change in this respect, and to mingle with his good-nature
+something of a desire to keep them in safe custody.  This increased the
+child's misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy.
+
+Meanwhile, they were drawing near the town where the races were to
+begin next day; for, from passing numerous groups of gipsies and
+trampers on the road, wending their way towards it, and straggling out
+from every by-way and cross-country lane, they gradually fell into a
+stream of people, some walking by the side of covered carts, others
+with horses, others with donkeys, others toiling on with heavy loads
+upon their backs, but all tending to the same point.  The public-houses
+by the wayside, from being empty and noiseless as those in the remoter
+parts had been, now sent out boisterous shouts and clouds of smoke;
+and, from the misty windows, clusters of broad red faces looked down
+upon the road.  On every piece of waste or common ground, some small
+gambler drove his noisy trade, and bellowed to the idle passersby to
+stop and try their chance; the crowd grew thicker and more noisy; gilt
+gingerbread in blanket-stalls exposed its glories to the dust; and
+often a four-horse carriage, dashing by, obscured all objects in the
+gritty cloud it raised, and left them, stunned and blinded, far behind.
+
+It was dark before they reached the town itself, and long indeed the
+few last miles had been.  Here all was tumult and confusion; the
+streets were filled with throngs of people--many strangers were there,
+it seemed, by the looks they cast about--the church-bells rang out
+their noisy peals, and flags streamed from windows and house-tops.  In
+the large inn-yards waiters flitted to and fro and ran against each
+other, horses clattered on the uneven stones, carriage steps fell
+rattling down, and sickening smells from many dinners came in a heavy
+lukewarm breath upon the sense.  In the smaller public-houses, fiddles
+with all their might and main were squeaking out the tune to staggering
+feet; drunken men, oblivious of the burden of their song, joined in a
+senseless howl, which drowned the tinkling of the feeble bell and made
+them savage for their drink; vagabond groups assembled round the doors
+to see the stroller woman dance, and add their uproar to the shrill
+flageolet and deafening drum.
+
+Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by all
+she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her conductor,
+and trembling lest in the press she should be separated from him and
+left to find her way alone.  Quickening their steps to get clear of all
+the roar and riot, they at length passed through the town and made for
+the race-course, which was upon an open heath, situated on an eminence,
+a full mile distant from its furthest bounds.
+
+Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or best
+clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground, and
+hurrying to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath--although
+there were tired children cradled on heaps of straw between the wheels
+of carts, crying themselves to sleep--and poor lean horses and donkeys
+just turned loose, grazing among the men and women, and pots and
+kettles, and half-lighted fires, and ends of candles flaring and
+wasting in the air--for all this, the child felt it an escape from the
+town and drew her breath more freely.  After a scanty supper, the
+purchase of which reduced her little stock so low, that she had only a
+few halfpence with which to buy a breakfast on the morrow, she and the
+old man lay down to rest in a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the
+busy preparations that were going on around them all night long.
+
+And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread.  Soon
+after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, and rambling
+into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses and such
+humble flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays and offer
+them to the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived.  Her
+thoughts were not idle while she was thus employed; when she returned
+and was seated beside the old man in one corner of the tent, tying her
+flowers together, while the two men lay dozing in another corner, she
+plucked him by the sleeve, and slightly glancing towards them, said, in
+a low voice--
+
+'Grandfather, don't look at those I talk of, and don't seem as if I
+spoke of anything but what I am about.  What was that you told me
+before we left the old house?  That if they knew what we were going to
+do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?'
+
+The old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she
+checked him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she tied
+them up, and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said--
+
+'I know that was what you told me.  You needn't speak, dear.  I
+recollect it very well.  It was not likely that I should forget it.
+Grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our friends,
+and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us taken care of
+and sent back.  If you let your hand tremble so, we can never get away
+from them, but if you're only quiet now, we shall do so, easily.'
+
+'How?' muttered the old man.  'Dear Nelly, how?  They will shut me up
+in a stone room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell--flog
+me with whips, and never let me see thee more!'
+
+'You're trembling again,' said the child.  'Keep close to me all day.
+Never mind them, don't look at them, but me.  I shall find a time when
+we can steal away.  When I do, mind you come with me, and do not stop
+or speak a word.  Hush!  That's all.'
+
+'Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?' said Mr Codlin, raising his
+head, and yawning.  Then observing that his companion was fast asleep,
+he added in an earnest whisper, 'Codlin's the friend, remember--not
+Short.'
+
+'Making some nosegays,' the child replied; 'I am going to try and sell
+some, these three days of the races.  Will you have one--as a present I
+mean?'
+
+Mr Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards
+him and placed it in his hand.  He stuck it in his buttonhole with an
+air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly
+at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, 'Tom
+Codlin's the friend, by G--!'
+
+As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a gayer and more brilliant
+appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling softly on the
+turf.  Men who had lounged about all night in smock-frocks and leather
+leggings, came out in silken vests and hats and plumes, as jugglers or
+mountebanks; or in gorgeous liveries as soft-spoken servants at
+gambling booths; or in sturdy yeoman dress as decoys at unlawful games.
+Black-eyed gipsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to
+tell fortunes, and pale slender women with consumptive faces lingered
+upon the footsteps of ventriloquists and conjurors, and counted the
+sixpences with anxious eyes long before they were gained.  As many of
+the children as could be kept within bounds, were stowed away, with all
+the other signs of dirt and poverty, among the donkeys, carts, and
+horses; and as many as could not be thus disposed of ran in and out in
+all intricate spots, crept between people's legs and carriage wheels,
+and came forth unharmed from under horses' hoofs.  The dancing-dogs,
+the stilts, the little lady and the tall man, and all the other
+attractions, with organs out of number and bands innumerable, emerged
+from the holes and corners in which they had passed the night, and
+flourished boldly in the sun.
+
+Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen
+trumpet and revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went
+Thomas Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on Nelly
+and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear.  The child
+bore upon her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes
+stopped, with timid and modest looks, to offer them at some gay
+carriage; but alas! there were many bolder beggars there, gipsies who
+promised husbands, and other adepts in their trade, and although some
+ladies smiled gently as they shook their heads, and others cried to the
+gentlemen beside them 'See, what a pretty face!' they let the pretty
+face pass on, and never thought that it looked tired or hungry.
+
+There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she was
+one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men in
+dashing clothes, who had just dismounted from it, talked and laughed
+loudly at a little distance, appearing to forget her, quite.  There
+were many ladies all around, but they turned their backs, or looked
+another way, or at the two young men (not unfavourably at them), and
+left her to herself.  She motioned away a gipsy-woman urgent to tell
+her fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some
+years, but called the child towards her, and taking her flowers put
+money into her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at home
+for God's sake.
+
+Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing
+everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang to clear the
+course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not coming
+out again until the heat was over.  Many a time, too, was Punch
+displayed in the full zenith of his humour, but all this while the eye
+of Thomas Codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice was
+impracticable.
+
+At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a convenient
+spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene.
+The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, had been
+thinking how strange it was that horses who were such fine honest
+creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men they drew about
+them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous witticism of Mr Short's,
+having allusion to the circumstances of the day, roused her from her
+meditation and caused her to look around.
+
+If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment.  Short
+was plying the quarter-staves vigorously and knocking the characters in
+the fury of the combat against the sides of the show, the people were
+looking on with laughing faces, and Mr Codlin had relaxed into a grim
+smile as his roving eye detected hands going into waistcoat pockets and
+groping secretly for sixpences.  If they were ever to get away unseen,
+that was the very moment.  They seized it, and fled.
+
+They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of people,
+and never once stopped to look behind.  The bell was ringing and the
+course was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but they dashed
+across it insensible to the shouts and screeching that assailed them
+for breaking in upon its sanctity, and creeping under the brow of the
+hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+Day after day as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some new
+effort to procure employment, Kit raised his eyes to the window of the
+little room he had so much commended to the child, and hoped to see
+some indication of her presence.  His own earnest wish, coupled with
+the assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him with the belief
+that she would yet arrive to claim the humble shelter he had offered,
+and from the death of each day's hope another hope sprung up to live
+to-morrow.
+
+'I think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh mother?' said Kit,
+laying aside his hat with a weary air and sighing as he spoke.  'They
+have been gone a week.  They surely couldn't stop away more than a
+week, could they now?'
+
+The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been
+disappointed already.
+
+'For the matter of that,' said Kit, 'you speak true and sensible
+enough, as you always do, mother.  Still, I do consider that a week is
+quite long enough for 'em to be rambling about; don't you say so?'
+
+'Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come back
+for all that.'
+
+Kit was for a moment disposed to be vexed by this contradiction, and
+not the less so from having anticipated it in his own mind and knowing
+how just it was.  But the impulse was only momentary, and the vexed
+look became a kind one before it had crossed the room.
+
+'Then what do you think, mother, has become of 'em?  You don't think
+they've gone to sea, anyhow?'
+
+'Not gone for sailors, certainly,' returned the mother with a smile.
+'But I can't help thinking that they have gone to some foreign country.'
+
+'I say,' cried Kit with a rueful face, 'don't talk like that, mother.'
+
+'I am afraid they have, and that's the truth,' she said.  'It's the
+talk of all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of their
+having been seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of the place
+they've gone to, which is more than I can, my dear, for it's a very
+hard one.'
+
+'I don't believe it,' said Kit.  'Not a word of it.  A set of idle
+chatterboxes, how should they know!'
+
+'They may be wrong of course,' returned the mother, 'I can't tell about
+that, though I don't think it's at all unlikely that they're in the
+right, for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a little money
+that nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you talk to me
+about--what's his name--Quilp; and that he and Miss Nell have gone to
+live abroad where it can't be taken from them, and they will never be
+disturbed.  That don't seem very far out of the way now, do it?'
+
+Kit scratched his head mournfully, in reluctant admission that it did
+not, and clambering up to the old nail took down the cage and set
+himself to clean it and to feed the bird.  His thoughts reverting from
+this occupation to the little old gentleman who had given him the
+shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the very day--nay,
+nearly the very hour--at which the little old gentleman had said he
+should be at the Notary's house again.  He no sooner remembered this,
+than he hung up the cage with great precipitation, and hastily
+explaining the nature of his errand, went off at full speed to the
+appointed place.
+
+It was some two minutes after the time when he reached the spot, which
+was a considerable distance from his home, but by great good luck the
+little old gentleman had not yet arrived; at least there was no
+pony-chaise to be seen, and it was not likely that he had come and gone
+again in so short a space.  Greatly relieved to find that he was not
+too late, Kit leant against a lamp-post to take breath, and waited the
+advent of the pony and his charge.
+
+Sure enough, before long the pony came trotting round the corner of the
+street, looking as obstinate as pony might, and picking his steps as if
+he were spying about for the cleanest places, and would by no means
+dirty his feet or hurry himself inconveniently.  Behind the pony sat
+the little old gentleman, and by the old gentleman's side sat the
+little old lady, carrying just such a nosegay as she had brought before.
+
+The old gentleman, the old lady, the pony, and the chaise, came up the
+street in perfect unanimity, until they arrived within some half a
+dozen doors of the Notary's house, when the pony, deceived by a
+brass-plate beneath a tailor's knocker, came to a halt, and maintained
+by a sturdy silence, that that was the house they wanted.
+
+'Now, Sir, will you ha' the goodness to go on; this is not the place,'
+said the old gentleman.
+
+The pony looked with great attention into a fire-plug which was near
+him, and appeared to be quite absorbed in contemplating it.
+
+'Oh dear, such a naughty Whisker!' cried the old lady.  'After being so
+good too, and coming along so well!  I am quite ashamed of him.  I
+don't know what we are to do with him, I really don't.'
+
+The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and
+properties of the fire-plug, looked into the air after his old enemies
+the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling his ear at
+that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail, after which he
+appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and collected.  The old
+gentleman having exhausted his powers of persuasion, alighted to lead
+him; whereupon the pony, perhaps because he held this to be a
+sufficient concession, perhaps because he happened to catch sight of
+the other brass-plate, or perhaps because he was in a spiteful humour,
+darted off with the old lady and stopped at the right house, leaving
+the old gentleman to come panting on behind.
+
+It was then that Kit presented himself at the pony's head, and touched
+his hat with a smile.
+
+'Why, bless me,' cried the old gentleman, 'the lad is here!  My dear,
+do you see?'
+
+'I said I'd be here, Sir,' said Kit, patting Whisker's neck.  'I hope
+you've had a pleasant ride, sir.  He's a very nice little pony.'
+
+'My dear,' said the old gentleman.  'This is an uncommon lad; a good
+lad, I'm sure.'
+
+'I'm sure he is,' rejoined the old lady.  'A very good lad, and I am
+sure he is a good son.'
+
+Kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his hat
+again and blushing very much.  The old gentleman then handed the old
+lady out, and after looking at him with an approving smile, they went
+into the house--talking about him as they went, Kit could not help
+feeling.  Presently Mr Witherden, smelling very hard at the nosegay,
+came to the window and looked at him, and after that Mr Abel came and
+looked at him, and after that the old gentleman and lady came and
+looked at him again, and after that they all came and looked at him
+together, which Kit, feeling very much embarrassed by, made a pretence
+of not observing.  Therefore he patted the pony more and more; and this
+liberty the pony most handsomely permitted.
+
+The faces had not disappeared from the window many moments, when Mr
+Chuckster in his official coat, and with his hat hanging on his head
+just as it happened to fall from its peg, appeared upon the pavement,
+and telling him he was wanted inside, bade him go in and he would mind
+the chaise the while.  In giving him this direction Mr Chuckster
+remarked that he wished that he might be blessed if he could make out
+whether he (Kit) was 'precious raw' or 'precious deep,' but intimated
+by a distrustful shake of the head, that he inclined to the latter
+opinion.
+
+Kit entered the office in a great tremor, for he was not used to going
+among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and bundles of
+dusty papers had in his eyes an awful and venerable air.  Mr Witherden
+too was a bustling gentleman who talked loud and fast, and all eyes
+were upon him, and he was very shabby.
+
+'Well, boy,' said Mr Witherden, 'you came to work out that
+shilling;--not to get another, hey?'
+
+'No indeed, sir,' replied Kit, taking courage to look up.  'I never
+thought of such a thing.'
+
+'Father alive?' said the Notary.
+
+'Dead, sir.'
+
+'Mother?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Married again--eh?'
+
+Kit made answer, not without some indignation, that she was a widow
+with three children, and that as to her marrying again, if the
+gentleman knew her he wouldn't think of such a thing.  At this reply Mr
+Witherden buried his nose in the flowers again, and whispered behind
+the nosegay to the old gentleman that he believed the lad was as honest
+a lad as need be.
+
+'Now,' said Mr Garland when they had made some further inquiries of
+him, 'I am not going to give you anything--'
+
+'Thank you, sir,' Kit replied; and quite seriously too, for this
+announcement seemed to free him from the suspicion which the Notary had
+hinted.
+
+'--But,' resumed the old gentleman, 'perhaps I may want to know
+something more about you, so tell me where you live, and I'll put it
+down in my pocket-book.'
+
+Kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his
+pencil.  He had scarcely done so, when there was a great uproar in the
+street, and the old lady hurrying to the window cried that Whisker had
+run away, upon which Kit darted out to the rescue, and the others
+followed.
+
+It seemed that Mr Chuckster had been standing with his hands in his
+pockets looking carelessly at the pony, and occasionally insulting him
+with such admonitions as 'Stand still,'--'Be quiet,'--'Woa-a-a,' and the
+like, which by a pony of spirit cannot be borne.  Consequently, the
+pony being deterred by no considerations of duty or obedience, and not
+having before him the slightest fear of the human eye, had at length
+started off, and was at that moment rattling down the street--Mr
+Chuckster, with his hat off and a pen behind his ear, hanging on in the
+rear of the chaise and making futile attempts to draw it the other way,
+to the unspeakable admiration of all beholders.  Even in running away,
+however, Whisker was perverse, for he had not gone very far when he
+suddenly stopped, and before assistance could be rendered, commenced
+backing at nearly as quick a pace as he had gone forward.  By these
+means Mr Chuckster was pushed and hustled to the office again, in a
+most inglorious manner, and arrived in a state of great exhaustion and
+discomfiture.
+
+The old lady then stepped into her seat, and Mr Abel (whom they had
+come to fetch) into his.  The old gentleman, after reasoning with the
+pony on the extreme impropriety of his conduct, and making the best
+amends in his power to Mr Chuckster, took his place also, and they
+drove away, waving a farewell to the Notary and his clerk, and more
+than once turning to nod kindly to Kit as he watched them from the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+Kit turned away and very soon forgot the pony, and the chaise, and the
+little old lady, and the little old gentleman, and the little young
+gentleman to boot, in thinking what could have become of his late
+master and his lovely grandchild, who were the fountain-head of all his
+meditations.  Still casting about for some plausible means of
+accounting for their non-appearance, and of persuading himself that
+they must soon return, he bent his steps towards home, intending to
+finish the task which the sudden recollection of his contract had
+interrupted, and then to sally forth once more to seek his fortune for
+the day.
+
+When he came to the corner of the court in which he lived, lo and
+behold there was the pony again!  Yes, there he was, looking more
+obstinate than ever; and alone in the chaise, keeping a steady watch
+upon his every wink, sat Mr Abel, who, lifting up his eyes by chance
+and seeing Kit pass by, nodded to him as though he would have nodded
+his head off.
+
+Kit wondered to see the pony again, so near his own home too, but it
+never occurred to him for what purpose the pony might have come there,
+or where the old lady and the old gentleman had gone, until he lifted
+the latch of the door, and walking in, found them seated in the room in
+conversation with his mother, at which unexpected sight he pulled off
+his hat and made his best bow in some confusion.
+
+'We are here before you, you see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland smiling.
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his mother
+for an explanation of the visit.
+
+'The gentleman's been kind enough, my dear,' said she, in reply to this
+mute interrogation, 'to ask me whether you were in a good place, or in
+any place at all, and when I told him no, you were not in any, he was
+so good as to say that--'
+
+'--That we wanted a good lad in our house,' said the old gentleman and
+the old lady both together, 'and that perhaps we might think of it, if
+we found everything as we would wish it to be.'
+
+As this thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit, he
+immediately partook of his mother's anxiety and fell into a great
+flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious,
+and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid there was no
+chance of his success.
+
+'You see, my good woman,' said Mrs Garland to Kit's mother, 'that it's
+necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter as this,
+for we're only three in family, and are very quiet regular folks, and
+it would be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake, and found
+things different from what we hoped and expected.'
+
+To this, Kit's mother replied, that certainly it was quite true, and
+quite right, and quite proper, and Heaven forbid that she should
+shrink, or have cause to shrink, from any inquiry into her character or
+that of her son, who was a very good son though she was his mother, in
+which respect, she was bold to say, he took after his father, who was
+not only a good son to HIS mother, but the best of husbands and the
+best of fathers besides, which Kit could and would corroborate she
+knew, and so would little Jacob and the baby likewise if they were old
+enough, which unfortunately they were not, though as they didn't know
+what a loss they had had, perhaps it was a great deal better that they
+should be as young as they were; and so Kit's mother wound up a long
+story by wiping her eyes with her apron, and patting little Jacob's
+head, who was rocking the cradle and staring with all his might at the
+strange lady and gentleman.
+
+When Kit's mother had done speaking, the old lady struck in again, and
+said that she was quite sure she was a very honest and very respectable
+person or she never would have expressed herself in that manner, and
+that certainly the appearance of the children and the cleanliness of
+the house deserved great praise and did her the utmost credit, whereat
+Kit's mother dropped a curtsey and became consoled.  Then the good
+woman entered in a long and minute account of Kit's life and history
+from the earliest period down to that time, not omitting to make
+mention of his miraculous fall out of a back-parlour window when an
+infant of tender years, or his uncommon sufferings in a state of
+measles, which were illustrated by correct imitations of the plaintive
+manner in which he called for toast and water, day and night, and said,
+'don't cry, mother, I shall soon be better;' for proof of which
+statements reference was made to Mrs Green, lodger, at the
+cheesemonger's round the corner, and divers other ladies and gentlemen
+in various parts of England and Wales (and one Mr Brown who was
+supposed to be then a corporal in the East Indies, and who could of
+course be found with very little trouble), within whose personal
+knowledge the circumstances had occurred.  This narration ended, Mr
+Garland put some questions to Kit respecting his qualifications and
+general acquirements, while Mrs Garland noticed the children, and
+hearing from Kit's mother certain remarkable circumstances which had
+attended the birth of each, related certain other remarkable
+circumstances which had attended the birth of her own son, Mr Abel,
+from which it appeared that both Kit's mother and herself had been,
+above and beyond all other women of what condition or age soever,
+peculiarly hemmed in with perils and dangers.  Lastly, inquiry was made
+into the nature and extent of Kit's wardrobe, and a small advance being
+made to improve the same, he was formally hired at an annual income of
+Six Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by Mr and Mrs
+Garland, of Abel Cottage, Finchley.
+
+It would be difficult to say which party appeared most pleased with
+this arrangement, the conclusion of which was hailed with nothing but
+pleasant looks and cheerful smiles on both sides.  It was settled that
+Kit should repair to his new abode on the next day but one, in the
+morning; and finally, the little old couple, after bestowing a bright
+half-crown on little Jacob and another on the baby, took their leaves;
+being escorted as far as the street by their new attendant, who held
+the obdurate pony by the bridle while they took their seats, and saw
+them drive away with a lightened heart.
+
+'Well, mother,' said Kit, hurrying back into the house, 'I think my
+fortune's about made now.'
+
+'I should think it was indeed, Kit,' rejoined his mother.  'Six pound a
+year!  Only think!'
+
+'Ah!' said Kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the consideration
+of such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in spite of himself.
+'There's a property!'
+
+Kit drew a long breath when he had said this, and putting his hands
+deep into his pockets as if there were one year's wages at least in
+each, looked at his mother, as though he saw through her, and down an
+immense perspective of sovereigns beyond.
+
+'Please God we'll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such a
+scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the one up
+stairs!  Six pound a year!'
+
+'Hem!' croaked a strange voice.  'What's that about six pound a year?
+What about six pound a year?'  And as the voice made this inquiry,
+Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his heels.
+
+'Who said he was to have six pound a year?' said Quilp, looking sharply
+round.  'Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it?  And what's
+he to have it for, and where are they, eh!'
+
+The good woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this
+unknown piece of ugliness, that she hastily caught the baby from its
+cradle and retreated into the furthest corner of the room; while little
+Jacob, sitting upon his stool with his hands on his knees, looked full
+at him in a species of fascination, roaring lustily all the time.
+Richard Swiveller took an easy observation of the family over Mr Quilp's
+head, and Quilp himself, with his hands in his pockets, smiled in an
+exquisite enjoyment of the commotion he occasioned.
+
+'Don't be frightened, mistress,' said Quilp, after a pause.  'Your son
+knows me; I don't eat babies; I don't like 'em.  It will be as well to
+stop that young screamer though, in case I should be tempted to do him
+a mischief.  Holloa, sir!  Will you be quiet?'
+
+Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing out
+of his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror.
+
+'Mind you don't break out again, you villain,' said Quilp, looking
+sternly at him, 'or I'll make faces at you and throw you into fits, I
+will.  Now you sir, why haven't you been to me as you promised?'
+
+'What should I come for?' retorted Kit.  'I hadn't any business with
+you, no more than you had with me.'
+
+'Here, mistress,' said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from
+Kit to his mother.  'When did his old master come or send here last?
+Is he here now?  If not, where's he gone?'
+
+'He has not been here at all,' she replied.  'I wish we knew where they
+have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his mind, and
+me too.  If you're the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should have thought
+you'd have known, and so I told him only this very day.'
+
+'Humph!' muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that this
+was true.  'That's what you tell this gentleman too, is it?'
+
+'If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can't tell him
+anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,' was
+the reply.
+
+Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met him on
+the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some
+intelligence of the fugitives.  He supposed he was right?
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, 'that was the object of the present expedition.  I
+fancied it possible--but let us go ring fancy's knell.  I'll begin it.'
+
+'You seem disappointed,' observed Quilp.
+
+'A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that's all,' returned Dick.  'I have
+entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being of
+brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs's altar.
+That's all, sir.'
+
+The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had
+been taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not, and
+continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks.
+Quilp plainly discerned that there was some secret reason for this
+visit and his uncommon disappointment, and, in the hope that there
+might be means of mischief lurking beneath it, resolved to worm it out.
+He had no sooner adopted this resolution, than he conveyed as much
+honesty into his face as it was capable of expressing, and sympathised
+with Mr Swiveller exceedingly.
+
+'I am disappointed myself,' said Quilp, 'out of mere friendly feeling
+for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have no doubt,
+for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier than mine.'
+
+'Why, of course it does,' Dick observed, testily.
+
+'Upon my word, I'm very sorry, very sorry.  I'm rather cast down
+myself.  As we are companions in adversity, shall we be companions in
+the surest way of forgetting it?  If you had no particular business,
+now, to lead you in another direction,' urged Quilp, plucking him by
+the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out of the corners of his
+eyes, 'there is a house by the water-side where they have some of the
+noblest Schiedam--reputed to be smuggled, but that's between
+ourselves--that can be got in all the world.  The landlord knows me.
+There's a little summer-house overlooking the river, where we might
+take a glass of this delicious liquor with a whiff of the best
+tobacco--it's in this case, and of the rarest quality, to my certain
+knowledge--and be perfectly snug and happy, could we possibly contrive
+it; or is there any very particular engagement that peremptorily takes
+you another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?'
+
+As the dwarf spoke, Dick's face relaxed into a compliant smile, and his
+brows slowly unbent.  By the time he had finished, Dick was looking
+down at Quilp in the same sly manner as Quilp was looking up at him,
+and there remained nothing more to be done but to set out for the house
+in question.  This they did, straightway.  The moment their backs were
+turned, little Jacob thawed, and resumed his crying from the point
+where Quilp had frozen him.
+
+The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box,
+rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river's mud, and threatened
+to slide down into it.  The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy
+building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by great
+bars of wood which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up
+so long that even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and
+of a windy night might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole
+fabric were about to come toppling down.  The house stood--if anything
+so old and feeble could be said to stand--on a piece of waste ground,
+blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing
+the clank of iron wheels and rush of troubled water.  Its internal
+accommodations amply fulfilled the promise of the outside.  The rooms
+were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes,
+the rotten floors had sunk from their level, the very beams started
+from their places and warned the timid stranger from their
+neighbourhood.
+
+To this inviting spot, entreating him to observe its beauties as they
+passed along, Mr Quilp led Richard Swiveller, and on the table of the
+summer-house, scored deep with many a gallows and initial letter, there
+soon appeared a wooden keg, full of the vaunted liquor.  Drawing it off
+into the glasses with the skill of a practised hand, and mixing it with
+about a third part of water, Mr Quilp assigned to Richard Swiveller his
+portion, and lighting his pipe from an end of a candle in a very old
+and battered lantern, drew himself together upon a seat and puffed away.
+
+'Is it good?' said Quilp, as Richard Swiveller smacked his lips, 'is it
+strong and fiery?  Does it make you wink, and choke, and your eyes
+water, and your breath come short--does it?'
+
+'Does it?' cried Dick, throwing away part of the contents of his glass,
+and filling it up with water, 'why, man, you don't mean to tell me that
+you drink such fire as this?'
+
+'No!' rejoined Quilp, 'Not drink it!  Look here.  And here.  And here
+again.  Not drink it!'
+
+As he spoke, Daniel Quilp drew off and drank three small glassfuls of
+the raw spirit, and then with a horrible grimace took a great many
+pulls at his pipe, and swallowing the smoke, discharged it in a heavy
+cloud from his nose.  This feat accomplished he drew himself together
+in his former position, and laughed excessively.
+
+'Give us a toast!' cried Quilp, rattling on the table in a dexterous
+manner with his fist and elbow alternately, in a kind of tune, 'a
+woman, a beauty.  Let's have a beauty for our toast and empty our
+glasses to the last drop.  Her name, come!'
+
+'If you want a name,' said Dick, 'here's Sophy Wackles.'
+
+'Sophy Wackles,' screamed the dwarf, 'Miss Sophy Wackles that is--Mrs
+Richard Swiveller that shall be--that shall be--ha ha ha!'
+
+'Ah!' said Dick, 'you might have said that a few weeks ago, but it
+won't do now, my buck.  Immolating herself upon the shrine of Cheggs--'
+
+'Poison Cheggs, cut Cheggs's ears off,' rejoined Quilp.  'I won't hear
+of Cheggs.  Her name is Swiveller or nothing.  I'll drink her health
+again, and her father's, and her mother's; and to all her sisters and
+brothers--the glorious family of the Wackleses--all the Wackleses in
+one glass--down with it to the dregs!'
+
+'Well,' said Richard Swiveller, stopping short in the act of raising
+the glass to his lips and looking at the dwarf in a species of stupor
+as he flourished his arms and legs about: 'you're a jolly fellow, but
+of all the jolly fellows I ever saw or heard of, you have the queerest
+and most extraordinary way with you, upon my life you have.'
+
+This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr
+Quilp's eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see him in
+such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself, for
+company--began imperceptibly to become more companionable and
+confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew at
+last very confiding indeed.  Having once got him into this mood, and
+knowing now the key-note to strike whenever he was at a loss, Daniel
+Quilp's task was comparatively an easy one, and he was soon in
+possession of the whole details of the scheme contrived between the
+easy Dick and his more designing friend.
+
+'Stop!' said Quilp.  'That's the thing, that's the thing.  It can be
+brought about, it shall be brought about.  There's my hand upon it; I
+am your friend from this minute.'
+
+'What! do you think there's still a chance?' inquired Dick, in surprise
+at this encouragement.
+
+'A chance!' echoed the dwarf, 'a certainty!  Sophy Wackles may become a
+Cheggs or anything else she likes, but not a Swiveller.  Oh you lucky
+dog!  He's richer than any Jew alive; you're a made man.  I see in you
+now nothing but Nelly's husband, rolling in gold and silver.  I'll help
+you.  It shall be done.  Mind my words, it shall be done.'
+
+'But how?' said Dick.
+
+'There's plenty of time,' rejoined the dwarf, 'and it shall be done.
+We'll sit down and talk it over again all the way through.  Fill your
+glass while I'm gone.  I shall be back directly--directly.'
+
+With these hasty words, Daniel Quilp withdrew into a dismantled skittle-
+ground behind the public-house, and, throwing himself upon the ground
+actually screamed and rolled about in uncontrollable delight.
+
+'Here's sport!' he cried, 'sport ready to my hand, all invented and
+arranged, and only to be enjoyed.  It was this shallow-pated fellow who
+made my bones ache t'other day, was it?  It was his friend and
+fellow-plotter, Mr Trent, that once made eyes at Mrs Quilp, and leered
+and looked, was it?  After labouring for two or three years in their
+precious scheme, to find that they've got a beggar at last, and one of
+them tied for life.  Ha ha ha!  He shall marry Nell.  He shall have
+her, and I'll be the first man, when the knot's tied hard and fast, to
+tell 'em what they've gained and what I've helped 'em to.  Here will be
+a clearing of old scores, here will be a time to remind 'em what a
+capital friend I was, and how I helped them to the heiress.  Ha ha ha!'
+
+In the height of his ecstasy, Mr Quilp had like to have met with a
+disagreeable check, for rolling very near a broken dog-kennel, there
+leapt forth a large fierce dog, who, but that his chain was of the
+shortest, would have given him a disagreeable salute.  As it was, the
+dwarf remained upon his back in perfect safety, taunting the dog with
+hideous faces, and triumphing over him in his inability to advance
+another inch, though there were not a couple of feet between them.
+
+'Why don't you come and bite me, why don't you come and tear me to
+pieces, you coward?' said Quilp, hissing and worrying the animal till
+he was nearly mad.  'You're afraid, you bully, you're afraid, you know
+you are.'
+
+The dog tore and strained at his chain with starting eyes and furious
+bark, but there the dwarf lay, snapping his fingers with gestures of
+defiance and contempt.  When he had sufficiently recovered from his
+delight, he rose, and with his arms a-kimbo, achieved a kind of
+demon-dance round the kennel, just without the limits of the chain,
+driving the dog quite wild.  Having by this means composed his spirits
+and put himself in a pleasant train, he returned to his unsuspicious
+companion, whom he found looking at the tide with exceeding gravity,
+and thinking of that same gold and silver which Mr Quilp had mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+The remainder of that day and the whole of the next were a busy time
+for the Nubbles family, to whom everything connected with Kit's outfit
+and departure was matter of as great moment as if he had been about to
+penetrate into the interior of Africa, or to take a cruise round the
+world.  It would be difficult to suppose that there ever was a box
+which was opened and shut so many times within four-and-twenty hours,
+as that which contained his wardrobe and necessaries; and certainly
+there never was one which to two small eyes presented such a mine of
+clothing, as this mighty chest with its three shirts and proportionate
+allowance of stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the
+astonished vision of little Jacob.  At last it was conveyed to the
+carrier's, at whose house at Finchley Kit was to find it next day; and
+the box being gone, there remained but two questions for consideration:
+firstly, whether the carrier would lose, or dishonestly feign to lose,
+the box upon the road; secondly, whether Kit's mother perfectly
+understood how to take care of herself in the absence of her son.
+
+'I don't think there's hardly a chance of his really losing it, but
+carriers are under great temptation to pretend they lose things, no
+doubt,' said Mrs Nubbles apprehensively, in reference to the first
+point.
+
+'No doubt about it,' returned Kit, with a serious look; 'upon my word,
+mother, I don't think it was right to trust it to itself.  Somebody
+ought to have gone with it, I'm afraid.'
+
+'We can't help it now,' said his mother; 'but it was foolish and wrong.
+People oughtn't to be tempted.'
+
+Kit inwardly resolved that he would never tempt a carrier any more,
+save with an empty box; and having formed this Christian determination,
+he turned his thoughts to the second question.
+
+'_You_ know you must keep up your spirits, mother, and not be lonesome
+because I'm not at home.  I shall very often be able to look in when I
+come into town I dare say, and I shall send you a letter sometimes, and
+when the quarter comes round, I can get a holiday of course; and then
+see if we don't take little Jacob to the play, and let him know what
+oysters means.'
+
+'I hope plays mayn't be sinful, Kit, but I'm a'most afraid,' said Mrs
+Nubbles.
+
+'I know who has been putting that in your head,' rejoined her son
+disconsolately; 'that's Little Bethel again.  Now I say, mother, pray
+don't take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your
+good-humoured face that has always made home cheerful, turned into a
+grievous one, and the baby trained to look grievous too, and to call
+itself a young sinner (bless its heart) and a child of the devil (which
+is calling its dead father names); if I was to see this, and see little
+Jacob looking grievous likewise, I should so take it to heart that I'm
+sure I should go and list for a soldier, and run my head on purpose
+against the first cannon-ball I saw coming my way.'
+
+'Oh, Kit, don't talk like that.'
+
+'I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me feel very
+wretched and uncomfortable, you'll keep that bow on your bonnet, which
+you'd more than half a mind to pull off last week.  Can you suppose
+there's any harm in looking as cheerful and being as cheerful as our
+poor circumstances will permit?  Do I see anything in the way I'm made,
+which calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap,
+sneaking about as if I couldn't help it, and expressing myself in a
+most unpleasant snuffle?  on the contrary, don't I see every reason why
+I shouldn't?  just hear this!  Ha ha ha!  An't that as nat'ral as
+walking, and as good for the health?  Ha ha ha!  An't that as nat'ral
+as a sheep's bleating, or a pig's grunting, or a horse's neighing, or a
+bird's singing?  Ha ha ha!  Isn't it, mother?'
+
+There was something contagious in Kit's laugh, for his mother, who had
+looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell to
+joining in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew it was
+natural, and to laugh the more.  Kit and his mother, laughing together
+in a pretty loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that there was
+something very jovial and agreeable in progress, was no sooner in its
+mother's arms than it began to kick and laugh, most vigorously.  This
+new illustration of his argument so tickled Kit, that he fell backward
+in his chair in a state of exhaustion, pointing at the baby and shaking
+his sides till he rocked again.  After recovering twice or thrice, and
+as often relapsing, he wiped his eyes and said grace; and a very
+cheerful meal their scanty supper was.
+
+With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen who
+start upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind them,
+would deem within the bounds of probability (if matter so low could be
+herein set down), Kit left the house at an early hour next morning, and
+set out to walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient pride in his
+appearance to have warranted his excommunication from Little Bethel
+from that time forth, if he had ever been one of that mournful
+congregation.
+
+Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it may
+be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat
+of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments
+of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustre of a new
+pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny hat, which on being
+struck anywhere with the knuckles, sounded like a drum.  And in this
+attire, rather wondering that he attracted so little attention, and
+attributing the circumstance to the insensibility of those who got up
+early, he made his way towards Abel Cottage.
+
+Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road, than
+meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his old one,
+on whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit arrived in
+course of time at the carrier's house, where, to the lasting honour of
+human nature, he found the box in safety.  Receiving from the wife of
+this immaculate man, a direction to Mr Garland's, he took the box upon
+his shoulder and repaired thither directly.
+
+To be sure, it was a beautiful little cottage with a thatched roof and
+little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in some of
+the windows, almost as large as pocket-books.  On one side of the house
+was a little stable, just the size for the pony, with a little room
+over it, just the size for Kit.  White curtains were fluttering, and
+birds in cages that looked as bright as if they were made of gold, were
+singing at the windows; plants were arranged on either side of the
+path, and clustered about the door; and the garden was bright with
+flowers in full bloom, which shed a sweet odour all round, and had a
+charming and elegant appearance.  Everything within the house and
+without, seemed to be the perfection of neatness and order.  In the
+garden there was not a weed to be seen, and to judge from some dapper
+gardening-tools, a basket, and a pair of gloves which were lying in one
+of the walks, old Mr Garland had been at work in it that very morning.
+
+Kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, and this a great
+many times before he could make up his mind to turn his head another
+way and ring the bell.  There was abundance of time to look about him
+again though, when he had rung it, for nobody came, so after ringing it
+twice or thrice he sat down upon his box, and waited.
+
+He rang the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came.  But at last,
+as he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants' castles, and
+princesses tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads, and dragons
+bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of the like nature,
+common in story-books to youths of low degree on their first visit to
+strange houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl,
+very tidy, modest, and demure, but very pretty too, appeared.
+
+'I suppose you're Christopher, sir,' said the servant-girl.
+
+Kit got off the box, and said yes, he was.
+
+'I'm afraid you've rung a good many times perhaps,' she rejoined, 'but
+we couldn't hear you, because we've been catching the pony.'
+
+Kit rather wondered what this meant, but as he couldn't stop there,
+asking questions, he shouldered the box again and followed the girl
+into the hall, where through a back-door he descried Mr Garland leading
+Whisker in triumph up the garden, after that self-willed pony had (as
+he afterwards learned) dodged the family round a small paddock in the
+rear, for one hour and three quarters.
+
+The old gentleman received him very kindly and so did the old lady,
+whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his wiping
+his boots on the mat until the soles of his feet burnt again.  He was
+then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his new clothes; and
+when he had been surveyed several times, and had afforded by his
+appearance unlimited satisfaction, he was taken into the stable (where
+the pony received him with uncommon complaisance); and thence into the
+little chamber he had already observed, which was very clean and
+comfortable: and thence into the garden, in which the old gentleman
+told him he would be taught to employ himself, and where he told him,
+besides, what great things he meant to do to make him comfortable, and
+happy, if he found he deserved it.  All these kindnesses, Kit
+acknowledged with various expressions of gratitude, and so many touches
+of the new hat, that the brim suffered considerably.  When the old
+gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise and advice,
+and Kit had said all he had to say in the way of assurance and
+thankfulness, he was handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning
+the little servant-girl (whose name was Barbara) instructed her to take
+him down stairs and give him something to eat and drink, after his walk.
+
+Down stairs, therefore, Kit went; and at the bottom of the stairs there
+was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out of a
+toy-shop window, with everything in it as bright and glowing, and as
+precisely ordered too, as Barbara herself.  And in this kitchen, Kit
+sat himself down at a table as white as a tablecloth, to eat cold meat,
+and drink small ale, and use his knife and fork the more awkwardly,
+because there was an unknown Barbara looking on and observing him.
+
+It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably
+tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very quiet
+life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and uncertain what
+she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be.  When he had sat for
+some little time, attentive to the ticking of the sober clock, he
+ventured to glance curiously at the dresser, and there, among the
+plates and dishes, were Barbara's little work-box with a sliding lid to
+shut in the balls of cotton, and Barbara's prayer-book, and Barbara's
+hymn-book, and Barbara's Bible.  Barbara's little looking-glass hung in
+a good light near the window, and Barbara's bonnet was on a nail behind
+the door.  From all these mute signs and tokens of her presence, he
+naturally glanced at Barbara herself, who sat as mute as they, shelling
+peas into a dish; and just when Kit was looking at her eyelashes and
+wondering--quite in the simplicity of his heart--what colour her eyes
+might be, it perversely happened that Barbara raised her head a little
+to look at him, when both pair of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit
+leant over his plate, and Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme
+confusion at having been detected by the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+Mr Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such was
+the appropriate name of Quilp's choice retreat), after a sinuous and
+corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after stopping
+suddenly and staring about him, then as suddenly running forward for a
+few paces, and as suddenly halting again and shaking his head; doing
+everything with a jerk and nothing by premeditation;--Mr Richard
+Swiveller wending his way homeward after this fashion, which is
+considered by evil-minded men to be symbolical of intoxication, and is
+not held by such persons to denote that state of deep wisdom and
+reflection in which the actor knows himself to be, began to think that
+possibly he had misplaced his confidence and that the dwarf might not
+be precisely the sort of person to whom to entrust a secret of such
+delicacy and importance.  And being led and tempted on by this
+remorseful thought into a condition which the evil-minded class before
+referred to would term the maudlin state or stage of drunkenness, it
+occurred to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the ground, and moan,
+crying aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if he had not been
+an unhappy orphan things had never come to this.
+
+'Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,' said Mr Swiveller,
+bewailing his hard lot, 'cast upon the world in my tenderest period,
+and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can wonder at my
+weakness!  Here's a miserable orphan for you.  Here,' said Mr Swiveller
+raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking sleepily round, 'is a
+miserable orphan!'
+
+'Then,' said somebody hard by, 'let me be a father to you.'
+
+Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance, and,
+looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at last
+perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he observed
+after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and mouth.
+Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with reference to
+a man's face, his legs are usually to be found, he observed that the
+face had a body attached; and when he looked more intently he was
+satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed had been in his
+company all the time, but whom he had some vague idea of having left a
+mile or two behind.
+
+'You have deceived an orphan, Sir,' said Mr Swiveller solemnly.'
+
+'I!  I'm a second father to you,' replied Quilp.
+
+'You my father, Sir!' retorted Dick.  'Being all right myself, Sir, I
+request to be left alone--instantly, Sir.'
+
+'What a funny fellow you are!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Go, Sir,' returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his hand.
+'Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p'r'aps you'll waken, from pleasure's
+dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken.  Will you go, Sir?'
+
+The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced with
+the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement.  But forgetting
+his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to him, he seized
+his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring with an agreeable
+frankness that from that time forth they were brothers in everything
+but personal appearance.  Then he told his secret over again, with the
+addition of being pathetic on the subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave
+Mr Quilp to understand, was the occasion of any slight incoherency he
+might observe in his speech at that moment, which was attributable
+solely to the strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other
+fermented liquor.  And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly
+together.
+
+'I'm as sharp,' said Quilp to him, at parting, 'as sharp as a ferret,
+and as cunning as a weazel.  You bring Trent to me; assure him that I'm
+his friend though I fear he a little distrusts me (I don't know why, I
+have not deserved it); and you've both of you made your fortunes--in
+perspective.'
+
+'That's the worst of it,' returned Dick.  'These fortunes in
+perspective look such a long way off.'
+
+'But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,' said
+Quilp, pressing his arm.  'You'll have no conception of the value of
+your prize until you draw close to it.  Mark that.'
+
+'D'ye think not?' said Dick.
+
+'Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that's better,' returned
+the dwarf.  'You bring Trent to me.  Tell him I am his friend and
+yours--why shouldn't I be?'
+
+'There's no reason why you shouldn't, certainly,' replied Dick, 'and
+perhaps there are a great many why you should--at least there would be
+nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you were a choice
+spirit, but then you know you're not a choice spirit.'
+
+'I not a choice spirit?' cried Quilp.
+
+'Devil a bit, sir,' returned Dick.  'A man of your appearance couldn't
+be.  If you're any spirit at all, sir, you're an evil spirit.  Choice
+spirits,' added Dick, smiting himself on the breast, 'are quite a
+different looking sort of people, you may take your oath of that, sir.'
+
+Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression of
+cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same moment,
+declared that he was an uncommon character and had his warmest esteem.
+With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the best of his way home
+and sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate upon the discovery he
+had made, and exult in the prospect of the rich field of enjoyment and
+reprisal it opened to him.
+
+It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr Swiveller,
+next morning, his head racked by the fumes of the renowned Schiedam,
+repaired to the lodging of his friend Trent (which was in the roof of
+an old house in an old ghostly inn), and recounted by very slow degrees
+what had yesterday taken place between him and Quilp.  Nor was it
+without great surprise and much speculation on Quilp's probable
+motives, nor without many bitter comments on Dick Swiveller's folly,
+that his friend received the tale.
+
+'I don't defend myself, Fred,' said the penitent Richard; 'but the
+fellow has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog, that
+first of all he set me upon thinking whether there was any harm in
+telling him, and while I was thinking, screwed it out of me.  If you
+had seen him drink and smoke, as I did, you couldn't have kept anything
+from him.  He's a Salamander you know, that's what he is.'
+
+Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good
+confidential agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of
+course trustworthy, Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair, and,
+burying his head in his hands, endeavoured to fathom the motives which
+had led Quilp to insinuate himself into Richard Swiveller's
+confidence;--for that the disclosure was of his seeking, and had not
+been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was sufficiently plain from
+Quilp's seeking his company and enticing him away.
+
+The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to obtain
+intelligence of the fugitives.  This, perhaps, as he had not shown any
+previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken suspicion in the
+breast of a creature so jealous and distrustful by nature, setting
+aside any additional impulse to curiosity that he might have derived
+from Dick's incautious manner.  But knowing the scheme they had
+planned, why should he offer to assist it?  This was a question more
+difficult of solution; but as knaves generally overreach themselves by
+imputing their own designs to others, the idea immediately presented
+itself that some circumstances of irritation between Quilp and the old
+man, arising out of their secret transactions and not unconnected
+perhaps with his sudden disappearance, now rendered the former desirous
+of revenging himself upon him by seeking to entrap the sole object of
+his love and anxiety into a connexion of which he knew he had a dread
+and hatred.  As Frederick Trent himself, utterly regardless of his
+sister, had this object at heart, only second to the hope of gain, it
+seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp's main principle of action.
+Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in abetting them,
+which the attainment of their purpose would serve, it was easy to
+believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as there could be no
+doubt of his proving a powerful and useful auxiliary, Trent determined
+to accept his invitation and go to his house that night, and if what he
+said and did confirmed him in the impression he had formed, to let him
+share the labour of their plan, but not the profit.
+
+Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this
+conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his meditations
+as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly satisfied with
+less), and giving him the day to recover himself from his late
+salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr Quilp's house.
+
+Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to be;
+and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs Jiniwin; and
+very sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she was
+affected by the recognition of young Trent.  Mrs Quilp was as innocent
+as her own mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant, which the sight
+of him awakened, but as her husband's glance made her timid and
+confused, and uncertain what to do or what was required of her, Mr
+Quilp did not fail to assign her embarrassment to the cause he had in
+his mind, and while he chuckled at his penetration was secretly
+exasperated by his jealousy.
+
+Nothing of this appeared, however.  On the contrary, Mr Quilp was all
+blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum with
+extraordinary open-heartedness.
+
+'Why, let me see,' said Quilp.  'It must be a matter of nearly two
+years since we were first acquainted.'
+
+'Nearer three, I think,' said Trent.
+
+'Nearer three!' cried Quilp.  'How fast time flies.  Does it seem as
+long as that to you, Mrs Quilp?'
+
+'Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,' was the unfortunate
+reply.
+
+'Oh indeed, ma'am,' thought Quilp, 'you have been pining, have you?
+Very good, ma'am.'
+
+'It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the Mary
+Anne,' said Quilp; 'but yesterday, I declare.  Well, I like a little
+wildness.  I was wild myself once.'
+
+Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink, indicative
+of old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was indignant, and
+could not forbear from remarking under her breath that he might at
+least put off his confessions until his wife was absent; for which act
+of boldness and insubordination Mr Quilp first stared her out of
+countenance and then drank her health ceremoniously.
+
+'I thought you'd come back directly, Fred.  I always thought that,'
+said Quilp setting down his glass.  'And when the Mary Anne returned
+with you on board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart you
+had, and how happy you were in the situation that had been provided for
+you, I was amused--exceedingly amused.  Ha ha ha!'
+
+The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most
+agreeable one that could have been selected for his entertainment; and
+for that reason Quilp pursued it.
+
+'I always will say,' he resumed, 'that when a rich relation having two
+young people--sisters or brothers, or brother and sister--dependent on
+him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts off the other, he
+does wrong.'
+
+The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as
+calmly as if he were discussing some abstract question in which nobody
+present had the slightest personal interest.
+
+'It's very true,' said Quilp, 'that your grandfather urged repeated
+forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but as
+I told him "these are common faults."  "But he's a scoundrel," said he.
+"Granting that," said I (for the sake of argument of course), "a great
+many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels too!" But he wouldn't
+be convinced.'
+
+'I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,' said the young man sarcastically.
+
+'Well, so did I at the time,' returned Quilp, 'but he was always
+obstinate.  He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always
+obstinate and wrong-headed.  Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming
+girl, but you're her brother, Frederick.  You're her brother after all;
+as you told him the last time you met, he can't alter that.'
+
+'He would if he could, confound him for that and all other kindnesses,'
+said the young man impatiently.  'But nothing can come of this subject
+now, and let us have done with it in the Devil's name.'
+
+'Agreed,' returned Quilp, 'agreed on my part readily.  Why have I
+alluded to it?  Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always stood
+your friend.  You little knew who was your friend, and who your foe;
+now did you?  You thought I was against you, and so there has been a
+coolness between us; but it was all on your side, entirely on your
+side.  Let's shake hands again, Fred.'
+
+With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin
+over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short arm
+across the table.  After a moment's hesitation, the young man stretched
+out his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip that for the
+moment stopped the current of the blood within them, and pressing his
+other hand upon his lip and frowning towards the unsuspicious Richard,
+released them and sat down.
+
+This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard
+Swiveller was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his designs
+than he thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf perfectly
+understood their relative position, and fully entered into the
+character of his friend.  It is something to be appreciated, even in
+knavery.  This silent homage to his superior abilities, no less than a
+sense of the power with which the dwarf's quick perception had already
+invested him, inclined the young man towards that ugly worthy, and
+determined him to profit by his aid.
+
+It being now Mr Quilp's cue to change the subject with all convenient
+expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness should reveal
+anything which it was inexpedient for the women to know, he proposed a
+game at four-handed cribbage, and partners being cut for, Mrs Quilp
+fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself to Quilp.  Mrs Jiniwin being
+very fond of cards was carefully excluded by her son-in-law from any
+participation in the game, and had assigned to her the duty of
+occasionally replenishing the glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp
+from that moment keeping one eye constantly upon her, lest she should
+by any means procure a taste of the same, and thereby tantalising the
+wretched old lady (who was as much attached to the case-bottle as the
+cards) in a double degree and most ingenious manner.
+
+But it was not to Mrs Jiniwin alone that Mr Quilp's attention was
+restricted, as several other matters required his constant vigilance.
+Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous one of always
+cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part, not only a
+close observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in counting and
+scoring, but also involved the constant correction, by looks, and
+frowns, and kicks under the table, of Richard Swiveller, who being
+bewildered by the rapidity with which his cards were told, and the rate
+at which the pegs travelled down the board, could not be prevented from
+sometimes expressing his surprise and incredulity.  Mrs Quilp too was
+the partner of young Trent, and for every look that passed between
+them, and every word they spoke, and every card they played, the dwarf
+had eyes and ears; not occupied alone with what was passing above the
+table, but with signals that might be exchanging beneath it, which he
+laid all kinds of traps to detect; besides often treading on his wife's
+toes to see whether she cried out or remained silent under the
+infliction, in which latter case it would have been quite clear that
+Trent had been treading on her toes before.  Yet, in the most of all
+these distractions, the one eye was upon the old lady always, and if
+she so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring
+glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one sup
+of its sweet contents, Quilp's hand would overset it in the very moment
+of her triumph, and Quilp's mocking voice implore her to regard her
+precious health.  And in any one of these his many cares, from first to
+last, Quilp never flagged nor faltered.
+
+At length, when they had played a great many rubbers and drawn pretty
+freely upon the case-bottle, Mr Quilp warned his lady to retire to
+rest, and that submissive wife complying, and being followed by her
+indignant mother, Mr Swiveller fell asleep.  The dwarf beckoning his
+remaining companion to the other end of the room, held a short
+conference with him in whispers.
+
+'It's as well not to say more than one can help before our worthy
+friend,' said Quilp, making a grimace towards the slumbering Dick.  'Is
+it a bargain between us, Fred?  Shall he marry little rosy Nell
+by-and-by?'
+
+'You have some end of your own to answer, of course,' returned the
+other.
+
+'Of course I have, dear Fred,' said Quilp, grinning to think how little
+he suspected what the real end was.  'It's retaliation perhaps; perhaps
+whim.  I have influence, Fred, to help or oppose.  Which way shall I
+use it?  There are a pair of scales, and it goes into one.'
+
+'Throw it into mine then,' said Trent.
+
+'It's done, Fred,' rejoined Quilp, stretching out his clenched hand and
+opening it as if he had let some weight fall out.  'It's in the scale
+from this time, and turns it, Fred.  Mind that.'
+
+'Where have they gone?' asked Trent.
+
+Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be discovered,
+which it might be, easily.  When it was, they would begin their
+preliminary advances.  He would visit the old man, or even Richard
+Swiveller might visit him, and by affecting a deep concern in his
+behalf, and imploring him to settle in some worthy home, lead to the
+child's remembering him with gratitude and favour.  Once impressed to
+this extent, it would be easy, he said, to win her in a year or two,
+for she supposed the old man to be poor, as it was a part of his
+jealous policy (in common with many other misers) to feign to be so, to
+those about him.
+
+'He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,' said Trent.
+
+'Oh! and to me too!' replied the dwarf.  'Which is more extraordinary,
+as I know how rich he really is.'
+
+'I suppose you should,' said Trent.
+
+'I think I should indeed,' rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at least,
+he spoke the truth.
+
+After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and the
+young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was waiting to
+depart.  This was welcome news to Dick, who started up directly.  After
+a few words of confidence in the result of their project had been
+exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good night.
+
+Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and
+listened.  Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they
+were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to marry
+such a misshapen wretch as he.  The dwarf after watching their
+retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet displayed,
+stole softly in the dark to bed.
+
+In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had one
+thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell.  It would
+have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the butt of both,
+had been harassed by any such consideration; for his high opinion of
+his own merits and deserts rendered the project rather a laudable one
+than otherwise; and if he had been visited by so unwonted a guest as
+reflection, he would--being a brute only in the gratification of his
+appetites--have soothed his conscience with the plea that he did not
+mean to beat or kill his wife, and would therefore, after all said and
+done, be a very tolerable, average husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24
+
+It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer maintain
+the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that the old man
+and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest upon the borders
+of a little wood.  Here, though the course was hidden from their view,
+they could yet faintly distinguish the noise of distant shouts, the hum
+of voices, and the beating of drums.  Climbing the eminence which lay
+between them and the spot they had left, the child could even discern
+the fluttering flags and white tops of booths; but no person was
+approaching towards them, and their resting-place was solitary and
+still.
+
+Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling companion, or
+restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity.  His disordered
+imagination represented to him a crowd of persons stealing towards them
+beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in every ditch, and peeping
+from the boughs of every rustling tree.  He was haunted by
+apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy place where he would
+be chained and scourged, and worse than all, where Nell could never
+come to see him, save through iron bars and gratings in the wall.  His
+terrors affected the child.  Separation from her grandfather was the
+greatest evil she could dread; and feeling for the time as though, go
+where they would, they were to be hunted down, and could never be safe
+but in hiding, her heart failed her, and her courage drooped.
+
+In one so young, and so unused to the scenes in which she had lately
+moved, this sinking of the spirit was not surprising.  But, Nature
+often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms--oftenest, God
+bless her, in female breasts--and when the child, casting her tearful
+eyes upon the old man, remembered how weak he was, and how destitute
+and helpless he would be if she failed him, her heart swelled within
+her, and animated her with new strength and fortitude.
+
+'We are quite safe now, and have nothing to fear indeed, dear
+grandfather,' she said.
+
+'Nothing to fear!' returned the old man.  'Nothing to fear if they took
+me from thee!  Nothing to fear if they parted us!  Nobody is true to
+me.  No, not one.  Not even Nell!'
+
+'Oh! do not say that,' replied the child, 'for if ever anybody was true
+at heart, and earnest, I am.  I am sure you know I am.'
+
+'Then how,' said the old man, looking fearfully round, 'how can you
+bear to think that we are safe, when they are searching for me
+everywhere, and may come here, and steal upon us, even while we're
+talking?'
+
+'Because I'm sure we have not been followed,' said the child.  'Judge
+for yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how quiet and still
+it is.  We are alone together, and may ramble where we like.  Not safe!
+Could I feel easy--did I feel at ease--when any danger threatened you?'
+
+'True, too,' he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking
+anxiously about.  'What noise was that?'
+
+'A bird,' said the child, 'flying into the wood, and leading the way
+for us to follow.'  You remember that we said we would walk in woods
+and fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would be--you
+remember that?  But here, while the sun shines above our heads, and
+everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly down, and losing
+time.  See what a pleasant path; and there's the bird--the same
+bird--now he flies to another tree, and stays to sing.  Come!'
+
+When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which led
+them through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny
+footsteps in the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure and
+gave it back as mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured the old
+man on, with many a backward look and merry beck, now pointing
+stealthily to some lone bird as it perched and twittered on a branch
+that strayed across their path, now stopping to listen to the songs
+that broke the happy silence, or watch the sun as it trembled through
+the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied trunks of stout old trees,
+opened long paths of light.  As they passed onward, parting the boughs
+that clustered in their way, the serenity which the child had first
+assumed, stole into her breast in earnest; the old man cast no longer
+fearful looks behind, but felt at ease and cheerful, for the further
+they passed into the deep green shade, the more they felt that the
+tranquil mind of God was there, and shed its peace on them.
+
+At length the path becoming clearer and less intricate, brought them to
+the end of the wood, and into a public road.  Taking their way along it
+for a short distance, they came to a lane, so shaded by the trees on
+either hand that they met together over-head, and arched the narrow
+way.  A broken finger-post announced that this led to a village three
+miles off; and thither they resolved to bend their steps.
+
+The miles appeared so long that they sometimes thought they must have
+missed their road.  But at last, to their great joy, it led downwards
+in a steep descent, with overhanging banks over which the footpaths
+led; and the clustered houses of the village peeped from the woody
+hollow below.
+
+It was a very small place.  The men and boys were playing at cricket on
+the green; and as the other folks were looking on, they wandered up and
+down, uncertain where to seek a humble lodging.  There was but one old
+man in the little garden before his cottage, and him they were timid of
+approaching, for he was the schoolmaster, and had 'School' written up
+over his window in black letters on a white board.  He was a pale,
+simple-looking man, of a spare and meagre habit, and sat among his
+flowers and beehives, smoking his pipe, in the little porch before his
+door.
+
+'Speak to him, dear,' the old man whispered.
+
+'I am almost afraid to disturb him,' said the child timidly.  'He does
+not seem to see us.  Perhaps if we wait a little, he may look this way.'
+
+They waited, but the schoolmaster cast no look towards them, and still
+sat, thoughtful and silent, in the little porch.  He had a kind face.
+In his plain old suit of black, he looked pale and meagre.  They
+fancied, too, a lonely air about him and his house, but perhaps that
+was because the other people formed a merry company upon the green, and
+he seemed the only solitary man in all the place.
+
+They were very tired, and the child would have been bold enough to
+address even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which
+seemed to denote that he was uneasy or distressed.  As they stood
+hesitating at a little distance, they saw that he sat for a few minutes
+at a time like one in a brown study, then laid aside his pipe and took
+a few turns in his garden, then approached the gate and looked towards
+the green, then took up his pipe again with a sigh, and sat down
+thoughtfully as before.
+
+As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length took
+courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured to draw
+near, leading her grandfather by the hand.  The slight noise they made
+in raising the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his attention.  He
+looked at them kindly but seemed disappointed too, and slightly shook
+his head.
+
+Nell dropped a curtsey, and told him they were poor travellers who
+sought a shelter for the night which they would gladly pay for, so far
+as their means allowed.  The schoolmaster looked earnestly at her as
+she spoke, laid aside his pipe, and rose up directly.
+
+'If you could direct us anywhere, sir,' said the child, 'we should take
+it very kindly.'
+
+'You have been walking a long way,' said the schoolmaster.
+
+'A long way, Sir,' the child replied.
+
+'You're a young traveller, my child,' he said, laying his hand gently
+on her head.  'Your grandchild, friend?'
+
+'Aye, Sir,' cried the old man, 'and the stay and comfort of my life.'
+
+'Come in,' said the schoolmaster.
+
+Without further preface he conducted them into his little school-room,
+which was parlour and kitchen likewise, and told them that they were
+welcome to remain under his roof till morning.  Before they had done
+thanking him, he spread a coarse white cloth upon the table, with
+knives and platters; and bringing out some bread and cold meat and a
+jug of beer, besought them to eat and drink.
+
+The child looked round the room as she took her seat.  There were a
+couple of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal desk
+perched on four legs, at which no doubt the master sat; a few
+dog's-eared books upon a high shelf; and beside them a motley
+collection of peg-tops, balls, kites, fishing-lines, marbles,
+half-eaten apples, and other confiscated property of idle urchins.
+Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors, were the cane
+and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the dunce's cap,
+made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring wafers of the largest
+size.  But, the great ornaments of the walls were certain moral
+sentences fairly copied in good round text, and well-worked sums in
+simple addition and multiplication, evidently achieved by the same
+hand, which were plentifully pasted all round the room: for the double
+purpose, as it seemed, of bearing testimony to the excellence of the
+school, and kindling a worthy emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.
+
+'Yes,' said the old schoolmaster, observing that her attention was
+caught by these latter specimens.  'That's beautiful writing, my dear.'
+
+'Very, Sir,' replied the child modestly, 'is it yours?'
+
+'Mine!' he returned, taking out his spectacles and putting them on, to
+have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart.  'I couldn't
+write like that, now-a-days.  No.  They're all done by one hand; a
+little hand it is, not so old as yours, but a very clever one.'
+
+As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had been
+thrown on one of the copies, so he took a penknife from his pocket, and
+going up to the wall, carefully scraped it out.  When he had finished,
+he walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring it as one might
+contemplate a beautiful picture, but with something of sadness in his
+voice and manner which quite touched the child, though she was
+unacquainted with its cause.
+
+'A little hand indeed,' said the poor schoolmaster.  'Far beyond all
+his companions, in his learning and his sports too, how did he ever
+come to be so fond of me!  That I should love him is no wonder, but
+that he should love me--' and there the schoolmaster stopped, and took
+off his spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim.
+
+'I hope there is nothing the matter, sir,' said Nell anxiously.
+
+'Not much, my dear,' returned the schoolmaster.  'I hoped to have seen
+him on the green to-night.  He was always foremost among them.  But
+he'll be there to-morrow.'
+
+'Has he been ill?' asked the child, with a child's quick sympathy.
+
+'Not very.  They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear boy,
+and so they said the day before.  But that's a part of that kind of
+disorder; it's not a bad sign--not at all a bad sign.'
+
+The child was silent.  He walked to the door, and looked wistfully out.
+The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still.
+
+'If he could lean upon anybody's arm, he would come to me, I know,' he
+said, returning into the room.  'He always came into the garden to say
+good night.  But perhaps his illness has only just taken a favourable
+turn, and it's too late for him to come out, for it's very damp and
+there's a heavy dew.  It's much better he shouldn't come to-night.'
+
+The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter, and
+closed the door.  But after he had done this, and sat silent a little
+time, he took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy himself,
+if Nell would sit up till he returned.  The child readily complied, and
+he went out.
+
+She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange and
+lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed, and there
+was nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock, and the
+whistling of the wind among the trees.  When he returned, he took his
+seat in the chimney corner, but remained silent for a long time.  At
+length he turned to her, and speaking very gently, hoped she would say
+a prayer that night for a sick child.
+
+'My favourite scholar!' said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe he
+had forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the walls.
+'It is a little hand to have done all that, and waste away with
+sickness.  It is a very, very little hand!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25
+
+After a sound night's rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in which
+it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but which he had
+lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own, the child rose
+early in the morning and descended to the room where she had supped
+last night.  As the schoolmaster had already left his bed and gone out,
+she bestirred herself to make it neat and comfortable, and had just
+finished its arrangement when the kind host returned.
+
+He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually did
+such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom he had
+told her of.  The child asked how he was, and hoped he was better.
+
+'No,' rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, 'no
+better.  They even say he is worse.'
+
+'I am very sorry for that, Sir,' said the child.
+
+The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest manner,
+but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily that anxious
+people often magnified an evil and thought it greater than it was; 'for
+my part,' he said, in his quiet, patient way, 'I hope it's not so.  I
+don't think he can be worse.'
+
+The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather
+coming down stairs, they all three partook of it together.  While the
+meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man seemed much
+fatigued, and evidently stood in need of rest.
+
+'If the journey you have before you is a long one,' he said, 'and don't
+press you for one day, you're very welcome to pass another night here.
+I should really be glad if you would, friend.'
+
+He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept or
+decline his offer; and added,
+
+'I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day.  If
+you can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the same time,
+do so.  If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you well through
+it, and will walk a little way with you before school begins.'
+
+'What are we to do, Nell?' said the old man irresolutely, 'say what
+we're to do, dear.'
+
+It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that they
+had better accept the invitation and remain.  She was happy to show her
+gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in the
+performance of such household duties as his little cottage stood in
+need of.  When these were done, she took some needle-work from her
+basket, and sat herself down upon a stool beside the lattice, where the
+honeysuckle and woodbine entwined their tender stems, and stealing into
+the room filled it with their delicious breath.  Her grandfather was
+basking in the sun outside, breathing the perfume of the flowers, and
+idly watching the clouds as they floated on before the light summer
+wind.
+
+As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order, took
+his seat behind his desk and made other preparations for school, the
+child was apprehensive that she might be in the way, and offered to
+withdraw to her little bedroom.  But this he would not allow, and as he
+seemed pleased to have her there, she remained, busying herself with
+her work.
+
+'Have you many scholars, sir?' she asked.
+
+The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely filled
+the two forms.
+
+'Are the others clever, sir?' asked the child, glancing at the trophies
+on the wall.
+
+'Good boys,' returned the schoolmaster, 'good boys enough, my dear, but
+they'll never do like that.'
+
+A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door
+while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came in
+and took his seat upon one of the forms.  The white-headed boy then put
+an open book, astonishingly dog's-eared upon his knees, and thrusting
+his hands into his pockets began counting the marbles with which they
+were filled; displaying in the expression of his face a remarkable
+capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his
+eyes were fixed.  Soon afterwards another white-headed little boy came
+straggling in, and after him a red-headed lad, and after him two more
+with white heads, and then one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the
+forms were occupied by a dozen boys or thereabouts, with heads of every
+colour but grey, and ranging in their ages from four years old to
+fourteen years or more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way
+from the floor when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a heavy
+good-tempered foolish fellow, about half a head taller than the
+schoolmaster.
+
+At the top of the first form--the post of honour in the school--was the
+vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of the row of
+pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont to hang them up,
+one was left empty.  No boy attempted to violate the sanctity of seat
+or peg, but many a one looked from the empty spaces to the
+schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind his hand.
+
+Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by heart,
+the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and drawl of
+school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster, the very
+image of meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his mind
+upon the duties of the day, and to forget his little friend.  But the
+tedium of his office reminded him more strongly of the willing scholar,
+and his thoughts were rambling from his pupils--it was plain.
+
+None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder with
+impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even under the
+master's eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke, pinching each
+other in sport or malice without the least reserve, and cutting their
+autographs in the very legs of his desk.  The puzzled dunce, who stood
+beside it to say his lesson out of book, looked no longer at the
+ceiling for forgotten words, but drew closer to the master's elbow and
+boldly cast his eye upon the page; the wag of the little troop squinted
+and made grimaces (at the smallest boy of course), holding no book
+before his face, and his approving audience knew no constraint in their
+delight.  If the master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive to
+what was going on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes met his
+but wore a studious and a deeply humble look; but the instant he
+relapsed again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder than before.
+
+Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how they
+looked at the open door and window, as if they half meditated rushing
+violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and savages
+from that time forth.  What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and
+some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in
+the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his
+shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat
+fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale,
+or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot,
+broiling day!  Heat!  ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to
+the door gave him opportunities of gliding out into the garden and
+driving his companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket
+of the well and then rolling on the grass--ask him if there were ever
+such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the
+cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds
+to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey no more.  The day
+was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in green places, and
+staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one's eyes
+and go to sleep; and was this a time to be poring over musty books in a
+dark room, slighted by the very sun itself?  Monstrous!
+
+Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still to
+all that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous boys.
+The lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one desk and
+that the master's, each boy sat at it in turn and laboured at his
+crooked copy, while the master walked about.  This was a quieter time;
+for he would come and look over the writer's shoulder, and tell him
+mildly to observe how such a letter was turned in such a copy on the
+wall, praise such an up-stroke here and such a down-stroke there, and
+bid him take it for his model.  Then he would stop and tell them what
+the sick child had said last night, and how he had longed to be among
+them once again; and such was the poor schoolmaster's gentle and
+affectionate manner, that the boys seemed quite remorseful that they
+had worried him so much, and were absolutely quiet; eating no apples,
+cutting no names, inflicting no pinches, and making no grimaces, for
+full two minutes afterwards.
+
+'I think, boys,' said the schoolmaster when the clock struck twelve,
+'that I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon.'
+
+At this intelligence, the boys, led on and headed by the tall boy,
+raised a great shout, in the midst of which the master was seen to
+speak, but could not be heard.  As he held up his hand, however, in
+token of his wish that they should be silent, they were considerate
+enough to leave off, as soon as the longest-winded among them were
+quite out of breath.
+
+'You must promise me first,' said the schoolmaster, 'that you'll not be
+noisy, or at least, if you are, that you'll go away and be so--away out
+of the village I mean.  I'm sure you wouldn't disturb your old playmate
+and companion.'
+
+There was a general murmur (and perhaps a very sincere one, for they
+were but boys) in the negative; and the tall boy, perhaps as sincerely
+as any of them, called those about him to witness that he had only
+shouted in a whisper.
+
+'Then pray don't forget, there's my dear scholars,' said the
+schoolmaster, 'what I have asked you, and do it as a favour to me.  Be
+as happy as you can, and don't be unmindful that you are blessed with
+health.  Good-bye all!'
+
+'Thank'ee, Sir,' and 'good-bye, Sir,' were said a good many times in a
+variety of voices, and the boys went out very slowly and softly.  But
+there was the sun shining and there were the birds singing, as the sun
+only shines and the birds only sing on holidays and half-holidays;
+there were the trees waving to all free boys to climb and nestle among
+their leafy branches; the hay, entreating them to come and scatter it
+to the pure air; the green corn, gently beckoning towards wood and
+stream; the smooth ground, rendered smoother still by blending lights
+and shadows, inviting to runs and leaps, and long walks God knows
+whither.  It was more than boy could bear, and with a joyous whoop the
+whole cluster took to their heels and spread themselves about, shouting
+and laughing as they went.
+
+'It's natural, thank Heaven!' said the poor schoolmaster, looking after
+them.  'I'm very glad they didn't mind me!'
+
+It is difficult, however, to please everybody, as most of us would have
+discovered, even without the fable which bears that moral, and in the
+course of the afternoon several mothers and aunts of pupils looked in
+to express their entire disapproval of the schoolmaster's proceeding.
+A few confined themselves to hints, such as politely inquiring what
+red-letter day or saint's day the almanack said it was; a few (these
+were the profound village politicians) argued that it was a slight to
+the throne and an affront to church and state, and savoured of
+revolutionary principles, to grant a half-holiday upon any lighter
+occasion than the birthday of the Monarch; but the majority expressed
+their displeasure on private grounds and in plain terms, arguing that
+to put the pupils on this short allowance of learning was nothing but
+an act of downright robbery and fraud: and one old lady, finding that
+she could not inflame or irritate the peaceable schoolmaster by talking
+to him, bounced out of his house and talked at him for half-an-hour
+outside his own window, to another old lady, saying that of course he
+would deduct this half-holiday from his weekly charge, or of course he
+would naturally expect to have an opposition started against him; there
+was no want of idle chaps in that neighbourhood (here the old lady
+raised her voice), and some chaps who were too idle even to be
+schoolmasters, might soon find that there were other chaps put over
+their heads, and so she would have them take care, and look pretty
+sharp about them.  But all these taunts and vexations failed to elicit
+one word from the meek schoolmaster, who sat with the child by his
+side--a little more dejected perhaps, but quite silent and
+uncomplaining.
+
+Towards night an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily as
+she could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was to go
+to Dame West's directly, and had best run on before her.  He and the
+child were on the point of going out together for a walk, and without
+relinquishing her hand, the schoolmaster hurried away, leaving the
+messenger to follow as she might.
+
+They stopped at a cottage-door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly at
+it with his hand.  It was opened without loss of time.  They entered a
+room where a little group of women were gathered about one, older than
+the rest, who was crying very bitterly, and sat wringing her hands and
+rocking herself to and fro.
+
+'Oh, dame!' said the schoolmaster, drawing near her chair, 'is it so
+bad as this?'
+
+'He's going fast,' cried the old woman; 'my grandson's dying.  It's all
+along of you.  You shouldn't see him now, but for his being so earnest
+on it.  This is what his learning has brought him to.  Oh dear, dear,
+dear, what can I do!'
+
+'Do not say that I am in any fault,' urged the gentle school-master.
+'I am not hurt, dame.  No, no.  You are in great distress of mind, and
+don't mean what you say.  I am sure you don't.'
+
+'I do,' returned the old woman.  'I mean it all.  If he hadn't been
+poring over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well and
+merry now, I know he would.'
+
+The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat
+some one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook their
+heads, and murmured to each other that they never thought there was
+much good in learning, and that this convinced them.  Without saying a
+word in reply, or giving them a look of reproach, he followed the old
+woman who had summoned him (and who had now rejoined them) into another
+room, where his infant friend, half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.
+
+He was a very young boy; quite a little child.  His hair still hung in
+curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light
+was of Heaven, not earth.  The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and
+stooping over the pillow, whispered his name.  The boy sprung up,
+stroked his face with his hand, and threw his wasted arms round his
+neck, crying out that he was his dear kind friend.
+
+'I hope I always was.  I meant to be, God knows,' said the poor
+schoolmaster.
+
+'Who is that?' said the boy, seeing Nell.  'I am afraid to kiss her,
+lest I should make her ill.  Ask her to shake hands with me.'
+
+The sobbing child came closer up, and took the little languid hand in
+hers. Releasing his again after a time, the sick boy laid him gently
+down.
+
+'You remember the garden, Harry,' whispered the schoolmaster, anxious
+to rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the child, 'and how
+pleasant it used to be in the evening time?  You must make haste to
+visit it again, for I think the very flowers have missed you, and are
+less gay than they used to be.  You will come soon, my dear, very soon
+now--won't you?'
+
+The boy smiled faintly--so very, very faintly--and put his hand upon
+his friend's grey head.  He moved his lips too, but no voice came from
+them; no, not a sound.
+
+In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices borne upon the
+evening air came floating through the open window.  'What's that?' said
+the sick child, opening his eyes.
+
+'The boys at play upon the green.'
+
+He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his
+head.  But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.
+
+'Shall I do it?' said the schoolmaster.
+
+'Please wave it at the window,' was the faint reply.  'Tie it to the
+lattice.  Some of them may see it there.  Perhaps they'll think of me,
+and look this way.'
+
+He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle
+bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property upon a
+table in the room.  And then he laid him softly down once more, and
+asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her.
+
+She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the
+coverlet.  The two old friends and companions--for such they were,
+though they were man and child--held each other in a long embrace, and
+then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and fell
+asleep.
+
+The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold
+hand in his, and chafing it.  It was but the hand of a dead child.  He
+felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26
+
+Almost broken-hearted, Nell withdrew with the schoolmaster from the
+bedside and returned to his cottage.  In the midst of her grief and
+tears she was yet careful to conceal their real cause from the old man,
+for the dead boy had been a grandchild, and left but one aged relative
+to mourn his premature decay.
+
+She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was alone,
+gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was overcharged.
+But the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without its lesson of
+content and gratitude; of content with the lot which left her health
+and freedom; and gratitude that she was spared to the one relative and
+friend she loved, and to live and move in a beautiful world, when so
+many young creatures--as young and full of hope as she--were stricken
+down and gathered to their graves.  How many of the mounds in that old
+churchyard where she had lately strayed, grew green above the graves of
+children!  And though she thought as a child herself, and did not
+perhaps sufficiently consider to what a bright and happy existence
+those who die young are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of
+seeing others die around them, bearing to the tomb some strong
+affection of their hearts (which makes the old die many times in one
+long life), still she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy
+moral from what she had seen that night, and to store it, deep in her
+mind.
+
+Her dreams were of the little scholar: not coffined and covered up, but
+mingling with angels, and smiling happily.  The sun darting his
+cheerful rays into the room, awoke her; and now there remained but to
+take leave of the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more.
+
+By the time they were ready to depart, school had begun.  In the
+darkened room, the din of yesterday was going on again: a little
+sobered and softened down, perhaps, but only a very little, if at all.
+The schoolmaster rose from his desk and walked with them to the gate.
+
+It was with a trembling and reluctant hand, that the child held out to
+him the money which the lady had given her at the races for her
+flowers: faltering in her thanks as she thought how small the sum was,
+and blushing as she offered it.  But he bade her put it up, and
+stooping to kiss her cheek, turned back into his house.
+
+They had not gone half-a-dozen paces when he was at the door again; the
+old man retraced his steps to shake hands, and the child did the same.
+
+'Good fortune and happiness go with you!' said the poor schoolmaster.
+'I am quite a solitary man now.  If you ever pass this way again,
+you'll not forget the little village-school.'
+
+'We shall never forget it, sir,' rejoined Nell; 'nor ever forget to be
+grateful to you for your kindness to us.'
+
+'I have heard such words from the lips of children very often,' said
+the schoolmaster, shaking his head, and smiling thoughtfully, 'but they
+were soon forgotten.  I had attached one young friend to me, the better
+friend for being young--but that's over--God bless you!'
+
+They bade him farewell very many times, and turned away, walking slowly
+and often looking back, until they could see him no more.  At length
+they had left the village far behind, and even lost sight of the smoke
+among the trees.  They trudged onward now, at a quicker pace, resolving
+to keep the main road, and go wherever it might lead them.
+
+But main roads stretch a long, long way.  With the exception of two or
+three inconsiderable clusters of cottages which they passed, without
+stopping, and one lonely road-side public-house where they had some
+bread and cheese, this highway had led them to nothing--late in the
+afternoon--and still lengthened out, far in the distance, the same
+dull, tedious, winding course, that they had been pursuing all day.  As
+they had no resource, however, but to go forward, they still kept on,
+though at a much slower pace, being very weary and fatigued.
+
+The afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they arrived
+at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck across a common.
+On the border of this common, and close to the hedge which divided it
+from the cultivated fields, a caravan was drawn up to rest; upon which,
+by reason of its situation, they came so suddenly that they could not
+have avoided it if they would.
+
+It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house upon
+wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and
+window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red, in
+which happily-contrasted colours the whole concern shone brilliant.
+Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated
+horse, for a pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from
+the shafts and grazing on the frouzy grass.  Neither was it a gipsy
+caravan, for at the open door (graced with a bright brass knocker) sat
+a Christian lady, stout and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large
+bonnet trembling with bows.  And that it was not an unprovided or
+destitute caravan was clear from this lady's occupation, which was the
+very pleasant and refreshing one of taking tea.  The tea-things,
+including a bottle of rather suspicious character and a cold knuckle of
+ham, were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and
+there, as if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat
+this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect.
+
+It happened that at that moment the lady of the caravan had her cup
+(which, that everything about her might be of a stout and comfortable
+kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having her eyes lifted
+to the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavour of the tea, not
+unmingled possibly with just the slightest dash or gleam of something
+out of the suspicious bottle--but this is mere speculation and not
+distinct matter of history--it happened that being thus agreeably
+engaged, she did not see the travellers when they first came up.  It
+was not until she was in the act of getting down the cup, and drawing a
+long breath after the exertion of causing its contents to disappear,
+that the lady of the caravan beheld an old man and a young child
+walking slowly by, and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of modest
+but hungry admiration.
+
+'Hey!' cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her
+lap and swallowing the same before wiping her lips.  'Yes, to be
+sure--Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?'
+
+'Won what, ma'am?' asked Nell.
+
+'The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child--the plate that was run
+for on the second day.'
+
+'On the second day, ma'am?'
+
+'Second day!  Yes, second day,' repeated the lady with an air of
+impatience.  'Can't you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when
+you're asked the question civilly?'
+
+'I don't know, ma'am.'
+
+'Don't know!' repeated the lady of the caravan; 'why, you were there.
+I saw you with my own eyes.'
+
+Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady
+might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin; but
+what followed tended to reassure her.
+
+'And very sorry I was,' said the lady of the caravan, 'to see you in
+company with a Punch; a low, practical, wulgar wretch, that people
+should scorn to look at.'
+
+'I was not there by choice,' returned the child; 'we didn't know our
+way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them.
+Do you--do you know them, ma'am?'
+
+'Know 'em, child!' cried the lady of the caravan in a sort of shriek.
+'Know them!  But you're young and inexperienced, and that's your excuse
+for asking sich a question.  Do I look as if I know'd 'em, does the
+caravan look as if it know'd 'em?'
+
+'No, ma'am, no,' said the child, fearing she had committed some
+grievous fault.  'I beg your pardon.'
+
+It was granted immediately, though the lady still appeared much ruffled
+and discomposed by the degrading supposition.  The child then explained
+that they had left the races on the first day, and were travelling to
+the next town on that road, where they purposed to spend the night.  As
+the countenance of the stout lady began to clear up, she ventured to
+inquire how far it was.  The reply--which the stout lady did not come
+to, until she had thoroughly explained that she went to the races on
+the first day in a gig, and as an expedition of pleasure, and that her
+presence there had no connexion with any matters of business or
+profit--was, that the town was eight miles off.
+
+This discouraging information a little dashed the child, who could
+scarcely repress a tear as she glanced along the darkening road.  Her
+grandfather made no complaint, but he sighed heavily as he leaned upon
+his staff, and vainly tried to pierce the dusty distance.
+
+The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea equipage
+together preparatory to clearing the table, but noting the child's
+anxious manner she hesitated and stopped.  The child curtseyed, thanked
+her for her information, and giving her hand to the old man had already
+got some fifty yards or so away, when the lady of the caravan called to
+her to return.
+
+'Come nearer, nearer still,' said she, beckoning to her to ascend the
+steps.  'Are you hungry, child?'
+
+'Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it IS a long way.'
+
+'Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea,' rejoined her new
+acquaintance.  'I suppose you are agreeable to that, old gentleman?'
+
+The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her.  The lady of
+the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum
+proving an inconvenient table for two, they descended again, and sat
+upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread
+and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short everything of which she
+had partaken herself, except the bottle which she had already embraced
+an opportunity of slipping into her pocket.
+
+'Set 'em out near the hind wheels, child, that's the best place,' said
+their friend, superintending the arrangements from above.  'Now hand up
+the teapot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of fresh tea, and
+then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare
+anything; that's all I ask of you.'
+
+They might perhaps have carried out the lady's wish, if it had been
+less freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all.
+But as this direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or
+uneasiness, they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.
+
+While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted on the
+earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large bonnet
+trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured tread and very
+stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to time with an air of
+calm delight, and deriving particular gratification from the red panels
+and the brass knocker.  When she had taken this gentle exercise for
+some time, she sat down upon the steps and called 'George'; whereupon a
+man in a carter's frock, who had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this
+time as to see everything that passed without being seen himself,
+parted the twigs that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting
+attitude, supporting on his legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone
+bottle, and bearing in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.
+
+'Yes, Missus,' said George.
+
+'How did you find the cold pie, George?'
+
+'It warn't amiss, mum.'
+
+'And the beer,' said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of
+being more interested in this question than the last; 'is it passable,
+George?'
+
+'It's more flatterer than it might be,' George returned, 'but it an't
+so bad for all that.'
+
+To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting in
+quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and then
+smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head.  No doubt with
+the same amiable desire, he immediately resumed his knife and fork, as
+a practical assurance that the beer had wrought no bad effect upon his
+appetite.
+
+The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time, and then
+said,
+
+'Have you nearly finished?'
+
+'Wery nigh, mum.'  And indeed, after scraping the dish all round with
+his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth, and after
+taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that, by degrees
+almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went further and further
+back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the ground, this
+gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came forth from his
+retreat.
+
+'I hope I haven't hurried you, George,' said his mistress, who appeared
+to have a great sympathy with his late pursuit.
+
+'If you have,' returned the follower, wisely reserving himself for any
+favourable contingency that might occur, 'we must make up for it next
+time, that's all.'
+
+'We are not a heavy load, George?'
+
+'That's always what the ladies say,' replied the man, looking a long
+way round, as if he were appealing to Nature in general against such
+monstrous propositions.  'If you see a woman a driving, you'll always
+perceive that she never will keep her whip still; the horse can't go
+fast enough for her.  If cattle have got their proper load, you never
+can persuade a woman that they'll not bear something more.  What is the
+cause of this here?'
+
+'Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if we
+took them with us?' asked his mistress, offering no reply to the
+philosophical inquiry, and pointing to Nell and the old man, who were
+painfully preparing to resume their journey on foot.
+
+'They'd make a difference in course,' said George doggedly.
+
+'Would they make much difference?' repeated his mistress.  'They can't
+be very heavy.'
+
+'The weight o' the pair, mum,' said George, eyeing them with the look
+of a man who was calculating within half an ounce or so, 'would be a
+trifle under that of Oliver Cromwell.'
+
+Nell was very much surprised that the man should be so accurately
+acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read of in books as
+having lived considerably before their time, but speedily forgot the
+subject in the joy of hearing that they were to go forward in the
+caravan, for which she thanked its lady with unaffected earnestness.
+She helped with great readiness and alacrity to put away the tea-things
+and other matters that were lying about, and, the horses being by that
+time harnessed, mounted into the vehicle, followed by her delighted
+grandfather.  Their patroness then shut the door and sat herself down
+by her drum at an open window; and, the steps being struck by George
+and stowed under the carriage, away they went, with a great noise of
+flapping and creaking and straining, and the bright brass knocker,
+which nobody ever knocked at, knocking one perpetual double knock of
+its own accord as they jolted heavily along.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27
+
+When they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell
+ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more closely.
+One half of it--that moiety in which the comfortable proprietress was
+then seated--was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end as
+to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed after the fashion of a
+berth on board ship, which was shaded, like the little windows, with
+fair white curtains, and looked comfortable enough, though by what kind
+of gymnastic exercise the lady of the caravan ever contrived to get
+into it, was an unfathomable mystery.  The other half served for a
+kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed
+through the roof.  It held also a closet or larder, several chests, a
+great pitcher of water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of
+crockery.  These latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which, in that
+portion of the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were
+ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a
+couple of well-thumbed tambourines.
+
+The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride and poetry
+of the musical instruments, and little Nell and her grandfather sat at
+the other in all the humility of the kettle and saucepans, while the
+machine jogged on and shifted the darkening prospect very slowly.  At
+first the two travellers spoke little, and only in whispers, but as
+they grew more familiar with the place they ventured to converse with
+greater freedom, and talked about the country through which they were
+passing, and the different objects that presented themselves, until the
+old man fell asleep; which the lady of the caravan observing, invited
+Nell to come and sit beside her.
+
+'Well, child,' she said, 'how do you like this way of travelling?'
+
+Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed, to which the
+lady assented in the case of people who had their spirits.  For
+herself, she said, she was troubled with a lowness in that respect
+which required a constant stimulant; though whether the aforesaid
+stimulant was derived from the suspicious bottle of which mention has
+been already made or from other sources, she did not say.
+
+'That's the happiness of you young people,' she continued.  'You don't
+know what it is to be low in your feelings.  You always have your
+appetites too, and what a comfort that is.'
+
+Nell thought that she could sometimes dispense with her own appetite
+very conveniently; and thought, moreover, that there was nothing either
+in the lady's personal appearance or in her manner of taking tea, to
+lead to the conclusion that her natural relish for meat and drink had
+at all failed her.  She silently assented, however, as in duty bound,
+to what the lady had said, and waited until she should speak again.
+
+Instead of speaking, however, she sat looking at the child for a long
+time in silence, and then getting up, brought out from a corner a large
+roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor and
+spread open with her foot until it nearly reached from one end of the
+caravan to the other.
+
+'There, child,' she said, 'read that.'
+
+Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the
+inscription, 'JARLEY'S WAX-WORK.'
+
+'Read it again,' said the lady, complacently.
+
+'Jarley's Wax-Work,' repeated Nell.
+
+'That's me,' said the lady.  'I am Mrs Jarley.'
+
+Giving the child an encouraging look, intended to reassure her and let
+her know, that, although she stood in the presence of the original
+Jarley, she must not allow herself to be utterly overwhelmed and borne
+down, the lady of the caravan unfolded another scroll, whereon was the
+inscription, 'One hundred figures the full size of life,' and then
+another scroll, on which was written, 'The only stupendous collection
+of real wax-work in the world,' and then several smaller scrolls with
+such inscriptions as 'Now exhibiting within'--'The genuine and only
+Jarley'--'Jarley's unrivalled collection'--'Jarley is the delight of
+the Nobility and Gentry'--'The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.'
+When she had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the
+astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in the
+shape of hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies
+on popular melodies, as 'Believe me if all Jarley's wax-work so
+rare'--'I saw thy show in youthful prime'--'Over the water to Jarley;'
+while, to consult all tastes, others were composed with a view to the
+lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody on the favourite air of
+'If I had a donkey,' beginning,
+
+  If I know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go
+  To see Mrs JARLEY'S wax-work show,
+  Do you think I'd acknowledge him?  Oh no no!
+  Then run to Jarley's--
+
+--besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues
+between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of
+Canterbury and a dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all
+having the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to
+Jarley's, and that children and servants were admitted at half-price.
+When she had brought all these testimonials of her important position
+in society to bear upon her young companion, Mrs Jarley rolled them up,
+and having put them carefully away, sat down again, and looked at the
+child in triumph.
+
+'Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,' said Mrs
+Jarley, 'after this.'
+
+'I never saw any wax-work, ma'am,' said Nell.  'Is it funnier than
+Punch?'
+
+'Funnier!' said Mrs Jarley in a shrill voice.  'It is not funny at all.'
+
+'Oh!' said Nell, with all possible humility.
+
+'It isn't funny at all,' repeated Mrs Jarley.  'It's calm and--what's
+that word again--critical?--no--classical, that's it--it's calm and
+classical.  No low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and
+squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the same, with a
+constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility; and so like life,
+that if wax-work only spoke and walked about, you'd hardly know the
+difference.  I won't go so far as to say, that, as it is, I've seen
+wax-work quite like life, but I've certainly seen some life that was
+exactly like wax-work.'
+
+'Is it here, ma'am?' asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by this
+description.
+
+'Is what here, child?'
+
+'The wax-work, ma'am.'
+
+'Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of?  How could such a
+collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of one
+little cupboard and a few boxes?  It's gone on in the other wans to the
+assembly-rooms, and there it'll be exhibited the day after to-morrow.
+You are going to the same town, and you'll see it I dare say.  It's
+natural to expect that you'll see it, and I've no doubt you will.  I
+suppose you couldn't stop away if you was to try ever so much.'
+
+'I shall not be in the town, I think, ma'am,' said the child.
+
+'Not there!' cried Mrs Jarley.  'Then where will you be?'
+
+'I--I--don't quite know.  I am not certain.'
+
+'You don't mean to say that you're travelling about the country without
+knowing where you're going to?' said the lady of the caravan.  'What
+curious people you are!  What line are you in?  You looked to me at the
+races, child, as if you were quite out of your element, and had got
+there by accident.'
+
+'We were there quite by accident,' returned Nell, confused by this
+abrupt questioning.  'We are poor people, ma'am, and are only wandering
+about.  We have nothing to do;--I wish we had.'
+
+'You amaze me more and more,' said Mrs Jarley, after remaining for some
+time as mute as one of her own figures.  'Why, what do you call
+yourselves?  Not beggars?'
+
+'Indeed, ma'am, I don't know what else we are,' returned the child.
+
+'Lord bless me,' said the lady of the caravan.  'I never heard of such
+a thing.  Who'd have thought it!'
+
+She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell feared
+she felt her having been induced to bestow her protection and
+conversation upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her dignity that
+nothing could repair.  This persuasion was rather confirmed than
+otherwise by the tone in which she at length broke silence and said,
+
+'And yet you can read.  And write too, I shouldn't wonder?'
+
+'Yes, ma'am,' said the child, fearful of giving new offence by the
+confession.
+
+'Well, and what a thing that is,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'I can't!'
+
+Nell said 'indeed' in a tone which might imply, either that she was
+reasonably surprised to find the genuine and only Jarley, who was the
+delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the peculiar pet of the Royal
+Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she presumed so great
+a lady could scarcely stand in need of such ordinary accomplishments.
+In whatever way Mrs Jarley received the response, it did not provoke
+her to further questioning, or tempt her into any more remarks at the
+time, for she relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and remained in that
+state so long that Nell withdrew to the other window and rejoined her
+grandfather, who was now awake.
+
+At length the lady of the caravan shook off her fit of meditation, and,
+summoning the driver to come under the window at which she was seated,
+held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice, as if she
+were asking his advice on an important point, and discussing the pros
+and cons of some very weighty matter.  This conference at length
+concluded, she drew in her head again, and beckoned Nell to approach.
+
+'And the old gentleman too,' said Mrs Jarley; 'for I want to have a
+word with him.  Do you want a good situation for your grand-daughter,
+master?  If you do, I can put her in the way of getting one.  What do
+you say?'
+
+'I can't leave her,' answered the old man.  'We can't separate.  What
+would become of me without her?'
+
+'I should have thought you were old enough to take care of yourself, if
+you ever will be,' retorted Mrs Jarley sharply.
+
+'But he never will be,' said the child in an earnest whisper.  'I fear
+he never will be again.  Pray do not speak harshly to him.  We are very
+thankful to you,' she added aloud; 'but neither of us could part from
+the other if all the wealth of the world were halved between us.'
+
+Mrs Jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her proposal,
+and looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell's hand and detained
+it in his own, as if she could have very well dispensed with his
+company or even his earthly existence.  After an awkward pause, she
+thrust her head out of the window again, and had another conference
+with the driver upon some point on which they did not seem to agree
+quite so readily as on their former topic of discussion; but they
+concluded at last, and she addressed the grandfather again.
+
+'If you're really disposed to employ yourself,' said Mrs Jarley, 'there
+would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust the
+figures, and take the checks, and so forth.  What I want your
+grand-daughter for, is to point 'em out to the company; they would be
+soon learnt, and she has a way with her that people wouldn't think
+unpleasant, though she does come after me; for I've been always
+accustomed to go round with visitors myself, which I should keep on
+doing now, only that my spirits make a little ease absolutely
+necessary.  It's not a common offer, bear in mind,' said the lady,
+rising into the tone and manner in which she was accustomed to address
+her audiences; 'it's Jarley's wax-work, remember.  The duty's very
+light and genteel, the company particularly select, the exhibition
+takes place in assembly-rooms, town-halls, large rooms at inns, or
+auction galleries.  There is none of your open-air wagrancy at
+Jarley's, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley's,
+remember.  Every expectation held out in the handbills is realised to
+the utmost, and the whole forms an effect of imposing brilliancy
+hitherto unrivalled in this kingdom.  Remember that the price of
+admission is only sixpence, and that this is an opportunity which may
+never occur again!'
+
+Descending from the sublime when she had reached this point, to the
+details of common life, Mrs Jarley remarked that with reference to
+salary she could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had
+sufficiently tested Nell's abilities, and narrowly watched her in the
+performance of her duties.  But board and lodging, both for her and her
+grandfather, she bound herself to provide, and she furthermore passed
+her word that the board should always be good in quality, and in
+quantity plentiful.
+
+Nell and her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so
+engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down the
+caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with uncommon
+dignity and self-esteem.  Nor will this appear so slight a circumstance
+as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered that the caravan
+was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none but a person of great
+natural stateliness and acquired grace could have forborne to stagger.
+
+'Now, child?' cried Mrs Jarley, coming to a halt as Nell turned towards
+her.
+
+'We are very much obliged to you, ma'am,' said Nell, 'and thankfully
+accept your offer.'
+
+'And you'll never be sorry for it,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'I'm pretty
+sure of that.  So as that's all settled, let us have a bit of supper.'
+
+In the meanwhile, the caravan blundered on as if it too had been
+drinking strong beer and was drowsy, and came at last upon the paved
+streets of a town which were clear of passengers, and quiet, for it was
+by this time near midnight, and the townspeople were all abed.  As it
+was too late an hour to repair to the exhibition room, they turned
+aside into a piece of waste ground that lay just within the old
+town-gate, and drew up there for the night, near to another caravan,
+which, notwithstanding that it bore on the lawful panel the great name
+of Jarley, and was employed besides in conveying from place to place
+the wax-work which was its country's pride, was designated by a
+grovelling stamp-office as a 'Common Stage Waggon,' and numbered
+too--seven thousand odd hundred--as though its precious freight were
+mere flour or coals!
+
+This ill-used machine being empty (for it had deposited its burden at
+the place of exhibition, and lingered here until its services were
+again required) was assigned to the old man as his sleeping-place for
+the night; and within its wooden walls, Nell made him up the best bed
+she could, from the materials at hand.  For herself, she was to sleep
+in Mrs Jarley's own travelling-carriage, as a signal mark of that
+lady's favour and confidence.
+
+She had taken leave of her grandfather and was returning to the other
+waggon, when she was tempted by the coolness of the night to linger for
+a little while in the air.  The moon was shining down upon the old
+gateway of the town, leaving the low archway very black and dark; and
+with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear, she slowly approached
+the gate, and stood still to look up at it, wondering to see how dark,
+and grim, and old, and cold, it looked.
+
+There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or been
+carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what strange
+people it must have looked down upon when it stood there, and how many
+hard struggles might have taken place, and how many murders might have
+been done, upon that silent spot, when there suddenly emerged from the
+black shade of the arch, a man.  The instant he appeared, she
+recognised him--Who could have failed to recognise, in that instant,
+the ugly misshapen Quilp!
+
+The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on one
+side of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of the earth.
+But there he was.  The child withdrew into a dark corner, and saw him
+pass close to her.  He had a stick in his hand, and, when he had got
+clear of the shadow of the gateway, he leant upon it, looked
+back--directly, as it seemed, towards where she stood--and beckoned.
+
+To her?  oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an
+extremity of fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come from
+her hiding-place and fly, before he should draw nearer, there issued
+slowly forth from the arch another figure--that of a boy--who carried
+on his back a trunk.
+
+'Faster, sirrah!' cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and
+showing in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come down
+from its niche and was casting a backward glance at its old house,
+'faster!'
+
+'It's a dreadful heavy load, Sir,' the boy pleaded.  'I've come on very
+fast, considering.'
+
+'_You_ have come fast, considering!' retorted Quilp; 'you creep, you dog,
+you crawl, you measure distance like a worm.  There are the chimes now,
+half-past twelve.'
+
+He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a suddenness
+and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour that London coach
+passed the corner of the road.  The boy replied, at one.
+
+'Come on then,' said Quilp, 'or I shall be too late.  Faster--do you
+hear me?  Faster.'
+
+The boy made all the speed he could, and Quilp led onward, constantly
+turning back to threaten him, and urge him to greater haste.  Nell did
+not dare to move until they were out of sight and hearing, and then
+hurried to where she had left her grandfather, feeling as if the very
+passing of the dwarf so near him must have filled him with alarm and
+terror.  But he was sleeping soundly, and she softly withdrew.
+
+As she was making her way to her own bed, she determined to say nothing
+of this adventure, as upon whatever errand the dwarf had come (and she
+feared it must have been in search of them) it was clear by his inquiry
+about the London coach that he was on his way homeward, and as he had
+passed through that place, it was but reasonable to suppose that they
+were safer from his inquiries there, than they could be elsewhere.
+These reflections did not remove her own alarm, for she had been too
+much terrified to be easily composed, and felt as if she were hemmed in
+by a legion of Quilps, and the very air itself were filled with them.
+
+The delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the patronised of Royalty
+had, by some process of self-abridgment known only to herself, got into
+her travelling bed, where she was snoring peacefully, while the large
+bonnet, carefully disposed upon the drum, was revealing its glories by
+the light of a dim lamp that swung from the roof.  The child's bed was
+already made upon the floor, and it was a great comfort to her to hear
+the steps removed as soon as she had entered, and to know that all easy
+communication between persons outside and the brass knocker was by this
+means effectually prevented.  Certain guttural sounds, too, which from
+time to time ascended through the floor of the caravan, and a rustling
+of straw in the same direction, apprised her that the driver was
+couched upon the ground beneath, and gave her an additional feeling of
+security.
+
+Notwithstanding these protections, she could get none but broken sleep
+by fits and starts all night, for fear of Quilp, who throughout her
+uneasy dreams was somehow connected with the wax-work, or was wax-work
+himself, or was Mrs Jarley and wax-work too, or was himself, Mrs
+Jarley, wax-work, and a barrel organ all in one, and yet not exactly
+any of them either.  At length, towards break of day, that deep sleep
+came upon her which succeeds to weariness and over-watching, and which
+has no consciousness but one of overpowering and irresistible enjoyment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 28
+
+Sleep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she awoke,
+Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and actively
+engaged in preparing breakfast.  She received Nell's apology for being
+so late with perfect good humour, and said that she should not have
+roused her if she had slept on until noon.
+
+'Because it does you good,' said the lady of the caravan, 'when you're
+tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue quite off;
+and that's another blessing of your time of life--you can sleep so very
+sound.'
+
+'Have you had a bad night, ma'am?' asked Nell.
+
+'I seldom have anything else, child,' replied Mrs Jarley, with the air
+of a martyr.  'I sometimes wonder how I bear it.'
+
+Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the
+caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night,
+Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake.
+However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal account
+of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down with her
+grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast.  The meal finished, Nell
+assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper
+places, and these household duties performed, Mrs Jarley arrayed
+herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose of making a
+progress through the streets of the town.
+
+'The wan will come on to bring the boxes,' said Mrs Jarley, and you had
+better come in it, child.  I am obliged to walk, very much against my
+will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can't be
+their own masters and mistresses in such matters as these.  How do I
+look, child?'
+
+Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a
+great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several
+abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last
+satisfied with her appearance, and went forth majestically.
+
+The caravan followed at no great distance.  As it went jolting through
+the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind
+of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the
+dreaded face of Quilp.  It was a pretty large town, with an open square
+which they were crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was
+the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock.  There were
+houses of stone, houses of red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of
+lath and plaster; and houses of wood, many of them very old, with
+withered faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the street.
+These had very little winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in
+some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement.  The streets
+were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull.  A few idle men
+lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the
+tradesmen's doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an
+alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going
+anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some
+straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for
+minutes afterwards.  Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and
+they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked
+voices that they surely must have been too slow.  The very dogs were
+all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer's shop,
+forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty corners
+of the window.
+
+Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at
+the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an admiring group
+of children, who evidently supposed her to be an important item of the
+curiosities, and were fully impressed with the belief that her
+grandfather was a cunning device in wax.  The chests were taken out
+with all convenient despatch, and taken in to be unlocked by Mrs
+Jarley, who, attended by George and another man in velveteen shorts and
+a drab hat ornamented with turnpike tickets, were waiting to dispose
+their contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental devices
+in upholstery work) to the best advantage in the decoration of the room.
+
+They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were.  As
+the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the
+envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred herself to
+assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also
+was of great service.  The two men being well used to it, did a great
+deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks from a
+linen pocket like a toll-collector's which she wore for the purpose,
+and encouraged her assistants to renewed exertion.
+
+While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose and
+black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the
+sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over, but was
+now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare--dressed too in
+ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps
+in the winter of their existence--looked in at the door and smiled
+affably.  Mrs Jarley's back being then towards him, the military
+gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her myrmidons were not to
+apprise her of his presence, and stealing up close behind her, tapped
+her on the neck, and cried playfully 'Boh!'
+
+'What, Mr Slum!' cried the lady of the wax-work.  'Lot! who'd have
+thought of seeing you here!'
+
+''Pon my soul and honour,' said Mr Slum, 'that's a good remark.  'Pon
+my soul and honour that's a wise remark.  Who would have thought it!
+George, my faithful feller, how are you?'
+
+George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing that
+he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering lustily all
+the time.
+
+'I came here,' said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley--''pon
+my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for.  It would
+puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad.  I wanted a little inspiration,
+a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and-- 'Pon my soul
+and honour,' said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking
+round the room, 'what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it's
+quite Minervian.'
+
+'It'll look well enough when it comes to be finished,' observed Mrs
+Jarley.
+
+'Well enough!' said Mr Slum.  'Will you believe me when I say it's the
+delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've
+exercised my pen upon this charming theme?  By the way--any orders?  Is
+there any little thing I can do for you?'
+
+'It comes so very expensive, sir,' replied Mrs Jarley, 'and I really
+don't think it does much good.'
+
+'Hush!  No, no!' returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand.  'No fibs.  I'll
+not hear it.  Don't say it don't do good.  Don't say it.  I know
+better!'
+
+'I don't think it does,' said Mrs Jarley.
+
+'Ha, ha!' cried Mr Slum, 'you're giving way, you're coming down.  Ask
+the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old
+lottery-office-keepers--ask any man among 'em what my poetry has done
+for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum.  If he's an
+honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of
+Slum--mark that!  You are acquainted with Westminster Abbey, Mrs
+Jarley?'
+
+'Yes, surely.'
+
+'Then upon my soul and honour, ma'am, you'll find in a certain angle of
+that dreary pile, called Poets' Corner, a few smaller names than Slum,'
+retorted that gentleman, tapping himself expressively on the forehead
+to imply that there was some slight quantity of brain behind it.  'I've
+got a little trifle here, now,' said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which
+was full of scraps of paper, 'a little trifle here, thrown off in the
+heat of the moment, which I should say was exactly the thing you wanted
+to set this place on fire with.  It's an acrostic--the name at this
+moment is Warren, and the idea's a convertible one, and a positive
+inspiration for Jarley.  Have the acrostic.'
+
+'I suppose it's very dear,' said Mrs Jarley.
+
+'Five shillings,' returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a toothpick.
+'Cheaper than any prose.'
+
+'I couldn't give more than three,' said Mrs Jarley.
+
+'--And six,' retorted Slum.  'Come.  Three-and-six.'
+
+Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet's insinuating manner, and Mr
+Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a three-and-sixpenny
+one.  Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, after taking a most
+affectionate leave of his patroness, and promising to return, as soon
+as he possibly could, with a fair copy for the printer.
+
+As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the
+preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed shortly
+after his departure.  When the festoons were all put up as tastily as
+they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were
+displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from the floor, running
+round the room and parted from the rude public by a crimson rope breast
+high, divers sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, singly and in
+groups, clad in glittering dresses of various climes and times, and
+standing more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very
+wide open, and their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of
+their legs and arms very strongly developed, and all their countenances
+expressing great surprise.  All the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted
+and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies were miraculous
+figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking
+intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at
+nothing.
+
+When Nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight, Mrs
+Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child,
+and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre, formally
+invested Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out
+the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty.
+
+'That,' said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a
+figure at the beginning of the platform, 'is an unfortunate Maid of
+Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her
+finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday.  Observe the blood
+which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the
+period, with which she is at work.'
+
+All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and the
+needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.
+
+'That, ladies and gentlemen,' said Mrs Jarley, 'is Jasper Packlemerton
+of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and
+destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were
+sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue.  On being
+brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done,
+he replied yes, he was sorry for having let 'em off so easy, and hoped
+all Christian husbands would pardon him the offence.  Let this be a
+warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the
+gentlemen of their choice.  Observe that his fingers are curled as if
+in the act of tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink,
+as he appeared when committing his barbarous murders.'
+
+When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without
+faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin
+man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a
+hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who
+poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical
+characters and interesting but misguided individuals.  And so well did
+Nell profit by her instructions, and so apt was she to remember them,
+that by the time they had been shut up together for a couple of hours,
+she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment,
+and perfectly competent to the enlightenment of visitors.
+
+Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result,
+and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining
+arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage had been
+already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with the inscription
+she had already seen (Mr Slum's productions), and a highly ornamented
+table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley herself, at which she was
+to preside and take the money, in company with his Majesty King George
+the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots, an anonymous
+gentleman of the Quaker persuasion, and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a
+correct model of the bill for the imposition of the window duty.  The
+preparations without doors had not been neglected either; a nun of
+great personal attractions was telling her beads on the little portico
+over the door; and a brigand with the blackest possible head of hair,
+and the clearest possible complexion, was at that moment going round
+the town in a cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.
+
+It now only remained that Mr Slum's compositions should be judiciously
+distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all
+private houses and tradespeople; and that the parody commencing 'If I
+know'd a donkey,' should be confined to the taverns, and circulated
+only among the lawyers' clerks and choice spirits of the place.  When
+this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had waited upon the boarding-schools
+in person, with a handbill composed expressly for them, in which it was
+distinctly proved that wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste,
+and enlarged the sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable
+lady sat down to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a
+flourishing campaign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 29
+
+Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius.  In the midst of the
+various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition, little Nell
+was not forgotten.  The light cart in which the Brigand usually made
+his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and streamers, and
+the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the miniature of his beloved
+as usual, Nell was accommodated with a seat beside him, decorated with
+artificial flowers, and in this state and ceremony rode slowly through
+the town every morning, dispersing handbills from a basket, to the
+sound of drum and trumpet.  The beauty of the child, coupled with her
+gentle and timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little
+country place.  The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest
+in the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be
+important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief
+attraction.  Grown-up folks began to be interested in the bright-eyed
+girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in love, and
+constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed in small-text,
+at the wax-work door.
+
+This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest Nell
+should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone again, and
+kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the figures every
+half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring audiences.  And these
+audiences were of a very superior description, including a great many
+young ladies' boarding-schools, whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at
+great pains to conciliate, by altering the face and costume of Mr
+Grimaldi as clown to represent Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when
+engaged in the composition of his English Grammar, and turning a
+murderess of great renown into Mrs Hannah More--both of which
+likenesses were admitted by Miss Monflathers, who was at the head of
+the head Boarding and Day Establishment in the town, and who
+condescended to take a Private View with eight chosen young ladies, to
+be quite startling from their extreme correctness.  Mr Pitt in a
+nightcap and bedgown, and without his boots, represented the poet
+Cowper with perfect exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig,
+white shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord
+Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it.  Miss
+Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to
+reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select:
+observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite
+incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a Dean
+and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.
+
+Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the lady
+of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not only a
+peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for making everybody
+about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it may be remarked, is,
+even in persons who live in much finer places than caravans, a far more
+rare and uncommon one than the first, and is not by any means its
+necessary consequence.  As her popularity procured her various little
+fees from the visitors on which her patroness never demanded any toll,
+and as her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, she had no
+cause of anxiety in connexion with the wax-work, beyond that which
+sprung from her recollection of Quilp, and her fears that he might
+return and one day suddenly encounter them.
+
+Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was
+constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure.
+She slept, for their better security, in the room where the wax-work
+figures were, and she never retired to this place at night but she
+tortured herself--she could not help it--with imagining a resemblance,
+in some one or other of their death-like faces, to the dwarf, and this
+fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she would almost believe he
+had removed the figure and stood within the clothes.  Then there were
+so many of them with their great glassy eyes--and, as they stood one
+behind the other all about her bed, they looked so like living
+creatures, and yet so unlike in their grim stillness and silence, that
+she had a kind of terror of them for their own sakes, and would often
+lie watching their dusky figures until she was obliged to rise and
+light a candle, or go and sit at the open window and feel a
+companionship in the bright stars.  At these times, she would recall
+the old house and the window at which she used to sit alone; and then
+she would think of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came
+into her eyes, and she would weep and smile together.
+
+Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her
+grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of their
+former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the change in
+their condition and of their late helplessness and destitution.  When
+they were wandering about, she seldom thought of this, but now she
+could not help considering what would become of them if he fell sick,
+or her own strength were to fail her.  He was very patient and willing,
+happy to execute any little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in
+the same listless state, with no prospect of improvement--a mere
+child--a poor, thoughtless, vacant creature--a harmless fond old man,
+susceptible of tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant and
+painful impressions, but alive to nothing more.  It made her very sad
+to know that this was so--so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat
+idly by, smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he
+caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was fond of
+doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple questions, yet
+patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost conscious of it
+too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant--so sad it made her
+to see him thus, that she would burst into tears, and, withdrawing into
+some secret place, fall down upon her knees and pray that he might be
+restored.
+
+But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this
+condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her
+solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials for
+a young heart.  Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to come.
+
+One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather went
+out to walk.  They had been rather closely confined for some days, and
+the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance.  Clear of the
+town, they took a footpath which struck through some pleasant fields,
+judging that it would terminate in the road they quitted and enable
+them to return that way.  It made, however, a much wider circuit than
+they had supposed, and thus they were tempted onward until sunset, when
+they reached the track of which they were in search, and stopped to
+rest.
+
+It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and
+lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up masses of
+gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there
+through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth.  The wind
+began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down carrying glad day
+elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it, menaced
+thunder and lightning.  Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as
+the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they
+left behind and spread over all the sky.  Then was heard the low
+rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the
+darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant.
+
+Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and the
+child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in which
+they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst forth in
+earnest, and every moment increased in violence.  Drenched with the
+pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and bewildered by the
+glare of the forked lightning, they would have passed a solitary house
+without being aware of its vicinity, had not a man, who was standing at
+the door, called lustily to them to enter.
+
+'Your ears ought to be better than other folks' at any rate, if you
+make so little of the chance of being struck blind,' he said,
+retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the
+jagged lightning came again.  'What were you going past for, eh?' he
+added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to a room
+behind.
+
+'We didn't see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,' Nell replied.
+
+'No wonder,' said the man, 'with this lightning in one's eyes,
+by-the-by.  You had better stand by the fire here, and dry yourselves a
+bit.  You can call for what you like if you want anything.  If you
+don't want anything, you are not obliged to give an order.  Don't be
+afraid of that.  This is a public-house, that's all.  The Valiant
+Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.'
+
+'Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?' asked Nell.
+
+'I thought everybody knew that,' replied the landlord.  'Where have you
+come from, if you don't know the Valiant Soldier as well as the church
+catechism?  This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves--Jem
+Groves--honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral character,
+and has a good dry skittle-ground.  If any man has got anything to say
+again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and Jem Groves can
+accommodate him with a customer on any terms from four pound a side to
+forty.
+
+With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to
+intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred
+scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at society
+in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and, applying a
+half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips, drank Jem Groves's
+health.
+
+The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the room,
+for a barrier against the heat of the fire.  It seemed as if somebody
+on the other side of this screen had been insinuating doubts of Mr
+Groves's prowess, and had thereby given rise to these egotistical
+expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by giving a loud knock
+upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a reply from the other side.
+
+'There an't many men,' said Mr Groves, no answer being returned, 'who
+would ventur' to cross Jem Groves under his own roof.  There's only one
+man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that man's not a
+hundred mile from here neither.  But he's worth a dozen men, and I let
+him say of me whatever he likes in consequence--he knows that.'
+
+In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice
+bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.'  And the same voice
+remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in brag, for
+most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was made of.'
+
+'Nell, they're--they're playing cards,' whispered the old man, suddenly
+interested.  'Don't you hear them?'
+
+'Look sharp with that candle,' said the voice; 'it's as much as I can
+do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter closed
+as quick as you can, will you?  Your beer will be the worse for
+to-night's thunder I expect.--Game!  Seven-and-sixpence to me, old
+Isaac.  Hand over.'
+
+'Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?' whispered the old man again,
+with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.
+
+'I haven't seen such a storm as this,' said a sharp cracked voice of
+most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had died
+away, 'since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen times running
+on the red.  We all said he had the Devil's luck and his own, and as it
+was the kind of night for the Devil to be out and busy, I suppose he
+was looking over his shoulder, if anybody 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.'
+
+'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
+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.  'I
+wonder who is more anxious 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 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 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, and,
+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 her.  The
+men were very ill-looking.  They might get their living by robbing and
+murdering travellers.  Who could tell?
+
+Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a
+little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the
+night gave rise.  Here was the old passion awakened again in her
+grandfather's breast, and to what further distraction it might tempt
+him Heaven only knew.  What fears their absence might have occasioned
+already!  Persons might be seeking for them even then.  Would they be
+forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again!  Oh!  why had they
+stopped in that strange place?  It would have been better, under any
+circumstances, to have gone on!
+
+At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep,
+troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start
+and in great terror.  A deeper slumber followed this--and then--What!
+That figure in the room.
+
+A figure was there.  Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light
+when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the
+dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with
+noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed.  She had no voice to cry
+for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it.
+
+On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the bed's head.  The breath
+so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those wandering
+hands should light upon her face.  Back again it stole to the
+window--then turned its head towards her.
+
+The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the room,
+but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how the eyes
+looked and the ears listened.  There it remained, motionless as she.
+At length, still keeping the face towards her, it busied its hands in
+something, and she heard the chink of money.
+
+Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and replacing
+the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon its hands and
+knees, and crawled away.  How slowly it seemed to move, now that she
+could hear but not see it, creeping along the floor!  It reached the
+door at last, and stood upon its feet.  The steps creaked beneath its
+noiseless tread, and it was gone.
+
+The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being by
+herself in that room--to have somebody by--not to be alone--and then
+her power of speech would be restored.  With no consciousness of having
+moved, she gained the door.
+
+There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.
+
+She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the darkness
+without being seized, but her blood curdled at the thought.  The figure
+stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly, but of necessity; for
+going back into the room was hardly less terrible than going on.
+
+The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing
+streams from the thatched roof.  Some summer insect, with no escape
+into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the
+walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs.  The
+figure moved again.  The child involuntarily did the same.  Once in her
+grandfather's room, she would be safe.
+
+It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she longed so
+ardently to reach.  The child, in the agony of being so near, had
+almost darted forward with the design of bursting into the room and
+closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.
+
+The idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if it entered there, and had a
+design upon the old man's life!  She turned faint and sick.  It did.
+It went in.  There was a light inside.  The figure was now within the
+chamber, and she, still dumb--quite dumb, and almost senseless--stood
+looking on.
+
+The door was partly open.  Not knowing what she meant to do, but
+meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and
+looked in. What sight was that which met her view!
+
+The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty.  And at a table
+sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face
+pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally
+bright--counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 31
+
+With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had
+approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her
+way back to her own chamber.  The terror she had lately felt was
+nothing compared with that which now oppressed her.  No strange robber,
+no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing
+to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however
+terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread
+which the recognition of her silent visitor inspired.  The grey-headed
+old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while
+he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging
+over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was
+worse--immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to
+reflect upon--than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested.
+If he should return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if,
+distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come back
+to seek for more--a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea of his
+slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face toward the
+empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to avoid his touch,
+which was almost insupportable.  She sat and listened.  Hark!  A
+footstep on the stairs, and now the door was slowly opening.  It was
+but imagination, yet imagination had all the terrors of reality; nay,
+it was worse, for the reality would have come and gone, and there an
+end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never went away.
+
+The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror.  She
+had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this
+disease of the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that
+night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting
+the money by the glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his
+shape, a monstrous distortion of his image, a something to recoil from,
+and be the more afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept
+close about her, as he did.  She could scarcely connect her own
+affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like
+yet so unlike him.  She had wept to see him dull and quiet.  How much
+greater cause she had for weeping now!
+
+The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom
+in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be
+a relief to hear the old man's voice, or, if he were asleep, even to
+see him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image.
+She stole down the stairs and passage again.  The door was still ajar
+as she had left it, and the candle burning as before.
+
+She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking,
+that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were
+still alight.  Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his
+bed, and so took courage to enter.
+
+Fast asleep.  No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild
+desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace.  This was not the gambler,
+or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man
+whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning light; this was
+her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind
+grandfather.
+
+She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had
+a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.
+
+'God bless him!' said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid
+cheek.  'I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they
+found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky.  He
+has only me to help him.  God bless us both!'
+
+Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and,
+gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that
+long, long, miserable night.
+
+At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep.
+She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed; and, as
+soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather.  But
+first she searched her pocket and found that her money was all
+gone--not a sixpence remained.
+
+The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road.
+The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to expect
+that she would tell him of her loss.  She felt she must do that, or he
+might suspect the truth.
+
+'Grandfather,' she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked
+about a mile in silence, 'do you think they are honest people at the
+house yonder?'
+
+'Why?' returned the old man trembling.  'Do I think them honest--yes,
+they played honestly.'
+
+'I'll tell you why I ask,' rejoined Nell.  'I lost some money last
+night--out of my bedroom, I am sure.  Unless it was taken by somebody
+in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh
+heartily if I could but know it--'
+
+'Who would take money in jest?' returned the old man in a hurried
+manner.  'Those who take money, take it to keep.  Don't talk of jest.'
+
+'Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,' said the child, whose last
+hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.
+
+'But is there no more, Nell?' said the old man; 'no more anywhere?  Was
+it all taken--every farthing of it--was there nothing left?'
+
+'Nothing,' replied the child.
+
+'We must get more,' said the old man, 'we must earn it, Nell, hoard it
+up, scrape it together, come by it somehow.  Never mind this loss.
+Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it.  Don't ask how;--we
+may regain it, and a great deal more;--but tell nobody, or trouble may
+come of it.  And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert
+asleep!' he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the
+secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now.  'Poor Nell, poor
+little Nell!'
+
+The child hung down her head and wept.  The sympathising tone in which
+he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that.  It was not the
+lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.
+
+'Not a word about it to any one but me,' said the old man, 'no, not
+even to me,' he added hastily, 'for it can do no good.  All the losses
+that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling.  Why should
+they be, when we will win them back?'
+
+'Let them go,' said the child looking up.  'Let them go, once and for
+ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had been a
+thousand pounds.'
+
+'Well, well,' returned the old man, checking himself as some impetuous
+answer rose to his lips, 'she knows no better.  I ought to be thankful
+of it.'
+
+'But listen to me,' said the child earnestly, 'will you listen to me?'
+
+'Aye, aye, I'll listen,' returned the old man, still without looking at
+her; 'a pretty voice.  It has always a sweet sound to me.  It always
+had when it was her mother's, poor child.'
+
+'Let me persuade you, then--oh, do let me persuade you,' said the
+child, 'to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but
+the fortune we pursue together.'
+
+'We pursue this aim together,' retorted her grandfather, still looking
+away and seeming to confer with himself.  'Whose image sanctifies the
+game?'
+
+'Have we been worse off,' resumed the child, 'since you forgot these
+cares, and we have been travelling on together?  Have we not been much
+better and happier without a home to shelter us, than ever we were in
+that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?'
+
+'She speaks the truth,' murmured the old man in the same tone as
+before.  'It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it is.'
+
+'Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we
+turned our backs upon it for the last time,' said Nell, 'only remember
+what we have been since we have been free of all those miseries--what
+peaceful days and quiet nights we have had--what pleasant times we have
+known--what happiness we have enjoyed.  If we have been tired or
+hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and slept the sounder for it.
+Think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have
+felt.  And why was this blessed change?'
+
+He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no
+more just then, for he was busy.  After a time he kissed her cheek,
+still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far before him,
+and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow upon the ground,
+as if he were painfully trying to collect his disordered thoughts.
+Once she saw tears in his eyes.  When he had gone on thus for some
+time, he took her hand in his as he was accustomed to do, with nothing
+of the violence or animation of his late manner; and so, by degrees so
+fine that the child could not trace them, he settled down into his
+usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would.
+
+When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous
+collection, they found, as Nell had anticipated, that Mrs Jarley was
+not yet out of bed, and that, although she had suffered some uneasiness
+on their account overnight, and had indeed sat up for them until past
+eleven o'clock, she had retired in the persuasion, that, being
+overtaken by storm at some distance from home, they had sought the
+nearest shelter, and would not return before morning.  Nell immediately
+applied herself with great assiduity to the decoration and preparation
+of the room, and had the satisfaction of completing her task, and
+dressing herself neatly, before the beloved of the Royal Family came
+down to breakfast.
+
+'We haven't had,' said Mrs Jarley when the meal was over, 'more than
+eight of Miss Monflathers's young ladies all the time we've been here,
+and there's twenty-six of 'em, as I was told by the cook when I asked
+her a question or two and put her on the free-list.  We must try 'em
+with a parcel of new bills, and you shall take it, my dear, and see
+what effect that has upon 'em.'
+
+The proposed expedition being one of paramount importance, Mrs Jarley
+adjusted Nell's bonnet with her own hands, and declaring that she
+certainly did look very pretty, and reflected credit on the
+establishment, dismissed her with many commendations, and certain
+needful directions as to the turnings on the right which she was to
+take, and the turnings on the left which she was to avoid.  Thus
+instructed, Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss Monflathers's
+Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a large house, with a high
+wall, and a large garden-gate with a large brass plate, and a small
+grating through which Miss Monflathers's parlour-maid inspected all
+visitors before admitting them; for nothing in the shape of a man--no,
+not even a milkman--was suffered, without special license, to pass that
+gate.  Even the tax-gatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a
+broad-brimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating.  More
+obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss Monflathers's
+frowned on all mankind.  The very butcher respected it as a gate of
+mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the bell.
+
+As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges
+with a creaking noise, and, forth from the solemn grove beyond, came a
+long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books in their
+hands, and some with parasols likewise.  And last of the goodly
+procession came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac
+silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally envious of
+the other, and devoted unto Miss Monflathers.
+
+Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with
+downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss
+Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she curtseyed
+and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss Monflathers
+commanded that the line should halt.
+
+'You're the wax-work child, are you not?' said Miss Monflathers.
+
+'Yes, ma'am,' replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had
+collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were
+fixed.
+
+'And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child,' said Miss
+Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no
+opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the
+young ladies, 'to be a wax-work child at all?'
+
+Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing
+what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before.
+
+'Don't you know,' said Miss Monflathers, 'that it's very naughty and
+unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly
+transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their
+dormant state through the medium of cultivation?'
+
+The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this
+home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that
+there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard.  Then they smiled
+and glanced at Miss Monflathers, and then, their eyes meeting, they
+exchanged looks which plainly said that each considered herself smiler
+in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and regarded the other as having no
+right to smile, and that her so doing was an act of presumption and
+impertinence.
+
+'Don't you feel how naughty it is of you,' resumed Miss Monflathers,
+'to be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud consciousness of
+assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of
+your country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of
+the steam-engine; and of earning a comfortable and independent
+subsistence of from two-and-ninepence to three shillings per week?
+Don't you know that the harder you are at work, the happier you are?'
+
+'"How doth the little--"' murmured one of the teachers, in quotation
+from Doctor Watts.
+
+'Eh?' said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round.  'Who said that?'
+
+Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who had,
+whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace; by that
+means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.
+
+'The little busy bee,' said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up, 'is
+applicable only to genteel children.
+
+  "In books, or work, or healthful play"
+
+is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means
+painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery.  In such cases as
+these,' pointing to Nell, with her parasol, 'and in the case of all
+poor people's children, we should read it thus:
+
+
+  "In work, work, work.  In work alway
+  Let my first years be past,
+  That I may give for ev'ry day
+  Some good account at last."'
+
+
+A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but from
+all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss Monflathers
+improvising after this brilliant style; for although she had been long
+known as a politician, she had never appeared before as an original
+poet.  Just then somebody happened to discover that Nell was crying,
+and all eyes were again turned towards her.
+
+There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief
+to brush them away, she happened to let it fall.  Before she could
+stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who
+had been standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no
+recognised place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand.
+She was gliding timidly away again, when she was arrested by the
+governess.
+
+'It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,' said Miss Monflathers
+predictively.  'Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.'
+
+It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss
+Edwards herself admitted that it was.
+
+'Is it not,' said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a
+severer view of the offender, 'a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards,
+that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you
+to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that
+all I say and do will not wean you from propensities which your
+original station in life have unhappily rendered habitual to you, you
+extremely vulgar-minded girl?'
+
+'I really intended no harm, ma'am,' said a sweet voice.  'It was a
+momentary impulse, indeed.'
+
+'An impulse!' repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully.  'I wonder that you
+presume to speak of impulses to me'--both the teachers assented--'I am
+astonished'--both the teachers were astonished--'I suppose it is an
+impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and
+debased person that comes in your way'--both the teachers supposed so
+too.
+
+'But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,' resumed the governess in a
+tone of increased severity, 'that you cannot be permitted--if it be
+only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this
+establishment--that you cannot be permitted, and that you shall not be
+permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in this exceedingly
+gross manner.  If you have no reason to feel a becoming pride before
+wax-work children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must
+either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, Miss
+Edwards.'
+
+This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the
+school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learnt, for
+nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down and
+rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers
+in the house.  The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for they were
+better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations
+with much more respect.  The teachers were infinitely superior, for
+they had paid to go to school in their time, and were paid now.  The
+pupils cared little for a companion who had no grand stories to tell
+about home; no friends to come with post-horses, and be received in all
+humility, with cake and wine, by the governess; no deferential servant
+to attend and bear her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk
+about, and nothing to display.  But why was Miss Monflathers always
+vexed and irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass?
+
+Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers's cap, and the brightest
+glory of Miss Monflathers's school, was a baronet's daughter--the real
+live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by some extraordinary
+reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only plain in features but dull
+in intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit, and a
+handsome face and figure.  It seems incredible.  Here was Miss Edwards,
+who only paid a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day
+outshining and excelling the baronet's daughter, who learned all the
+extras (or was taught them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to
+double that of any other young lady's in the school, making no account
+of the honour and reputation of her pupilage.  Therefore, and because
+she was a dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss
+Edwards, and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she
+had compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as
+we have already seen.
+
+'You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,' said Miss
+Monflathers.  'Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to
+leave it without permission.'
+
+The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in
+nautical phrase, 'brought to' by a subdued shriek from Miss Monflathers.
+
+'She has passed me without any salute!' cried the governess, raising
+her eyes to the sky.  'She has actually passed me without the slightest
+acknowledgment of my presence!'
+
+The young lady turned and curtsied.  Nell could see that she raised her
+dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and
+that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most
+touching appeal against this ungenerous usage.  Miss Monflathers only
+tossed her head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting
+heart.
+
+'As for you, you wicked child,' said Miss Monflathers, turning to Nell,
+'tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty of sending
+to me any more, I will write to the legislative authorities and have
+her put in the stocks, or compelled to do penance in a white sheet; and
+you may depend upon it that you shall certainly experience the
+treadmill if you dare to come here again.  Now ladies, on.'
+
+The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols, and
+Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet's daughter to walk with her and
+smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers--who by this
+time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy--and left them
+to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little more for being
+obliged to walk together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 32
+
+Mrs Jarley's wrath on first learning that she had been threatened with
+the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description.  The
+genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by children,
+and flouted by beadles!  The delight of the Nobility and Gentry shorn
+of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to wear, and
+arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification and humility!
+And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who presumed, even in the
+dimmest and remotest distance of her imagination, to conjure up the
+degrading picture, 'I am a'most inclined,' said Mrs Jarley, bursting
+with the fulness of her anger and the weakness of her means of revenge,
+'to turn atheist when I think of it!'
+
+But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on
+second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering
+glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a
+chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them several
+times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had received.  This
+done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to drink; then laughed,
+then cried, then took a little sip herself, then laughed and cried
+again, and took a little more; and so, by degrees, the worthy lady went
+on, increasing in smiles and decreasing in tears, until at last she
+could not laugh enough at Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object
+of dire vexation, became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity.
+
+'For which of us is best off, I wonder,' quoth Mrs Jarley, 'she or me!
+It's only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks of me in
+the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is a good deal
+funnier if we come to that.  Lord, what does it matter, after all!'
+
+Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had been
+greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of the
+philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind words,
+and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought of Miss
+Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her, all the days
+of her life.
+
+So ended Mrs Jarley's wrath, which subsided long before the going down
+of the sun.  Nell's anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind, and the
+checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so easily removed.
+
+That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and did
+not come back until the night was far spent.  Worn out as she was, and
+fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the minutes,
+until he returned--penniless, broken-spirited, and wretched, but still
+hotly bent upon his infatuation.
+
+'Get me money,' he said wildly, as they parted for the night.  'I must
+have money, Nell.  It shall be paid thee back with gallant interest one
+day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must be mine--not for
+myself, but to use for thee.  Remember, Nell, to use for thee!'
+
+What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him every
+penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to rob
+their benefactress?  If she told the truth (so thought the child) he
+would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with money, he
+would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that burnt him
+up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery.  Distracted by these thoughts,
+borne down by the weight of the sorrow which she dared not tell,
+tortured by a crowd of apprehensions whenever the old man was absent,
+and dreading alike his stay and his return, the colour forsook her
+cheek, her eye grew dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy.  All
+her old sorrows had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and
+doubts; by day they were ever present to her mind; by night they
+hovered round her pillow, and haunted her in dreams.
+
+It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should often
+revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a hasty
+glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief action, dwelt
+in her memory like the kindnesses of years.  She would often think, if
+she had such a friend as that to whom to tell her griefs, how much
+lighter her heart would be--that if she were but free to hear that
+voice, she would be happier.  Then she would wish that she were
+something better, that she were not quite so poor and humble, that she
+dared address her without fearing a repulse; and then feel that there
+was an immeasurable distance between them, and have no hope that the
+young lady thought of her any more.
+
+It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had gone
+home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in London,
+and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but nobody said
+anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home, or whether she
+had any home to go to, whether she was still at the school, or anything
+about her.  But one evening, as Nell was returning from a lonely walk,
+she happened to pass the inn where the stage-coaches stopped, just as
+one drove up, and there was the beautiful girl she so well remembered,
+pressing forward to embrace a young child whom they were helping down
+from the roof.
+
+Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than Nell,
+whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five years,
+and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had been saving
+her poor means all that time.  Nell felt as if her heart would break
+when she saw them meet.  They went a little apart from the knot of
+people who had congregated about the coach, and fell upon each other's
+neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy.  Their plain and simple dress, the
+distance which the child had come alone, their agitation and delight,
+and the tears they shed, would have told their history by themselves.
+
+They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away, not
+so much hand in hand as clinging to each other.  'Are you sure you're
+happy, sister?' said the child as they passed where Nell was standing.
+'Quite happy now,' she answered.  'But always?' said the child.  'Ah,
+sister, why do you turn away your face?'
+
+Nell could not help following at a little distance.  They went to the
+house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a bed-room
+for the child.  'I shall come to you early every morning,' she said,
+'and we can be together all the day.'
+
+'Why not at night-time too? Dear sister, would they be angry with you
+for that?'
+
+Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like those
+of the two sisters?  Why did she bear a grateful heart because they had
+met, and feel it pain to think that they would shortly part?  Let us
+not believe that any selfish reference--unconscious though it might
+have been--to her own trials awoke this sympathy, but thank God that
+the innocent joys of others can strongly move us, and that we, even in
+our fallen nature, have one source of pure emotion which must be prized
+in Heaven!
+
+By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's gentle
+light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy intercourse of
+these two sisters which forbade her to approach and say a thankful
+word, although she yearned to do so, followed them at a distance in
+their walks and rambles, stopping when they stopped, sitting on the
+grass when they sat down, rising when they went on, and feeling it a
+companionship and delight to be so near them.  Their evening walk was
+by a river's side.  Here, every night, the child was too, unseen by
+them, unthought of, unregarded; but feeling as if they were her
+friends, as if they had confidences and trusts together, as if her load
+were lightened and less hard to bear; as if they mingled their sorrows,
+and found mutual consolation.  It was a weak fancy perhaps, the
+childish fancy of a young and lonely creature; but night after night,
+and still the sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child
+followed with a mild and softened heart.
+
+She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that Mrs
+Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the effect that
+the stupendous collection would only remain in its present quarters one
+day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for all announcements
+connected with public amusements are well known to be irrevocable and
+most exact), the stupendous collection shut up next day.
+
+'Are we going from this place directly, ma'am?' said Nell.
+
+'Look here, child,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'That'll inform you.' And so
+saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it was stated,
+that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the wax-work door, and in
+consequence of crowds having been disappointed in obtaining admission,
+the Exhibition would be continued for one week longer, and would
+re-open next day.
+
+'For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers
+exhausted,' said Mrs Jarley, 'we come to the General Public, and they
+want stimulating.'
+
+Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself behind
+the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished effigies
+before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open for the
+readmission of a discerning and enlightened public.  But the first
+day's operations were by no means of a successful character, inasmuch
+as the general public, though they manifested a lively interest in Mrs
+Jarley personally, and such of her waxen satellites as were to be seen
+for nothing, were not affected by any impulses moving them to the
+payment of sixpence a head.  Thus, notwithstanding that a great many
+people continued to stare at the entry and the figures therein
+displayed; and remained there with great perseverance, by the hour at a
+time, to hear the barrel-organ played and to read the bills; and
+notwithstanding that they were kind enough to recommend their friends
+to patronise the exhibition in the like manner, until the door-way was
+regularly blockaded by half the population of the town, who, when they
+went off duty, were relieved by the other half; it was not found that
+the treasury was any the richer, or that the prospects of the
+establishment were at all encouraging.
+
+In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made
+extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the
+popular curiosity.  Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the
+leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the
+figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great
+admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way, who
+looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the degrading
+effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of the Romish
+Church and discoursed upon that theme with great eloquence and
+morality.  The two carters constantly passed in and out of the
+exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting aloud that the
+sight was better worth the money than anything they had beheld in all
+their lives, and urging the bystanders, with tears in their eyes, not
+to neglect such a brilliant gratification.  Mrs Jarley sat in the
+pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon till night, and solemnly
+calling upon the crowd to take notice that the price of admission was
+only sixpence, and that the departure of the whole collection, on a
+short tour among the Crowned Heads of Europe, was positively fixed for
+that day week.
+
+'So be in time, be in time, be in time,' said Mrs Jarley at the close
+of every such address.  'Remember that this is Jarley's stupendous
+collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that it is the only
+collection in the world; all others being imposters and deceptions.  Be
+in time, be in time, be in time!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 33
+
+As the course of this tale requires that we should become acquainted,
+somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected with the
+domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more convenient place
+than the present is not likely to occur for that purpose, the historian
+takes the friendly reader by the hand, and springing with him into the
+air, and cleaving the same at a greater rate than ever Don Cleophas
+Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar travelled through that pleasant
+region in company, alights with him upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.
+
+The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the
+residence of Mr Sampson Brass.
+
+In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close upon
+the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the dim glass
+with his coat sleeve--much to its improvement, for it is very dirty--in
+this parlour window in the days of its occupation by Sampson Brass,
+there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured by the sun, a curtain
+of faded green, so threadbare from long service as by no means to
+intercept the view of the little dark room, but rather to afford a
+favourable medium through which to observe it accurately.  There was
+not much to look at.  A rickety table, with spare bundles of papers,
+yellow and ragged from long carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously
+displayed upon its top; a couple of stools set face to face on opposite
+sides of this crazy piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the
+fire-place, whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and
+helped to squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository
+for blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the
+sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged to
+the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common books
+of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted hearth-broom, a
+carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with the tightness of
+desperation to its tacks--these, with the yellow wainscot of the walls,
+the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and cobwebs, were among the
+most prominent decorations of the office of Mr Sampson Brass.
+
+But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the plate,
+'BRASS, Solicitor,' upon the door, and the bill, 'First floor to let to
+a single gentleman,' which was tied to the knocker.  The office
+commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of
+this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest and more
+particular concern.
+
+Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in these
+pages.  The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary,
+confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of cost increaser,
+Miss Brass--a kind of amazon at common law, of whom it may be desirable
+to offer a brief description.
+
+Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a
+gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it repressed
+the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly
+inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers
+who had the happiness to approach her.  In face she bore a striking
+resemblance to her brother, Sampson--so exact, indeed, was the likeness
+between them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass's maiden modesty
+and gentle womanhood to have assumed her brother's clothes in a frolic
+and sat down beside him, it would have been difficult for the oldest
+friend of the family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally,
+especially as the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish
+demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her
+attire, might have been mistaken for a beard.  These were, however, in
+all probability, nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the
+eyes of Miss Brass were quite free from any such natural
+impertinencies.  In complexion Miss Brass was sallow--rather a dirty
+sallow, so to speak--but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy
+glow which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose.  Her voice
+was exceedingly impressive--deep and rich in quality, and, once heard,
+not easily forgotten.  Her usual dress was a green gown, in colour not
+unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to the figure, and
+terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a peculiarly
+large and massive button.  Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and
+plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or
+kerchief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a
+brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which,
+twisted into any form that happened to suggest itself, formed an easy
+and graceful head-dress.
+
+Such was Miss Brass in person.  In mind, she was of a strong and
+vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with
+uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon
+its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through
+all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues
+its way.  Nor had she, like many persons of great intellect, confined
+herself to theory, or stopped short where practical usefulness begins;
+inasmuch as she could ingross, fair-copy, fill up printed forms with
+perfect accuracy, and, in short, transact any ordinary duty of the
+office down to pouncing a skin of parchment or mending a pen.  It is
+difficult to understand how, possessed of these combined attractions,
+she should remain Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart
+against mankind, or whether those who might have wooed and won her,
+were deterred by fears that, being learned in the law, she might have
+too near her fingers' ends those particular statutes which regulate
+what are familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she
+was still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her
+old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson.  And equally certain
+it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great many people
+had come to the ground.
+
+One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal
+process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if he
+were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it was
+directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new pen
+preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her favourite
+occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time, until Miss
+Brass broke silence.
+
+'Have you nearly done, Sammy?' said Miss Brass; for in her mild and
+feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened down.
+
+'No,' returned her brother.  'It would have been all done though, if
+you had helped at the right time.'
+
+'Oh yes, indeed,' cried Miss Sally; 'you want my help, don't you?--YOU,
+too, that are going to keep a clerk!'
+
+'Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my own
+wish, you provoking rascal!' said Mr Brass, putting his pen in his
+mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister.  'What do you taunt me
+about going to keep a clerk for?'
+
+It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling a
+lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that he was
+so habituated to having her near him in a man's capacity, that he had
+gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though she were really a
+man.  And this feeling was so perfectly reciprocal, that not only did
+Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a rascal, or even put an adjective
+before the rascal, but Miss Brass looked upon it as quite a matter of
+course, and was as little moved as any other lady would be by being
+called an angel.
+
+'What do you taunt me, after three hours' talk last night, with going
+to keep a clerk for?' repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with the pen in
+his mouth, like some nobleman's or gentleman's crest.  'Is it my fault?'
+
+'All I know is,' said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted in
+nothing so much as irritating her brother, 'that if every one of your
+clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or not, you
+had better leave off business, strike yourself off the roll, and get
+taken in execution, as soon as you can.'
+
+'Have we got any other client like him?' said Brass.  'Have we got
+another client like him now--will you answer me that?'
+
+'Do you mean in the face!' said his sister.
+
+'Do I mean in the face!' sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to take
+up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly.  'Look
+here--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp,
+Esquire--all through.  Whether should I take a clerk that he
+recommends, and says, "this is the man for you," or lose all this, eh?'
+
+Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on with
+her work.
+
+'But I know what it is,' resumed Brass after a short silence.  'You're
+afraid you won't have as long a finger in the business as you've been
+used to have.  Do you think I don't see through that?'
+
+'The business wouldn't go on very long, I expect, without me,' returned
+his sister composedly.  'Don't you be a fool and provoke me, Sammy, but
+mind what you're doing, and do it.'
+
+Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister, sulkily
+bent over his writing again, and listened as she said:
+
+'If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he
+wouldn't be allowed to come.  You know that well enough, so don't talk
+nonsense.'
+
+Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely
+remarking, under his breath, that he didn't like that kind of joking,
+and that Miss Sally would be 'a much better fellow' if she forbore to
+aggravate him.  To this compliment Miss Sally replied, that she had a
+relish for the amusement, and had no intention to forego its
+gratification.  Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to pursue the
+subject any further, they both plied their pens at a great pace, and
+there the discussion ended.
+
+While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as by
+some person standing close against it.  As Mr Brass and Miss Sally
+looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly lowered from
+without, and Quilp thrust in his head.
+
+'Hallo!' he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and looking
+down into the room.  'Is there anybody at home?  Is there any of the
+Devil's ware here?  Is Brass at a premium, eh?'
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy.  'Oh, very
+good, Sir!  Oh, very good indeed!  Quite eccentric!  Dear me, what
+humour he has!'
+
+'Is that my Sally?' croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass.  'Is
+it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword and
+scales?  Is it the Strong Arm of the Law?  Is it the Virgin of Bevis?'
+
+'What an amazing flow of spirits!' cried Brass.  'Upon my word, it's
+quite extraordinary!'
+
+'Open the door,' said Quilp, 'I've got him here.  Such a clerk for you,
+Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps.  Be quick and open the
+door, or if there's another lawyer near and he should happen to look
+out of window, he'll snap him up before your eyes, he will.'
+
+It is probable that the loss of the phoenix of clerks, even to a rival
+practitioner, would not have broken Mr Brass's heart; but, pretending
+great alacrity, he rose from his seat, and going to the door, returned,
+introducing his client, who led by the hand no less a person than Mr
+Richard Swiveller.
+
+'There she is,' said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and wrinkling
+up his eyebrows as he looked towards Miss Sally; 'there is the woman I
+ought to have married--there is the beautiful Sarah--there is the
+female who has all the charms of her sex and none of their weaknesses.
+Oh Sally, Sally!'
+
+To this amorous address Miss Brass briefly responded 'Bother!'
+
+'Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,' said Quilp.
+'Why don't she change it--melt down the brass, and take another name?'
+
+'Hold your nonsense, Mr Quilp, do,' returned Miss Sally, with a grim
+smile.  'I wonder you're not ashamed of yourself before a strange young
+man.'
+
+'The strange young man,' said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller forward,
+'is too susceptible himself not to understand me well.  This is Mr
+Swiveller, my intimate friend--a gentleman of good family and great
+expectations, but who, having rather involved himself by youthful
+indiscretion, is content for a time to fill the humble station of a
+clerk--humble, but here most enviable.  What a delicious atmosphere!'
+
+If Mr Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air
+breathed by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that dainty
+creature, he had doubtless good reason for what he said.  But if he
+spoke of the delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass's office in a
+literal sense, he had certainly a peculiar taste, as it was of a close
+and earthy kind, and, besides being frequently impregnated with strong
+whiffs of the second-hand wearing apparel exposed for sale in Duke's
+Place and Houndsditch, had a decided flavour of rats and mice, and a
+taint of mouldiness.  Perhaps some doubts of its pure delight presented
+themselves to Mr Swiveller, as he gave vent to one or two short abrupt
+sniffs, and looked incredulously at the grinning dwarf.
+
+'Mr Swiveller,' said Quilp, 'being pretty well accustomed to the
+agricultural pursuits of sowing wild oats, Miss Sally, prudently
+considers that half a loaf is better than no bread.  To be out of
+harm's way he prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he
+accepts your brother's offer.  Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.'
+
+'I am very glad, Sir,' said Mr Brass, 'very glad indeed.  Mr Swiveller,
+Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship.  You may be very
+proud, Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.'
+
+Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to
+give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of
+friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared
+to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he
+stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf
+beyond measure.  As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her
+hands as men of business do, and took a few turns up and down the
+office with her pen behind her ear.
+
+'I suppose,' said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend, 'that
+Mr Swiveller enters upon his duties at once?  It's Monday morning.'
+
+'At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,' returned Brass.
+
+'Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,' said
+Quilp; 'she'll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his Blackstone,
+his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer's Best Companion.'
+
+'He is exceedingly eloquent,' said Brass, like a man abstracted, and
+looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in his
+pockets; 'he has an extraordinary flow of language.  Beautiful, really.'
+
+'With Miss Sally,' Quilp went on, 'and the beautiful fictions of the
+law, his days will pass like minutes.  Those charming creations of the
+poet, John Doe and Richard Roe, when they first dawn upon him, will
+open a new world for the enlargement of his mind and the improvement of
+his heart.'
+
+'Oh, beautiful, beautiful!  Beau-ti-ful indeed!' cried Brass.  'It's a
+treat to hear him!'
+
+'Where will Mr Swiveller sit?' said Quilp, looking round.
+
+'Why, we'll buy another stool, sir,' returned Brass.  'We hadn't any
+thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were kind enough
+to suggest it, and our accommodation's not extensive.  We'll look about
+for a second-hand stool, sir.  In the meantime, if Mr Swiveller will
+take my seat, and try his hand at a fair copy of this ejectment, as I
+shall be out pretty well all the morning--'
+
+'Walk with me,' said Quilp.  'I have a word or two to say to you on
+points of business.  Can you spare the time?'
+
+'Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir?  You're joking, sir,
+you're joking with me,' replied the lawyer, putting on his hat.  'I'm
+ready, sir, quite ready.  My time must be fully occupied indeed, sir,
+not to leave me time to walk with you.  It's not everybody, sir, who
+has an opportunity of improving himself by the conversation of Mr
+Quilp.'
+
+The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a short
+dry cough, turned upon his heel to bid adieu to Miss Sally.  After a
+very gallant parting on his side, and a very cool and gentlemanly sort
+of one on hers, he nodded to Dick Swiveller, and withdrew with the
+attorney.
+
+Dick stood at the desk in a state of utter stupefaction, staring with
+all his might at the beauteous Sally, as if she had been some curious
+animal whose like had never lived.  When the dwarf got into the street,
+he mounted again upon the window-sill, and looked into the office for a
+moment with a grinning face, as a man might peep into a cage.  Dick
+glanced upward at him, but without any token of recognition; and long
+after he had disappeared, still stood gazing upon Miss Sally Brass,
+seeing or thinking of nothing else, and rooted to the spot.
+
+Miss Brass being by this time deep in the bill of costs, took no notice
+whatever of Dick, but went scratching on, with a noisy pen, scoring
+down the figures with evident delight, and working like a steam-engine.
+There stood Dick, gazing now at the green gown, now at the brown
+head-dress, now at the face, and now at the rapid pen, in a state of
+stupid perplexity, wondering how he got into the company of that
+strange monster, and whether it was a dream and he would ever wake.  At
+last he heaved a deep sigh, and began slowly pulling off his coat.
+
+Mr Swiveller pulled off his coat, and folded it up with great
+elaboration, staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue
+jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally
+ordered for aquatic expeditions, but had brought with him that morning
+for office purposes; and, still keeping his eye upon her, suffered
+himself to drop down silently upon Mr Brass's stool.  Then he underwent
+a relapse, and becoming powerless again, rested his chin upon his hand,
+and opened his eyes so wide, that it appeared quite out of the question
+that he could ever close them any more.
+
+When he had looked so long that he could see nothing, Dick took his
+eyes off the fair object of his amazement, turned over the leaves of
+the draft he was to copy, dipped his pen into the inkstand, and at
+last, and by slow approaches, began to write.  But he had not written
+half-a-dozen words when, reaching over to the inkstand to take a fresh
+dip, he happened to raise his eyes.  There was the intolerable brown
+head-dress--there was the green gown--there, in short, was Miss Sally
+Brass, arrayed in all her charms, and more tremendous than ever.
+
+This happened so often, that Mr Swiveller by degrees began to feel
+strange influences creeping over him--horrible desires to annihilate
+this Sally Brass--mysterious promptings to knock her head-dress off and
+try how she looked without it.  There was a very large ruler on the
+table; a large, black, shining ruler.  Mr Swiveller took it up and
+began to rub his nose with it.
+
+From rubbing his nose with the ruler, to poising it in his hand and
+giving it an occasional flourish after the tomahawk manner, the
+transition was easy and natural.  In some of these flourishes it went
+close to Miss Sally's head; the ragged edges of the head-dress
+fluttered with the wind it raised; advance it but an inch, and that
+great brown knot was on the ground: yet still the unconscious maiden
+worked away, and never raised her eyes.
+
+Well, this was a great relief.  It was a good thing to write doggedly
+and obstinately until he was desperate, and then snatch up the ruler
+and whirl it about the brown head-dress with the consciousness that he
+could have it off if he liked.  It was a good thing to draw it back,
+and rub his nose very hard with it, if he thought Miss Sally was going
+to look up, and to recompense himself with more hardy flourishes when
+he found she was still absorbed.  By these means Mr Swiveller calmed
+the agitation of his feelings, until his applications to the ruler
+became less fierce and frequent, and he could even write as many as
+half-a-dozen consecutive lines without having recourse to it--which was
+a great victory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 34
+
+In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so, of
+diligent application, Miss Brass arrived at the conclusion of her task,
+and recorded the fact by wiping her pen upon the green gown, and taking
+a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which she carried in her
+pocket.  Having disposed of this temperate refreshment, she arose from
+her stool, tied her papers into a formal packet with red tape, and
+taking them under her arm, marched out of the office.
+
+Mr Swiveller had scarcely sprung off his seat and commenced the
+performance of a maniac hornpipe, when he was interrupted, in the
+fulness of his joy at being again alone, by the opening of the door,
+and the reappearance of Miss Sally's head.
+
+'I am going out,' said Miss Brass.
+
+'Very good, ma'am,' returned Dick.  'And don't hurry yourself on my
+account to come back, ma'am,' he added inwardly.
+
+'If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say that
+the gentleman who attends to that matter isn't in at present, will
+you?' said Miss Brass.
+
+'I will, ma'am,' replied Dick.
+
+'I shan't be very long,' said Miss Brass, retiring.
+
+'I'm sorry to hear it, ma'am,' rejoined Dick when she had shut the
+door.  'I hope you may be unexpectedly detained, ma'am.  If you could
+manage to be run over, ma'am, but not seriously, so much the better.'
+
+Uttering these expressions of good-will with extreme gravity, Mr
+Swiveller sat down in the client's chair and pondered; then took a few
+turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again.
+
+'So I'm Brass's clerk, am I?' said Dick.  'Brass's clerk, eh?  And the
+clerk of Brass's sister--clerk to a female Dragon.  Very good, very
+good!  What shall I be next?  Shall I be a convict in a felt hat and a
+grey suit, trotting about a dockyard with my number neatly embroidered
+on my uniform, and the order of the garter on my leg, restrained from
+chafing my ankle by a twisted belcher handkerchief?  Shall I be that?
+Will that do, or is it too genteel?  Whatever you please, have it your
+own way, of course.'
+
+As he was entirely alone, it may be presumed that, in these remarks, Mr
+Swiveller addressed himself to his fate or destiny, whom, as we learn
+by the precedents, it is the custom of heroes to taunt in a very bitter
+and ironical manner when they find themselves in situations of an
+unpleasant nature.  This is the more probable from the circumstance of
+Mr Swiveller directing his observations to the ceiling, which these
+bodily personages are usually supposed to inhabit--except in theatrical
+cases, when they live in the heart of the great chandelier.
+
+'Quilp offers me this place, which he says he can insure me,' resumed
+Dick after a thoughtful silence, and telling off the circumstances of
+his position, one by one, upon his fingers; 'Fred, who, I could have
+taken my affidavit, would not have heard of such a thing, backs Quilp
+to my astonishment, and urges me to take it also--staggerer, number
+one!  My aunt in the country stops the supplies, and writes an
+affectionate note to say that she has made a new will, and left me out
+of it--staggerer, number two.  No money; no credit; no support from
+Fred, who seems to turn steady all at once; notice to quit the old
+lodgings--staggerers, three, four, five, and six!  Under an
+accumulation of staggerers, no man can be considered a free agent.  No
+man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny
+must pick him up again.  Then I'm very glad that mine has brought all
+this upon itself, and I shall be as careless as I can, and make myself
+quite at home to spite it.  So go on my buck,' said Mr Swiveller,
+taking his leave of the ceiling with a significant nod, 'and let us see
+which of us will be tired first!'
+
+Dismissing the subject of his downfall with these reflections, which
+were no doubt very profound, and are indeed not altogether unknown in
+certain systems of moral philosophy, Mr Swiveller shook off his
+despondency and assumed the cheerful ease of an irresponsible clerk.
+
+As a means towards his composure and self-possession, he entered into a
+more minute examination of the office than he had yet had time to make;
+looked into the wig-box, the books, and ink-bottle; untied and
+inspected all the papers; carved a few devices on the table with a
+sharp blade of Mr Brass's penknife; and wrote his name on the inside of
+the wooden coal-scuttle.  Having, as it were, taken formal possession
+of his clerkship in virtue of these proceedings, he opened the window
+and leaned negligently out of it until a beer-boy happened to pass,
+whom he commanded to set down his tray and to serve him with a pint of
+mild porter, which he drank upon the spot and promptly paid for, with
+the view of breaking ground for a system of future credit and opening a
+correspondence tending thereto, without loss of time.  Then, three or
+four little boys dropped in, on legal errands from three or four
+attorneys of the Brass grade: whom Mr Swiveller received and dismissed
+with about as professional a manner, and as correct and comprehensive
+an understanding of their business, as would have been shown by a clown
+in a pantomime under similar circumstances.  These things done and
+over, he got upon his stool again and tried his hand at drawing
+caricatures of Miss Brass with a pen and ink, whistling very cheerfully
+all the time.
+
+He was occupied in this diversion when a coach stopped near the door,
+and presently afterwards there was a loud double-knock.  As this was no
+business of Mr Swiveller's, the person not ringing the office bell, he
+pursued his diversion with perfect composure, notwithstanding that he
+rather thought there was nobody else in the house.
+
+In this, however, he was mistaken; for, after the knock had been
+repeated with increased impatience, the door was opened, and somebody
+with a very heavy tread went up the stairs and into the room above.  Mr
+Swiveller was wondering whether this might be another Miss Brass, twin
+sister to the Dragon, when there came a rapping of knuckles at the
+office door.
+
+'Come in!' said Dick.  'Don't stand upon ceremony.  The business will
+get rather complicated if I've many more customers.  Come in!'
+
+'Oh, please,' said a little voice very low down in the doorway, 'will
+you come and show the lodgings?'
+
+Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a
+dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her
+face and feet.  She might as well have been dressed in a violin-case.
+
+'Why, who are you?' said Dick.
+
+To which the only reply was, 'Oh, please will you come and show the
+lodgings?'
+
+There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and manner.
+She must have been at work from her cradle.  She seemed as much afraid
+of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.
+
+'I hav'n't got anything to do with the lodgings,' said Dick.  'Tell 'em
+to call again.'
+
+'Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,' returned the
+girl; 'It's eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and linen.
+Boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is eightpence a
+day.'
+
+'Why don't you show 'em yourself?  You seem to know all about 'em,'
+said Dick.
+
+'Miss Sally said I wasn't to, because people wouldn't believe the
+attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.'
+
+'Well, but they'll see how small you are afterwards, won't they?' said
+Dick.
+
+'Ah!  But then they'll have taken 'em for a fortnight certain,' replied
+the child with a shrewd look; 'and people don't like moving when
+they're once settled.'
+
+'This is a queer sort of thing,' muttered Dick, rising.  'What do you
+mean to say you are--the cook?'
+
+'Yes, I do plain cooking;' replied the child.  'I'm housemaid too; I do
+all the work of the house.'
+
+'I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,'
+thought Dick.  And he might have thought much more, being in a doubtful
+and hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her request, and
+certain mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and staircase seemed
+to give note of the applicant's impatience.  Richard Swiveller,
+therefore, sticking a pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his
+mouth as a token of his great importance and devotion to business,
+hurried out to meet and treat with the single gentleman.
+
+He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were
+occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman's trunk,
+which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and exceedingly
+heavy withal, it was no easy matter for the united exertions of the
+single gentleman and the coachman to convey up the steep ascent.  But
+there they were, crushing each other, and pushing and pulling with all
+their might, and getting the trunk tight and fast in all kinds of
+impossible angles, and to pass them was out of the question; for which
+sufficient reason, Mr Swiveller followed slowly behind, entering a new
+protest on every stair against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus
+taken by storm.
+
+To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word, but
+when the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon it and
+wiped his bald head and face with his handkerchief.  He was very warm,
+and well he might be; for, not to mention the exertion of getting the
+trunk up stairs, he was closely muffled in winter garments, though the
+thermometer had stood all day at eighty-one in the shade.
+
+'I believe, sir,' said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his
+mouth, 'that you desire to look at these apartments.  They are very
+charming apartments, sir.  They command an uninterrupted view of--of
+over the way, and they are within one minute's walk of--of the corner
+of the street.  There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in the immediate
+vicinity, and the contingent advantages are extraordinary.'
+
+'What's the rent?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'One pound per week,' replied Dick, improving on the terms.
+
+'I'll take 'em.'
+
+'The boots and clothes are extras,' said Dick; 'and the fires in winter
+time are--'
+
+'Are all agreed to,' answered the single gentleman.
+
+'Two weeks certain,' said Dick, 'are the--'
+
+'Two weeks!' cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from top to
+toe.  'Two years.  I shall live here for two years.  Here.  Ten pounds
+down.  The bargain's made.'
+
+'Why you see,' said Dick, 'my name is not Brass, and--'
+
+'Who said it was?  My name's not Brass.  What then?'
+
+'The name of the master of the house is,' said Dick.
+
+'I'm glad of it,' returned the single gentleman; 'it's a good name for
+a lawyer.  Coachman, you may go.  So may you, Sir.'
+
+Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding
+roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him almost as
+hard as he had looked at Miss Sally.  The single gentleman, however,
+was not in the slightest degree affected by this circumstance, but
+proceeded with perfect composure to unwind the shawl which was tied
+round his neck, and then to pull off his boots.  Freed of these
+encumbrances, he went on to divest himself of his other clothing, which
+he folded up, piece by piece, and ranged in order on the trunk.  Then,
+he pulled down the window-blinds, drew the curtains, wound up his
+watch, and, quite leisurely and methodically, got into bed.
+
+'Take down the bill,' were his parting words, as he looked out from
+between the curtains; 'and let nobody call me till I ring the bell.'
+
+With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately.
+
+'This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!' said Mr
+Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand.
+'She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like professional
+gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing mysteriously from
+under ground; strangers walking in and going to bed without leave or
+licence in the middle of the day!  If he should be one of the
+miraculous fellows that turn up now and then, and has gone to sleep for
+two years, I shall be in a pleasant situation.  It's my destiny,
+however, and I hope Brass may like it.  I shall be sorry if he don't.
+But it's no business of mine--I have nothing whatever to do with it!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 35
+
+Mr Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with much
+complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring after the
+ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a good and lawful
+note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, increased his
+good-humour considerably.  Indeed he so overflowed with liberality and
+condescension, that, in the fulness of his heart, he invited Mr
+Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch with him at that remote and
+indefinite period which is currently denominated 'one of these days,'
+and paid him many handsome compliments on the uncommon aptitude for
+business which his conduct on the first day of his devotion to it had
+so plainly evinced.
+
+It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept
+a man's tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful member
+ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case
+of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and
+easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance
+of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions.  And this had passed
+into such a habit with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to
+have his tongue at his fingers' ends, he might certainly be said to
+have it anywhere but in his face: which being, as we have already seen,
+of a harsh and repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, but
+frowned above all the smooth speeches--one of nature's beacons, warning
+off those who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of
+that dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less
+treacherous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere.
+
+While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and
+inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and that
+of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal practice had
+been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings, and to whet and
+sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little disappointed that the
+single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at such an easy rate,
+arguing that when he was seen to have set his mind upon them, he should
+have been at the least charged double or treble the usual terms, and
+that, in exact proportion as he pressed forward, Mr Swiveller should
+have hung back.  But neither the good opinion of Mr Brass, nor the
+dissatisfaction of Miss Sally, wrought any impression upon that young
+gentleman, who, throwing the responsibility of this and all other acts
+and deeds thereafter to be done by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was
+quite resigned and comfortable: fully prepared for the worst, and
+philosophically indifferent to the best.
+
+
+'Good morning, Mr Richard,' said Brass, on the second day of Mr
+Swiveller's clerkship.  'Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir,
+yesterday evening, in Whitechapel.  She's a rare fellow at a bargain, I
+can tell you, Mr Richard.  You'll find that a first-rate stool, Sir,
+take my word for it.'
+
+'It's rather a crazy one to look at,' said Dick.
+
+'You'll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may depend,'
+returned Mr Brass.  'It was bought in the open street just opposite the
+hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of two, it has got
+rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that's all.'
+
+'I hope it hasn't got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,' said
+Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson and the
+chaste Sally.  'One of the legs is longer than the others.'
+
+'Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,' retorted Brass.  'Ha, ha, ha!
+We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that's another advantage of my
+sister's going to market for us.  Miss Brass, Mr Richard is the--'
+
+'Will you keep quiet?' interrupted the fair subject of these remarks,
+looking up from her papers.  'How am I to work if you keep on
+chattering?'
+
+'What an uncertain chap you are!' returned the lawyer.  'Sometimes
+you're all for a chat.  At another time you're all for work.  A man
+never knows what humour he'll find you in.'
+
+'I'm in a working humour now,' said Sally, 'so don't disturb me, if you
+please.  And don't take him,' Miss Sally pointed with the feather of
+her pen to Richard, 'off his business.  He won't do more than he can
+help, I dare say.'
+
+Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply, but
+was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only muttered
+something about aggravation and a vagabond; not associating the terms
+with any individual, but mentioning them as connected with some
+abstract ideas which happened to occur to him.  They went on writing
+for a long time in silence after this--in such a dull silence that Mr
+Swiveller (who required excitement) had several times fallen asleep,
+and written divers strange words in an unknown character with his eyes
+shut, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the
+office by pulling out the little tin box, taking a noisy pinch of
+snuff, and then expressing her opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had
+'done it.'
+
+'Done what, ma'am?' said Richard.
+
+'Do you know,' returned Miss Brass, 'that the lodger isn't up yet--
+that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed
+yesterday afternoon?'
+
+'Well, ma'am,' said Dick, 'I suppose he may sleep his ten pound out, in
+peace and quietness, if he likes.'
+
+'Ah!  I begin to think he'll never wake,' observed Miss Sally.
+
+'It's a very remarkable circumstance,' said Brass, laying down his pen;
+'really, very remarkable.  Mr Richard, you'll remember, if this
+gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the bed-post, or any
+unpleasant accident of that kind should happen--you'll remember, Mr
+Richard, that this ten pound note was given to you in part payment of
+two years' rent?  You'll bear that in mind, Mr Richard; you had better
+make a note of it, sir, in case you should ever be called upon to give
+evidence.'
+
+Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance of
+profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.
+
+'We can never be too cautious,' said Mr Brass.  'There is a deal of
+wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness.  Did the
+gentleman happen to say, Sir--but never mind that at present, sir;
+finish that little memorandum first.'
+
+Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his
+stool, and was walking up and down the office.
+
+'Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?' said Brass, running his eye over
+the document.  'Very good.  Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman say
+anything else?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Are you sure, Mr Richard,' said Brass, solemnly, 'that the gentleman
+said nothing else?'
+
+'Devil a word, Sir,' replied Dick.
+
+'Think again, Sir,' said Brass; 'it's my duty, Sir, in the position in
+which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal profession--the
+first profession in this country, Sir, or in any other country, or in
+any of the planets that shine above us at night and are supposed to be
+inhabited--it's my duty, Sir, as an honourable member of that
+profession, not to put to you a leading question in a matter of this
+delicacy and importance.  Did the gentleman, Sir, who took the first
+floor of you yesterday afternoon, and who brought with him a box of
+property--a box of property--say anything more than is set down in this
+memorandum?'
+
+'Come, don't be a fool,' said Miss Sally.
+
+Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally again,
+and still said 'No.'
+
+'Pooh, pooh!  Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!' cried
+Brass, relaxing into a smile.  'Did he say anything about his
+property?--there!'
+
+'That's the way to put it,' said Miss Sally, nodding to her brother.
+
+'Did he say, for instance,' added Brass, in a kind of comfortable, cozy
+tone--'I don't assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask you, to
+refresh your memory--did he say, for instance, that he was a stranger
+in London--that it was not his humour or within his ability to give any
+references--that he felt we had a right to require them--and that, in
+case anything should happen to him, at any time, he particularly
+desired that whatever property he had upon the premises should be
+considered mine, as some slight recompense for the trouble and
+annoyance I should sustain--and were you, in short,' added Brass, still
+more comfortably and cozily than before, 'were you induced to accept
+him on my behalf, as a tenant, upon those conditions?'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied Dick.
+
+'Why then, Mr Richard,' said Brass, darting at him a supercilious and
+reproachful look, 'it's my opinion that you've mistaken your calling,
+and will never make a lawyer.'
+
+'Not if you live a thousand years,' added Miss Sally.  Whereupon the
+brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the little tin
+box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.
+
+Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller's dinner-time, which was at
+three o'clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming.  At the first
+stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared.  At the last stroke of
+five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic, became fragrant
+with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel.
+
+'Mr Richard,' said Brass, 'this man's not up yet.  Nothing will wake
+him, sir.  What's to be done?'
+
+'I should let him have his sleep out,' returned Dick.
+
+'Sleep out!' cried Brass; 'why he has been asleep now, six-and-twenty
+hours.  We have been moving chests of drawers over his head, we have
+knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have made the servant-girl
+fall down stairs several times (she's a light weight, and it don't hurt
+her much,) but nothing wakes him.'
+
+'Perhaps a ladder,' suggested Dick, 'and getting in at the first-floor
+window--'
+
+'But then there's a door between; besides, the neighbours would be up
+in arms,' said Brass.
+
+'What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the
+trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?' suggested Dick.
+
+'That would be an excellent plan,' said Brass, 'if anybody would be--'
+and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller--'would be kind, and
+friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it.  I dare say it would
+not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.'
+
+Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly
+fall within Miss Sally's department.  As he said nothing further, and
+declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that they should
+go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken the sleeper by
+some less violent means, which, if they failed on this last trial, must
+positively be succeeded by stronger measures.  Mr Swiveller, assenting,
+armed himself with his stool and the large ruler, and repaired with his
+employer to the scene of action, where Miss Brass was already ringing a
+hand-bell with all her might, and yet without producing the smallest
+effect upon their mysterious lodger.
+
+'There are his boots, Mr Richard!' said Brass.
+
+'Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,' quoth Richard
+Swiveller.  And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of boots as
+one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as if their
+owner's legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with their broad
+soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place by main force.
+
+'I can't see anything but the curtain of the bed,' said Brass, applying
+his eye to the keyhole of the door.  'Is he a strong man, Mr Richard?'
+
+'Very,' answered Dick.
+
+'It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to bounce
+out suddenly,' said Brass.  'Keep the stairs clear.  I should be more
+than a match for him, of course, but I'm the master of the house, and
+the laws of hospitality must be respected.--Hallo there!  Hallo, hallo!'
+
+While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole,
+uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger's attention,
+and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller put his stool
+close against the wall by the side of the door, and mounting on the top
+and standing bolt upright, so that if the lodger did make a rush, he
+would most probably pass him in its onward fury, began a violent
+battery with the ruler upon the upper panels of the door.  Captivated
+with his own ingenuity, and confident in the strength of his position,
+which he had taken up after the method of those hardy individuals who
+open the pit and gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr
+Swiveller rained down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the
+bell was drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs
+below, ready to fly at a moment's notice, was obliged to hold her ears
+lest she should be rendered deaf for life.
+
+Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently open.
+The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived into her
+own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for personal courage,
+ran into the next street, and finding that nobody followed him, armed
+with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his hands in his pockets,
+walked very slowly all at once, and whistled.
+
+Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into as
+flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not
+unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the door
+growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the boots in his
+hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down stairs on
+speculation.  This idea, however, he abandoned.  He was turning into
+his room again, still growling vengefully, when his eyes met those of
+the watchful Richard.
+
+'Have YOU been making that horrible noise?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'I have been helping, sir,' returned Dick, keeping his eye upon him,
+and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an indication of what
+the single gentleman had to expect if he attempted any violence.
+
+'How dare you then,' said the lodger, 'Eh?'
+
+To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the lodger
+held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of a gentleman
+to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and whether the
+peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to weigh as nothing in the
+balance.
+
+'Is my peace nothing?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'Is their peace nothing, sir?' returned Dick.  'I don't wish to hold
+out any threats, sir--indeed the law does not allow of threats, for to
+threaten is an indictable offence--but if ever you do that again, take
+care you're not sat upon by the coroner and buried in a cross road
+before you wake.  We have been distracted with fears that you were
+dead, Sir,' said Dick, gently sliding to the ground, 'and the short and
+the long of it is, that we cannot allow single gentlemen to come into
+this establishment and sleep like double gentlemen without paying extra
+for it.'
+
+'Indeed!' cried the lodger.
+
+'Yes, Sir, indeed,' returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and saying
+whatever came uppermost; 'an equal quantity of slumber was never got
+out of one bed and bedstead, and if you're going to sleep in that way,
+you must pay for a double-bedded room.'
+
+Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks, the
+lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with
+twinkling eyes.  He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared
+browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on.  As it was
+clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr Swiveller was
+relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to encourage him in it,
+smiled himself.
+
+The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed his
+nightcap very much on one side of his bald head.  This gave him a
+rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe it,
+charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of propitiation, he
+expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to get up, and further
+that he would never do so any more.
+
+'Come here, you impudent rascal!' was the lodger's answer as he
+re-entered his room.
+
+Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but reserving
+the ruler in case of a surprise.  He rather congratulated himself on
+his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice or explanation
+of any kind, double-locked the door.
+
+'Can you drink anything?' was his next inquiry.
+
+Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the pangs
+of thirst, but that he was still open to 'a modest quencher,' if the
+materials were at hand.  Without another word spoken on either side,
+the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of
+polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table.
+
+Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him
+closely.  Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an egg;
+into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw steak
+from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water.  Then, with
+the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he procured a light and
+applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place of its own below the
+temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the little chambers; then he
+opened them; and then, by some wonderful and unseen agency, the steak
+was done, the egg was boiled, the coffee was accurately prepared, and
+his breakfast was ready.
+
+'Hot water--' said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as much
+coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him--'extraordinary
+rum--sugar--and a travelling glass.  Mix for yourself.  And make haste.'
+
+Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on the
+table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which seemed
+to hold everything.  The lodger took his breakfast like a man who was
+used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of them.
+
+'The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?' said the lodger.
+
+Dick nodded.  The rum was amazing.
+
+'The woman of the house--what's she?'
+
+'A dragon,' said Dick.
+
+The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things in
+his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman, evinced no
+surprise, but merely inquired 'Wife or sister?'--'Sister,' said
+Dick.--'So much the better,' said the single gentleman, 'he can get rid
+of her when he likes.'
+
+'I want to do as I like, young man,' he added after a short silence;
+'to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in when I like, go
+out when I like--to be asked no questions and be surrounded by no
+spies.  In this last respect, servants are the devil.  There's only one
+here.'
+
+'And a very little one,' said Dick.
+
+'And a very little one,' repeated the lodger.  'Well, the place will
+suit me, will it?'
+
+'Yes,' said Dick.
+
+'Sharks, I suppose?' said the lodger.
+
+Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.
+
+'Let them know my humour,' said the single gentleman, rising.  'If they
+disturb me, they lose a good tenant.  If they know me to be that, they
+know enough.  If they try to know more, it's a notice to quit.  It's
+better to understand these things at once.  Good day.'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said Dick, halting in his passage to the door,
+which the lodger prepared to open.  'When he who adores thee has left
+but the name--'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'--But the name,' said Dick--'has left but the name--in case of letters
+or parcels--'
+
+'I never have any,' returned the lodger.
+
+'Or in the case anybody should call.'
+
+'Nobody ever calls on me.'
+
+'If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don't say it was
+my fault, Sir,' added Dick, still lingering.--'Oh blame not the bard--'
+
+'I'll blame nobody,' said the lodger, with such irascibility that in a
+moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked door between
+them.
+
+Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed, only
+routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller's abrupt exit.  As their utmost
+exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of the interview,
+however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence, which, though
+limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such quiet pantomime,
+had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down to the office to hear
+his account of the conversation.
+
+This Mr Swiveller gave them--faithfully as regarded the wishes and
+character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the
+great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for
+brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring,
+with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of every
+kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in particular
+that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever was required,
+as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them to understand that the
+cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of sirloin of beef, weighing
+about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two minutes and a quarter, as he had
+himself witnessed, and proved by his sense of taste; and further, that,
+however the effect was produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and
+bubble up when the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr
+Swiveller) was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or
+chemist, or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at
+some future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of
+Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks.
+
+There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to enlarge
+upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which, by reason of
+its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the heels of the
+temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner, awakened a slight degree
+of fever, and rendered necessary two or three other modest quenchers at
+the public-house in the course of the evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 36
+
+As the single gentleman after some weeks' occupation of his lodgings,
+still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either with Mr Brass
+or his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard Swiveller as his
+channel of communication; and as he proved himself in all respects a
+highly desirable inmate, paying for everything beforehand, giving very
+little trouble, making no noise, and keeping early hours; Mr Richard
+imperceptibly rose to an important position in the family, as one who
+had influence over this mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with
+him, for good or evil, when nobody else durst approach his person.
+
+If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller's approaches to the single
+gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small
+encouragement; but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic conference
+with the unknown, without quoting such expressions as 'Swiveller, I
+know I can rely upon you,'--'I have no hesitation in saying, Swiveller,
+that I entertain a regard for you,'--'Swiveller, you are my friend, and
+will stand by me I am sure,' with many other short speeches of the same
+familiar and confiding kind, purporting to have been addressed by the
+single gentleman to himself, and to form the staple of their ordinary
+discourse, neither Mr Brass nor Miss Sally for a moment questioned the
+extent of his influence, but accorded to him their fullest and most
+unqualified belief.
+
+But quite apart from, and independent of, this source of popularity, Mr
+Swiveller had another, which promised to be equally enduring, and to
+lighten his position considerably.
+
+He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass.  Let not the light
+scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new tale
+of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass, however
+accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving kind.  That
+amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law from her earliest
+youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as it were, in her first
+running alone, and maintained a firm grasp upon them ever since; had
+passed her life in a kind of legal childhood.  She had been remarkable,
+when a tender prattler for an uncommon talent in counterfeiting the
+walk and manner of a bailiff: in which character she had learned to tap
+her little playfellows on the shoulder, and to carry them off to
+imaginary sponging-houses, with a correctness of imitation which was
+the surprise and delight of all who witnessed her performances, and
+which was only to be exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an
+execution into her doll's house, and taking an exact inventory of the
+chairs and tables.  These artless sports had naturally soothed and
+cheered the decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman
+(called 'old Foxey' by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who
+encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding that
+he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter could
+not take out an attorney's certificate and hold a place upon the roll.
+Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he had solemnly
+confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable auxiliary; and from
+the old gentleman's decease to the period of which we treat, Miss Sally
+Brass had been the prop and pillar of his business.
+
+It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one
+pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world,
+otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted
+with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in
+which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for.  Miss Sally's
+accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind.  They
+began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it.  She was
+in a state of lawful innocence, so to speak.  The law had been her
+nurse.  And, as bandy-legs or such physical deformities in children are
+held to be the consequence of bad nursing, so, if in a mind so
+beautiful any moral twist or handiness could be found, Miss Sally
+Brass's nurse was alone to blame.
+
+It was upon this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full freshness as
+something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up the office with
+scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with inkstands and boxes of
+wafers, catching three oranges in one hand, balancing stools upon his
+chin and penknives on his nose, and constantly performing a hundred
+other feats with equal ingenuity; for with such unbendings did Richard,
+in Mr Brass's absence, relieve the tedium of his confinement.  These
+social qualities, which Miss Sally first discovered by accident,
+gradually made such an impression upon her, that she would entreat Mr
+Swiveller to relax as though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller,
+nothing loth, would readily consent to do.  By these means a friendship
+sprung up between them.  Mr Swiveller gradually came to look upon her
+as her brother Sampson did, and as he would have looked upon any other
+clerk.  He imparted to her the mystery of going the odd man or plain
+Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer, baked potatoes, or even a modest
+quencher, of which Miss Brass did not scruple to partake.  He would
+often persuade her to undertake his share of writing in addition to her
+own; nay, he would sometimes reward her with a hearty slap on the back,
+and protest that she was a devilish good fellow, a jolly dog, and so
+forth; all of which compliments Miss Sally would receive in entire good
+part and with perfect satisfaction.
+
+One circumstance troubled Mr Swiveller's mind very much, and that was
+that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels of the
+earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface unless the
+single gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it and
+immediately disappear again.  She never went out, or came into the
+office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or looked
+out of any one of the windows, or stood at the street-door for a breath
+of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever.  Nobody ever came to see
+her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her.  Mr Brass had said
+once, that he believed she was a 'love-child' (which means anything but
+a child of love), and that was all the information Richard Swiveller
+could obtain.
+
+'It's of no use asking the dragon,' thought Dick one day, as he sat
+contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass.  'I suspect if I asked
+any questions on that head, our alliance would be at an end.  I wonder
+whether she is a dragon by-the-bye, or something in the mermaid way.
+She has rather a scaly appearance.  But mermaids are fond of looking at
+themselves in the glass, which she can't be.  And they have a habit of
+combing their hair, which she hasn't.  No, she's a dragon.'
+
+'Where are you going, old fellow?' said Dick aloud, as Miss Sally wiped
+her pen as usual on the green dress, and uprose from her seat.
+
+'To dinner,' answered the dragon.
+
+'To dinner!' thought Dick, 'that's another circumstance.  I don't
+believe that small servant ever has anything to eat.'
+
+'Sammy won't be home,' said Miss Brass.  'Stop till I come back.  I
+sha'n't be long.'
+
+Dick nodded, and followed Miss Brass--with his eyes to the door, and
+with his ears to a little back parlour, where she and her brother took
+their meals.
+
+'Now,' said Dick, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets,
+'I'd give something--if I had it--to know how they use that child, and
+where they keep her.  My mother must have been a very inquisitive
+woman; I have no doubt I'm marked with a note of interrogation
+somewhere.  My feelings I smother, but thou hast been the cause of this
+anguish, my--upon my word,' said Mr Swiveller, checking himself and
+falling thoughtfully into the client's chair, 'I should like to know
+how they use her!'
+
+After running on, in this way, for some time, Mr Swiveller softly
+opened the office door, with the intention of darting across the street
+for a glass of the mild porter.  At that moment he caught a parting
+glimpse of the brown head-dress of Miss Brass flitting down the kitchen
+stairs.  'And by Jove!' thought Dick, 'she's going to feed the small
+servant.  Now or never!'
+
+First peeping over the handrail and allowing the head-dress to
+disappear in the darkness below, he groped his way down, and arrived at
+the door of a back kitchen immediately after Miss Brass had entered the
+same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton.  It was a very dark
+miserable place, very low and very damp: the walls disfigured by a
+thousand rents and blotches.  The water was trickling out of a leaky
+butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly
+eagerness of starvation.  The grate, which was a wide one, was wound
+and screwed up tight, so as to hold no more than a little thin sandwich
+of fire.  Everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box,
+the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all padlocked.  There was nothing
+that a beetle could have lunched upon.  The pinched and meagre aspect
+of the place would have killed a chameleon.  He would have known, at
+the first mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and must have given up
+the ghost in despair. The small servant stood with humility in presence
+of Miss Sally, and hung her head.
+
+'Are you there?' said Miss Sally.
+
+'Yes, ma'am,' was the answer in a weak voice.
+
+'Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you'll be picking it, I
+know,' said Miss Sally.
+
+The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass took a key from her
+pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary waste of cold
+potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge.  This she placed before the
+small servant, ordering her to sit down before it, and then, taking up
+a great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it upon the
+carving-fork.
+
+'Do you see this?' said Miss Brass, slicing off about two square inches
+of cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it out on the
+point of the fork.
+
+The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see
+every shred of it, small as it was, and answered, 'yes.'
+
+'Then don't you ever go and say,' retorted Miss Sally, 'that you hadn't
+meat here.  There, eat it up.'
+
+This was soon done.  'Now, do you want any more?' said Miss Sally.
+
+The hungry creature answered with a faint 'No.'  They were evidently
+going through an established form.
+
+'You've been helped once to meat,' said Miss Brass, summing up the
+facts; 'you have had as much as you can eat, you're asked if you want
+any more, and you answer, 'no!' Then don't you ever go and say you were
+allowanced, mind that.'
+
+With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away and locked the safe, and
+then drawing near to the small servant, overlooked her while she
+finished the potatoes.
+
+It was plain that some extraordinary grudge was working in Miss Brass's
+gentle breast, and that it was that which impelled her, without the
+smallest present cause, to rap the child with the blade of the knife,
+now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back, as if she found
+it quite impossible to stand so close to her without administering a
+few slight knocks.  But Mr Swiveller was not a little surprised to see
+his fellow-clerk, after walking slowly backwards towards the door, as
+if she were trying to withdraw herself from the room but could not
+accomplish it, dart suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant
+give her some hard blows with her clenched hand.  The victim cried, but
+in a subdued manner as if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss
+Sally, comforting herself with a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs,
+just as Richard had safely reached the office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 37
+
+The single gentleman among his other peculiarities--and he had a very
+plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new
+specimen--took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the
+exhibition of Punch.  If the sound of a Punch's voice, at ever so
+remote a distance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman, though in
+bed and asleep, would start up, and, hurrying on his clothes, make for
+the spot with all speed, and presently return at the head of a long
+procession of idlers, having in the midst the theatre and its
+proprietors.  Straightway, the stage would be set up in front of Mr
+Brass's house; the single gentleman would establish himself at the
+first floor window; and the entertainment would proceed, with all its
+exciting accompaniments of fife and drum and shout, to the excessive
+consternation of all sober votaries of business in that silent
+thoroughfare.  It might have been expected that when the play was done,
+both players and audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as
+bad as the play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of
+the puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to
+his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his
+private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the
+purport of which no human being could fathom.  But the secret of these
+discussions was of little importance.  It was sufficient to know that
+while they were proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round
+the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated
+Punch with their tender voices; that the office-window was rendered
+opaque by flattened noses, and the key-hole of the street-door luminous
+with eyes; that every time the single gentleman or either of his guests
+was seen at the upper window, or so much as the end of one of their
+noses was visible, there was a great shout of execration from the
+excluded mob, who remained howling and yelling, and refusing
+consolation, until the exhibitors were delivered up to them to be
+attended elsewhere.  It was sufficient, in short, to know that Bevis
+Marks was revolutionised by these popular movements, and that peace and
+quietness fled from its precincts.
+
+Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr Sampson
+Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so profitable an
+inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger's affront along with his
+cash, and to annoy the audiences who clustered round his door by such
+imperfect means of retaliation as were open to him, and which were
+confined to the trickling down of foul water on their heads from unseen
+watering pots, pelting them with fragments of tile and mortar from the
+roof of the house, and bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to
+come suddenly round the corner and dash in among them precipitately.
+It may, at first sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few
+that Mr Brass, being a professional gentleman, should not have legally
+indicted some party or parties, active in the promotion of the
+nuisance, but they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors
+seldom take their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise
+what they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their
+own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application,
+very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties
+of close shaving, than for its always shaving the right person.
+
+'Come,' said Mr Brass one afternoon, 'this is two days without a Punch.
+I'm in hopes he has run through 'em all, at last.'
+
+'Why are you in hopes?' returned Miss Sally.  'What harm do they do?'
+
+'Here's a pretty sort of a fellow!' cried Brass, laying down his pen in
+despair.  'Now here's an aggravating animal!'
+
+'Well, what harm do they do?' retorted Sally.
+
+'What harm!' cried Brass.  'Is it no harm to have a constant hallooing
+and hooting under one's very nose, distracting one from business, and
+making one grind one's teeth with vexation?  Is it no harm to be
+blinded and choked up, and have the king's highway stopped with a set
+of screamers and roarers whose throats must be made of--of--'
+
+'Brass,' suggested Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Ah! of brass,' said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure
+himself that he had suggested the word in good faith and without any
+sinister intention.  'Is that no harm?'
+
+The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a moment,
+and recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon his hand,
+raised his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly, 'There's another!'
+
+Up went the single gentleman's window directly.
+
+'There's another,' repeated Brass; 'and if I could get a break and four
+blood horses to cut into the Marks when the crowd is at its thickest,
+I'd give eighteen-pence and never grudge it!'
+
+The distant squeak was heard again.  The single gentleman's door burst
+open.  He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street, and so
+past the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence the sound
+proceeded--bent, no doubt, upon securing the strangers' services
+directly.
+
+'I wish I only knew who his friends were,' muttered Sampson, filling
+his pocket with papers; 'if they'd just get up a pretty little
+Commission de lunatico at the Gray's Inn Coffee House and give me the
+job, I'd be content to have the lodgings empty for one while, at all
+events.'
+
+With which words, and knocking his hat over his eyes as if for the
+purpose of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation, Mr
+Brass rushed from the house and hurried away.
+
+As Mr Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances, upon
+the ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at anything out
+of window, was better than working; and as he had been, for this
+reason, at some pains to awaken in his fellow clerk a sense of their
+beauties and manifold deserts; both he and Miss Sally rose as with one
+accord and took up their positions at the window: upon the sill
+whereof, as in a post of honour, sundry young ladies and gentlemen who
+were employed in the dry nurture of babies, and who made a point of
+being present, with their young charges, on such occasions, had already
+established themselves as comfortably as the circumstances would allow.
+
+The glass being dim, Mr Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom which
+he had established between them, hitched off the brown head-dress from
+Miss Sally's head, and dusted it carefully therewith.  By the time he
+had handed it back, and its beautiful wearer had put it on again (which
+she did with perfect composure and indifference), the lodger returned
+with the show and showmen at his heels, and a strong addition to the
+body of spectators.  The exhibitor disappeared with all speed behind
+the drapery; and his partner, stationing himself by the side of the
+Theatre, surveyed the audience with a remarkable expression of
+melancholy, which became more remarkable still when he breathed a
+hornpipe tune into that sweet musical instrument which is popularly
+termed a mouth-organ, without at all changing the mournful expression
+of the upper part of his face, though his mouth and chin were, of
+necessity, in lively spasms.
+
+The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained in
+the customary manner.  The sensation which kindles in large assemblies,
+when they are relieved from a state of breathless suspense and are
+again free to speak and move, was yet rife, when the lodger, as usual,
+summoned the men up stairs.
+
+'Both of you,' he called from the window; for only the actual
+exhibitor--a little fat man--prepared to obey the summons.  'I want to
+talk to you.  Come both of you!'
+
+'Come, Tommy,' said the little man.
+
+'I an't a talker,' replied the other.  'Tell him so.  What should I go
+and talk for?'
+
+'Don't you see the gentleman's got a bottle and glass up there?'
+returned the little man.
+
+'And couldn't you have said so at first?' retorted the other with
+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.
+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 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 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 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 square-folded 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, 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 introduce Mr
+Abel Garland, sir--his young master; my articled pupil, sir, and most
+particular friend:--my most particular friend, sir,' repeated the
+Notary, drawing out his silk handkerchief and flourishing it about his
+face.
+
+'Your servant, sir,' said the stranger gentleman.
+
+'Yours, sir, I'm sure,' replied Mr Abel mildly.  'You were wishing to
+speak to Christopher, sir?'
+
+'Yes, I was.  Have I your permission?'
+
+'By all means.'
+
+'My business is no secret; or I should rather say it need be no secret
+here,' said the stranger, observing that Mr Abel and the Notary were
+preparing to retire.  'It relates to a dealer in curiosities with whom
+he lived, and in whom I am earnestly and warmly interested.  I have
+been a stranger to this country, gentlemen, for very many years, and if
+I am deficient in form and ceremony, I hope you will forgive me.'
+
+'No forgiveness is necessary, sir;--none whatever,' replied the Notary.
+And so said Mr Abel.
+
+'I have been making inquiries in the neighbourhood in which his old
+master lived,' said the stranger, 'and I learn that he was served by
+this lad.  I have found out his mother's house, and have been directed
+by her to this place as the nearest in which I should be likely to find
+him.  That's the cause of my presenting myself here this morning.'
+
+'I am very glad of any cause, sir,' said the Notary, 'which procures me
+the honour of this visit.'
+
+'Sir,' retorted the stranger, 'you speak like a mere man of the world,
+and I think you something better.  Therefore, pray do not sink your
+real character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.'
+
+'Hem!' coughed the Notary.  'You're a plain speaker, sir.'
+
+'And a plain dealer,' returned the stranger.  'It may be my long
+absence and inexperience that lead me to the conclusion; but if plain
+speakers are scarce in this part of the world, I fancy plain dealers
+are still scarcer.  If my speaking should offend you, sir, my dealing,
+I hope, will make amends.'
+
+Mr Witherden seemed a little disconcerted by the elderly gentleman's
+mode of conducting the dialogue; and as for Kit, he looked at him in
+open-mouthed astonishment: wondering what kind of language he would
+address to him, if he talked in that free and easy way to a Notary.  It
+was with no harshness, however, though with something of constitutional
+irritability and haste, that he turned to Kit and said:
+
+'If you think, my lad, that I am pursuing these inquiries with any
+other view than that of serving and reclaiming those I am in search of,
+you do me a very great wrong, and deceive yourself.  Don't be deceived,
+I beg of you, but rely upon my assurance.  The fact is, gentlemen,' he
+added, turning again to the Notary and his pupil, 'that I am in a very
+painful and wholly unexpected position.  I came to this city with a
+darling object at my heart, expecting to find no obstacle or difficulty
+in the way of its attainment.  I find myself suddenly checked and
+stopped short, in the execution of my design, by a mystery which I
+cannot penetrate.  Every effort I have made to penetrate it, has only
+served to render it darker and more obscure; and I am afraid to stir
+openly in the matter, lest those whom I anxiously pursue, should fly
+still farther from me.  I assure you that if you could give me any
+assistance, you would not be sorry to do so, if you knew how greatly I
+stand in need of it, and what a load it would relieve me from.'
+
+There was a simplicity in this confidence which occasioned it to find a
+quick response in the breast of the good-natured Notary, who replied,
+in the same spirit, that the stranger had not mistaken his desire, and
+that if he could be of service to him, he would, most readily.
+
+Kit was then put under examination and closely questioned by the
+unknown gentleman, touching his old master and the child, their lonely
+way of life, their retired habits, and strict seclusion.  The nightly
+absence of the old man, the solitary existence of the child at those
+times, his illness and recovery, Quilp's possession of the house, and
+their sudden disappearance, were all the subjects of much questioning
+and answer.  Finally, Kit informed the gentleman that the premises were
+now to let, and that a board upon the door referred all inquirers to Mr
+Sampson Brass, Solicitor, of Bevis Marks, from whom he might perhaps
+learn some further particulars.
+
+'Not by inquiry,' said the gentleman shaking his head.  'I live there.'
+
+'Live at Brass's the attorney's!' cried Mr Witherden in some surprise:
+having professional knowledge of the gentleman in question.
+
+'Aye,' was the reply.  'I entered on his lodgings t'other day, chiefly
+because I had seen this very board.  It matters little to me where I
+live, and I had a desperate hope that some intelligence might be cast
+in my way there, which would not reach me elsewhere.  Yes, I live at
+Brass's--more shame for me, I suppose?'
+
+'That's a mere matter of opinion,' said the Notary, shrugging his
+shoulders.  'He is looked upon as rather a doubtful character.'
+
+'Doubtful?' echoed the other.  'I am glad to hear there's any doubt
+about it.  I supposed that had been thoroughly settled, long ago.  But
+will you let me speak a word or two with you in private?'
+
+Mr Witherden consenting, they walked into that gentleman's private
+closet, and remained there, in close conversation, for some quarter of
+an hour, when they returned into the outer office.  The stranger had
+left his hat in Mr Witherden's room, and seemed to have established
+himself in this short interval on quite a friendly footing.
+
+'I'll not detain you any longer now,' he said, putting a crown into
+Kit's hand, and looking towards the Notary.  'You shall hear from me
+again.  Not a word of this, you know, except to your master and
+mistress.'
+
+'Mother, sir, would be glad to know--' said Kit, faltering.
+
+'Glad to know what?'
+
+'Anything--so that it was no harm--about Miss Nell.'
+
+'Would she?  Well then, you may tell her if she can keep a secret.  But
+mind, not a word of this to anybody else.  Don't forget that.  Be
+particular.'
+
+'I'll take care, sir,' said Kit.  'Thankee, sir, and good morning.'
+
+Now, it happened that the gentleman, in his anxiety to impress upon Kit
+that he was not to tell anybody what had passed between them, followed
+him out to the door to repeat his caution, and it further happened that
+at that moment the eyes of Mr Richard Swiveller were turned in that
+direction, and beheld his mysterious friend and Kit together.
+
+It was quite an accident, and the way in which it came about was this.
+Mr Chuckster, being a gentleman of a cultivated taste and refined
+spirit, was one of that Lodge of Glorious Apollos whereof Mr Swiveller
+was Perpetual Grand.  Mr Swiveller, passing through the street in the
+execution of some Brazen errand, and beholding one of his Glorious
+Brotherhood intently gazing on a pony, crossed over to give him that
+fraternal greeting with which Perpetual Grands are, by the very
+constitution of their office, bound to cheer and encourage their
+disciples.  He had scarcely bestowed upon him his blessing, and
+followed it with a general remark touching the present state and
+prospects of the weather, when, lifting up his eyes, he beheld the
+single gentleman of Bevis Marks in earnest conversation with
+Christopher Nubbles.
+
+'Hallo!' said Dick, 'who is that?'
+
+'He called to see my Governor this morning,' replied Mr Chuckster;
+'beyond that, I don't know him from Adam.'
+
+'At least you know his name?' said Dick.
+
+To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming a
+Glorious Apollo, that he was 'everlastingly blessed' if he did.
+
+'All I know, my dear feller,' said Mr Chuckster, running his fingers
+through his hair, 'is, that he is the cause of my having stood here
+twenty minutes, for which I hate him with a mortal and undying hatred,
+and would pursue him to the confines of eternity if I could afford the
+time.'
+
+While they were thus discoursing, the subject of their conversation
+(who had not appeared to recognise Mr Richard Swiveller) re-entered the
+house, and Kit came down the steps and joined them; to whom Mr
+Swiveller again propounded his inquiry with no better success.
+
+'He is a very nice gentleman, Sir,' said Kit, 'and that's all I know
+about him.'
+
+Mr Chuckster waxed wroth at this answer, and without applying the
+remark to any particular case, mentioned, as a general truth, that it
+was expedient to break the heads of Snobs, and to tweak their noses.
+Without expressing his concurrence in this sentiment, Mr Swiveller
+after a few moments of abstraction inquired which way Kit was driving,
+and, being informed, declared it was his way, and that he would
+trespass on him for a lift.  Kit would gladly have declined the
+proffered honour, but as Mr Swiveller was already established in the
+seat beside him, he had no means of doing so, otherwise than by a
+forcible ejectment, and therefore, drove briskly off--so briskly
+indeed, as to cut short the leave-taking between Mr Chuckster and his
+Grand Master, and to occasion the former gentleman some inconvenience
+from having his corns squeezed by the impatient pony.
+
+As Whisker was tired of standing, and Mr Swiveller was kind enough to
+stimulate him by shrill whistles, and various sporting cries, they
+rattled off at too sharp a pace to admit of much conversation:
+especially as the pony, incensed by Mr Swiveller's admonitions, took a
+particular fancy for the lamp-posts and cart-wheels, and evinced a
+strong desire to run on the pavement and rasp himself against the brick
+walls.  It was not, therefore, until they had arrived at the stable,
+and the chaise had been extricated from a very small doorway, into
+which the pony dragged it under the impression that he could take it
+along with him into his usual stall, that Mr Swiveller found time to
+talk.
+
+'It's hard work,' said Richard.  'What do you say to some beer?'
+
+Kit at first declined, but presently consented, and they adjourned to
+the neighbouring bar together.
+
+'We'll drink our friend what's-his-name,' said Dick, holding up the
+bright frothy pot; '--that was talking to you this morning, you know--I
+know him--a good fellow, but eccentric--very--here's what's-his-name!'
+
+Kit pledged him.
+
+'He lives in my house,' said Dick; 'at least in the house occupied by
+the firm in which I'm a sort of a--of a managing partner--a difficult
+fellow to get anything out of, but we like him--we like him.'
+
+'I must be going, sir, if you please,' said Kit, moving away.
+
+'Don't be in a hurry, Christopher,' replied his patron, 'we'll drink
+your mother.'
+
+'Thank you, sir.'
+
+'An excellent woman that mother of yours, Christopher,' said Mr
+Swiveller.  'Who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place to
+make it well?  My mother.  A charming woman.  He's a liberal sort of
+fellow.  We must get him to do something for your mother.  Does he know
+her, Christopher?'
+
+Kit shook his head, and glancing slyly at his questioner, thanked him,
+and made off before he could say another word.
+
+'Humph!' said Mr Swiveller pondering, 'this is queer.  Nothing but
+mysteries in connection with Brass's house.  I'll keep my own counsel,
+however.  Everybody and anybody has been in my confidence as yet, but
+now I think I'll set up in business for myself.  Queer--very queer!'
+
+After pondering deeply and with a face of exceeding wisdom for some
+time, Mr Swiveller drank some more of the beer, and summoning a small
+boy who had been watching his proceedings, poured forth the few
+remaining drops as a libation on the gravel, and bade him carry the
+empty vessel to the bar with his compliments, and above all things to
+lead a sober and temperate life, and abstain from all intoxicating and
+exciting liquors.  Having given him this piece of moral advice for his
+trouble (which, as he wisely observed, was far better than half-pence)
+the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious Apollos thrust his hands
+into his pockets and sauntered away: still pondering as he went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 39
+
+All that day, though he waited for Mr Abel until evening, Kit kept
+clear of his mother's house, determined not to anticipate the pleasures
+of the morrow, but to let them come in their full rush of delight; for
+to-morrow was the great and long looked-for epoch in his
+life--to-morrow was the end of his first quarter--the day of receiving,
+for the first time, one fourth part of his annual income of Six Pounds
+in one vast sum of Thirty Shillings--to-morrow was to be a half-holiday
+devoted to a whirl of entertainments, and little Jacob was to know what
+oysters meant, and to see a play.
+
+All manner of incidents combined in favour of the occasion: not only
+had Mr and Mrs Garland forewarned him that they intended to make no
+deduction for his outfit from the great amount, but to pay it him
+unbroken in all its gigantic grandeur; not only had the unknown
+gentleman increased the stock by the sum of five shillings, which was a
+perfect god-send and in itself a fortune; not only had these things
+come to pass which nobody could have calculated upon, or in their
+wildest dreams have hoped; but it was Barbara's quarter too--Barbara's
+quarter, that very day--and Barbara had a half-holiday as well as Kit,
+and Barbara's mother was going to make one of the party, and to take
+tea with Kit's mother, and cultivate her acquaintance.
+
+To be sure Kit looked out of his window very early that morning to see
+which way the clouds were flying, and to be sure Barbara would have
+been at hers too, if she had not sat up so late over-night, starching
+and ironing small pieces of muslin, and crimping them into frills, and
+sewing them on to other pieces to form magnificent wholes for next
+day's wear.  But they were both up very early for all that, and had
+small appetites for breakfast and less for dinner, and were in a state
+of great excitement when Barbara's mother came in, with astonishing
+accounts of the fineness of the weather out of doors (but with a very
+large umbrella notwithstanding, for people like Barbara's mother seldom
+make holiday without one), and when the bell rang for them to go up
+stairs and receive their quarter's money in gold and silver.
+
+Well, wasn't Mr Garland kind when he said 'Christopher, here's your
+money, and you have earned it well;' and wasn't Mrs Garland kind when
+she said 'Barbara, here's yours, and I'm much pleased with you;' and
+didn't Kit sign his name bold to his receipt, and didn't Barbara sign
+her name all a trembling to hers; and wasn't it beautiful to see how
+Mrs Garland poured out Barbara's mother a glass of wine; and didn't
+Barbara's mother speak up when she said 'Here's blessing you, ma'am, as
+a good lady, and you, sir, as a good gentleman, and Barbara, my love to
+you, and here's towards you, Mr Christopher;' and wasn't she as long
+drinking it as if it had been a tumblerful; and didn't she look
+genteel, standing there with her gloves on; and wasn't there plenty of
+laughing and talking among them as they reviewed all these things upon
+the top of the coach, and didn't they pity the people who hadn't got a
+holiday!
+
+But Kit's mother, again--wouldn't anybody have supposed she had come of
+a good stock and been a lady all her life!  There she was, quite ready
+to receive them, with a display of tea-things that might have warmed
+the heart of a china-shop; and little Jacob and the baby in such a
+state of perfection that their clothes looked as good as new, though
+Heaven knows they were old enough!  Didn't she say before they had sat
+down five minutes that Barbara's mother was exactly the sort of lady
+she expected, and didn't Barbara's mother say that Kit's mother was the
+very picture of what she had expected, and didn't Kit's mother
+compliment Barbara's mother on Barbara, and didn't Barbara's mother
+compliment Kit's mother on Kit, and wasn't Barbara herself quite
+fascinated with little Jacob, and did ever a child show off when he was
+wanted, as that child did, or make such friends as he made!
+
+'And we are both widows too!' said Barbara's mother.  'We must have
+been made to know each other.'
+
+'I haven't a doubt about it,' returned Mrs Nubbles.  'And what a pity
+it is we didn't know each other sooner.'
+
+'But then, you know, it's such a pleasure,' said Barbara's mother, 'to
+have it brought about by one's son and daughter, that it's fully made
+up for.  Now, an't it?'
+
+To this, Kit's mother yielded her full assent, and tracing things back
+from effects to causes, they naturally reverted to their deceased
+husbands, respecting whose lives, deaths, and burials, they compared
+notes, and discovered sundry circumstances that tallied with wonderful
+exactness; such as Barbara's father having been exactly four years and
+ten months older than Kit's father, and one of them having died on a
+Wednesday and the other on a Thursday, and both of them having been of
+a very fine make and remarkably good-looking, with other extraordinary
+coincidences.  These recollections being of a kind calculated to cast a
+shadow on the brightness of the holiday, Kit diverted the conversation
+to general topics, and they were soon in great force again, and as
+merry as before.  Among other things, Kit told them about his old
+place, and the extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to
+Barbara a thousand times already); but the last-named circumstance
+failed to interest his hearers to anything like the extent he had
+supposed, and even his mother said (looking accidentally at Barbara at
+the same time) that there was no doubt Miss Nell was very pretty, but
+she was but a child after all, and there were many young women quite as
+pretty as she; and Barbara mildly observed that she should think so,
+and that she never could help believing Mr Christopher must be under a
+mistake--which Kit wondered at very much, not being able to conceive
+what reason she had for doubting him.  Barbara's mother too, observed
+that it was very common for young folks to change at about fourteen or
+fifteen, and whereas they had been very pretty before, to grow up quite
+plain; which truth she illustrated by many forcible examples,
+especially one of a young man, who, being a builder with great
+prospects, had been particular in his attentions to Barbara, but whom
+Barbara would have nothing to say to; which (though everything happened
+for the best) she almost thought was a pity.  Kit said he thought so
+too, and so he did honestly, and he wondered what made Barbara so
+silent all at once, and why his mother looked at him as if he shouldn't
+have said it.
+
+However, it was high time now to be thinking of the play; for which
+great preparation was required, in the way of shawls and bonnets, not
+to mention one handkerchief full of oranges and another of apples,
+which took some time tying up, in consequence of the fruit having a
+tendency to roll out at the corners.  At length, everything was ready,
+and they went off very fast; Kit's mother carrying the baby, who was
+dreadfully wide awake, and Kit holding little Jacob in one hand, and
+escorting Barbara with the other--a state of things which occasioned
+the two mothers, who walked behind, to declare that they looked quite
+family folks, and caused Barbara to blush and say, 'Now don't, mother!'
+But Kit said she had no call to mind what they said; and indeed she
+need not have had, if she had known how very far from Kit's thoughts
+any love-making was.  Poor Barbara!
+
+At last they got to the theatre, which was Astley's: and in some two
+minutes after they had reached the yet unopened door, little Jacob was
+squeezed flat, and the baby had received divers concussions, and
+Barbara's mother's umbrella had been carried several yards off and
+passed back to her over the shoulders of the people, and Kit had hit a
+man on the head with the handkerchief of apples for 'scrowdging' his
+parent with unnecessary violence, and there was a great uproar.  But,
+when they were once past the pay-place and tearing away for very life
+with their checks in their hands, and, above all, when they were fairly
+in the theatre, and seated in such places that they couldn't have had
+better if they had picked them out, and taken them beforehand, all this
+was looked upon as quite a capital joke, and an essential part of the
+entertainment.
+
+Dear, dear, what a place it looked, that Astley's; with all the paint,
+gilding, and looking-glass; the vague smell of horses suggestive of
+coming wonders; the curtain that hid such gorgeous mysteries; the clean
+white sawdust down in the circus; the company coming in and taking
+their places; the fiddlers looking carelessly up at them while they
+tuned their instruments, as if they didn't want the play to begin, and
+knew it all beforehand!  What a glow was that, which burst upon them
+all, when that long, clear, brilliant row of lights came slowly up; and
+what the feverish excitement when the little bell rang and the music
+began in good earnest, with strong parts for the drums, and sweet
+effects for the triangles!  Well might Barbara's mother say to Kit's
+mother that the gallery was the place to see from, and wonder it wasn't
+much dearer than the boxes; well might Barbara feel doubtful whether to
+laugh or cry, in her flutter of delight.
+
+Then the play itself! the horses which little Jacob believed from the
+first to be alive, and the ladies and gentlemen of whose reality he
+could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or heard anything at
+all like them--the firing, which made Barbara wink--the forlorn lady,
+who made her cry--the tyrant, who made her tremble--the man who sang
+the song with the lady's-maid and danced the chorus, who made her
+laugh--the pony who reared up on his hind legs when he saw the
+murderer, and wouldn't hear of walking on all fours again until he was
+taken into custody--the clown who ventured on such familiarities with
+the military man in boots--the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty
+ribbons and came down safe upon the horse's back--everything was
+delightful, splendid, and surprising!  Little Jacob applauded till his
+hands were sore; Kit cried 'an-kor' at the end of everything, the
+three-act piece included; and Barbara's mother beat her umbrella on the
+floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to the gingham.
+
+In the midst of all these fascinations, Barbara's thoughts seemed to
+have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for, when
+they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an hysterical
+simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who jumped over the
+ribbons.
+
+'As handsome as her?' said Kit.  'Double as handsome.'
+
+'Oh Christopher! I'm sure she was the beautifullest creature ever was,'
+said Barbara.
+
+'Nonsense!' returned Kit.  'She was well enough, I don't deny that; but
+think how she was dressed and painted, and what a difference that made.
+Why YOU are a good deal better looking than her, Barbara.'
+
+'Oh Christopher!' said Barbara, looking down.
+
+'You are, any day,' said Kit, '--and so's your mother.'
+
+Poor Barbara!
+
+What was all this though--even all this--to the extraordinary
+dissipation that ensued, when Kit, walking into an oyster-shop as bold
+as if he lived there, and not so much as looking at the counter or the
+man behind it, led his party into a box--a private box, fitted up with
+red curtains, white table-cloth, and cruet-stand complete--and ordered
+a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who acted as waiter and called him,
+him Christopher Nubbles, 'sir,' to bring three dozen of his
+largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it!  Yes, Kit told this
+gentleman to look sharp, and he not only said he would look sharp, but
+he actually did, and presently came running back with the newest
+loaves, and the freshest butter, and the largest oysters, ever seen.
+Then said Kit to this gentleman, 'a pot of beer'--just so--and the
+gentleman, instead of replying, 'Sir, did you address that language to
+me?' only said, 'Pot o' beer, sir?  Yes, sir,' and went off and fetched
+it, and put it on the table in a small decanter-stand, like those which
+blind-men's dogs carry about the streets in their mouths, to catch the
+half-pence in; and both Kit's mother and Barbara's mother declared as
+he turned away that he was one of the slimmest and gracefullest young
+men she had ever looked upon.
+
+Then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and there was
+Barbara, that foolish Barbara, declaring that she could not eat more
+than two, and wanting more pressing than you would believe before she
+would eat four: though her mother and Kit's mother made up for it
+pretty well, and ate and laughed and enjoyed themselves so thoroughly
+that it did Kit good to see them, and made him laugh and eat likewise
+from strong sympathy.  But the greatest miracle of the night was little
+Jacob, who ate oysters as if he had been born and bred to the
+business--sprinkled the pepper and the vinegar with a discretion beyond
+his years--and afterwards built a grotto on the table with the shells.
+There was the baby too, who had never closed an eye all night, but had
+sat as good as gold, trying to force a large orange into his mouth, and
+gazing intently at the lights in the chandelier--there he was, sitting
+up in his mother's lap, staring at the gas without winking, and making
+indentations in his soft visage with an oyster-shell, to that degree
+that a heart of iron must have loved him!  In short, there never was a
+more successful supper; and when Kit ordered in a glass of something
+hot to finish with, and proposed Mr and Mrs Garland before sending it
+round, there were not six happier people in all the world.
+
+But all happiness has an end--hence the chief pleasure of its next
+beginning--and as it was now growing late, they agreed it was time to
+turn their faces homewards.  So, after going a little out of their way
+to see Barbara and Barbara's mother safe to a friend's house where they
+were to pass the night, Kit and his mother left them at the door, with
+an early appointment for returning to Finchley next morning, and a
+great many plans for next quarter's enjoyment.  Then, Kit took little
+Jacob on his back, and giving his arm to his mother, and a kiss to the
+baby, they all trudged merrily home together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 40
+
+Full of that vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next
+morning, Kit turned out at sunrise, and, with his faith in last night's
+enjoyments a little shaken by cool daylight and the return to every-day
+duties and occupations, went to meet Barbara and her mother at the
+appointed place.  And being careful not to awaken any of the little
+household, who were yet resting from their unusual fatigues, Kit left
+his money on the chimney-piece, with an inscription in chalk calling
+his mother's attention to the circumstance, and informing her that it
+came from her dutiful son; and went his way, with a heart something
+heavier than his pockets, but free from any very great oppression
+notwithstanding.
+
+Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret?  why cannot we
+push them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put them
+at once at that convenient distance whence they may be regarded either
+with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of recollection! why will
+they hang about us, like the flavour of yesterday's wine, suggestive of
+headaches and lassitude, and those good intentions for the future,
+which, under the earth, form the everlasting pavement of a large
+estate, and, upon it, usually endure until dinner-time or thereabouts!
+
+Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's mother
+was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley's, and
+thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night?
+Kit was not surprised to hear her say so--not he.  He had already had a
+misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been
+doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that
+night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would
+not be there.  Such is the difference between yesterday and today.  We
+are all going to the play, or coming home from it.
+
+However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers
+strength and courage as the day gets on.  By degrees, they began to
+recall circumstances more and more pleasant in their nature, until,
+what between talking, walking, and laughing, they reached Finchley in
+such good heart, that Barbara's mother declared she never felt less
+tired or in better spirits.  And so said Kit.  Barbara had been silent
+all the way, but she said so too.  Poor little Barbara!  She was very
+quiet.
+
+They were at home in such good time that Kit had rubbed down the pony
+and made him as spruce as a race-horse, before Mr Garland came down to
+breakfast; which punctual and industrious conduct the old lady, and the
+old gentleman, and Mr Abel, highly extolled.  At his usual hour (or
+rather at his usual minute and second, for he was the soul of
+punctuality) Mr Abel walked out, to be overtaken by the London coach,
+and Kit and the old gentleman went to work in the garden.
+
+This was not the least pleasant of Kit's employments.  On a fine day
+they were quite a family party; the old lady sitting hard by with her
+work-basket on a little table; the old gentleman digging, or pruning,
+or clipping about with a large pair of shears, or helping Kit in some
+way or other with great assiduity; and Whisker looking on from his
+paddock in placid contemplation of them all.  To-day they were to trim
+the grape-vine, so Kit mounted half-way up a short ladder, and began to
+snip and hammer away, while the old gentleman, with a great interest in
+his proceedings, handed up the nails and shreds of cloth as he wanted
+them.  The old lady and Whisker looked on as usual.
+
+'Well, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'and so you have made a new
+friend, eh?'
+
+'I beg your pardon, Sir?' returned Kit, looking down from the ladder.
+
+'You have made a new friend, I hear from Mr Abel,' said the old
+gentleman, 'at the office!'
+
+'Oh!  Yes Sir, yes.  He behaved very handsome, Sir.'
+
+'I'm glad to hear it,' returned the old gentlemen with a smile.  'He is
+disposed to behave more handsomely still, though, Christopher.'
+
+'Indeed, Sir!  It's very kind in him, but I don't want him to, I'm
+sure,' said Kit, hammering stoutly at an obdurate nail.
+
+'He is rather anxious,' pursued the old gentleman, 'to have you in his
+own service--take care what you're doing, or you will fall down and
+hurt yourself.'
+
+'To have me in his service, Sir?' cried Kit, who had stopped short in
+his work and faced about on the ladder like some dexterous tumbler.
+'Why, Sir, I don't think he can be in earnest when he says that.'
+
+'Oh!  But he is indeed,' said Mr Garland.  'And he has told Mr Abel so.'
+
+'I never heard of such a thing!' muttered Kit, looking ruefully at his
+master and mistress.  'I wonder at him; that I do.'
+
+'You see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'this is a point of much
+importance to you, and you should understand and consider it in that
+light.  This gentleman is able to give you more money than I--not, I
+hope, to carry through the various relations of master and servant,
+more kindness and confidence, but certainly, Christopher, to give you
+more money.'
+
+'Well,' said Kit, 'after that, Sir--'
+
+'Wait a moment,' interposed Mr Garland.  'That is not all.  You were a
+very faithful servant to your old employers, as I understand, and
+should this gentleman recover them, as it is his purpose to attempt
+doing by every means in his power, I have no doubt that you, being in
+his service, would meet with your reward.  Besides,' added the old
+gentleman with stronger emphasis, 'besides having the pleasure of being
+again brought into communication with those to whom you seem to be very
+strongly and disinterestedly attached.  You must think of all this,
+Christopher, and not be rash or hasty in your choice.'
+
+Kit did suffer one twinge, one momentary pang, in keeping the
+resolution he had already formed, when this last argument passed
+swiftly into his thoughts, and conjured up the realization of all his
+hopes and fancies.  But it was gone in a minute, and he sturdily
+rejoined that the gentleman must look out for somebody else, as he did
+think he might have done at first.
+
+'He has no right to think that I'd be led away to go to him, sir,' said
+Kit, turning round again after half a minute's hammering.  'Does he
+think I'm a fool?'
+
+'He may, perhaps, Christopher, if you refuse his offer,' said Mr
+Garland gravely.
+
+'Then let him, sir,' retorted Kit; 'what do I care, sir, what he
+thinks?  why should I care for his thinking, sir, when I know that I
+should be a fool, and worse than a fool, sir, to leave the kindest
+master and mistress that ever was or can be, who took me out of the
+streets a very poor and hungry lad indeed--poorer and hungrier perhaps
+than even you think for, sir--to go to him or anybody?  If Miss Nell
+was to come back, ma'am,' added Kit, turning suddenly to his mistress,
+'why that would be another thing, and perhaps if she wanted me, I might
+ask you now and then to let me work for her when all was done at home.
+But when she comes back, I see now that she'll be rich as old master
+always said she would, and being a rich young lady, what could she want
+of me?  No, no,' added Kit, shaking his head sorrowfully, 'she'll never
+want me any more, and bless her, I hope she never may, though I should
+like to see her too!'
+
+Here Kit drove a nail into the wall, very hard--much harder than was
+necessary--and having done so, faced about again.
+
+'There's the pony, sir,' said Kit--'Whisker, ma'am (and he knows so
+well I'm talking about him that he begins to neigh directly,
+Sir)--would he let anybody come near him but me, ma'am?  Here's the
+garden, sir, and Mr Abel, ma'am.  Would Mr Abel part with me, Sir, or
+is there anybody that could be fonder of the garden, ma'am?  It would
+break mother's heart, Sir, and even little Jacob would have sense
+enough to cry his eyes out, ma'am, if he thought that Mr Abel could
+wish to part with me so soon, after having told me, only the other day,
+that he hoped we might be together for years to come--'
+
+There is no telling how long Kit might have stood upon the ladder,
+addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning
+towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come
+running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a note,
+which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit's oratorical
+appearance, she put into her master's hand.
+
+'Oh!' said the old gentleman after reading it, 'ask the messenger to
+walk this way.'  Barbara tripping off to do as she was bid, he turned
+to Kit and said that they would not pursue the subject any further, and
+that Kit could not be more unwilling to part with them, than they would
+be to part with Kit; a sentiment which the old lady very generously
+echoed.
+
+'At the same time, Christopher,' added Mr Garland, glancing at the note
+in his hand, 'if the gentleman should want to borrow you now and then
+for an hour or so, or even a day or so, at a time, we must consent to
+lend you, and you must consent to be lent.--Oh! here is the young
+gentleman.  How do you do, Sir?'
+
+This salutation was addressed to Mr Chuckster, who, with his hat
+extremely on one side, and his hair a long way beyond it, came
+swaggering up the walk.
+
+'Hope I see you well sir,' returned that gentleman.  'Hope I see YOU
+well, ma'am.  Charming box this, sir.  Delicious country to be sure.'
+
+'You want to take Kit back with you, I find?' observed Mr Garland.
+
+'I have got a chariot-cab waiting on purpose,' replied the clerk.  'A
+very spanking grey in that cab, sir, if you're a judge of horse-flesh.'
+
+Declining to inspect the spanking grey, on the plea that he was but
+poorly acquainted with such matters, and would but imperfectly
+appreciate his beauties, Mr Garland invited Mr Chuckster to partake of
+a slight repast in the way of lunch.  That gentleman readily
+consenting, certain cold viands, flanked with ale and wine, were
+speedily prepared for his refreshment.
+
+At this repast, Mr Chuckster exerted his utmost abilities to enchant
+his entertainers, and impress them with a conviction of the mental
+superiority of those who dwelt in town; with which view he led the
+discourse to the small scandal of the day, in which he was justly
+considered by his friends to shine prodigiously.  Thus, he was in a
+condition to relate the exact circumstances of the difference between
+the Marquis of Mizzler and Lord Bobby, which it appeared originated in
+a disputed bottle of champagne, and not in a pigeon-pie, as erroneously
+reported in the newspapers; neither had Lord Bobby said to the Marquis
+of Mizzler, 'Mizzler, one of us two tells a lie, and I'm not the man,'
+as incorrectly stated by the same authorities; but 'Mizzler, you know
+where I'm to be found, and damme, sir, find me if you want me'--which,
+of course, entirely changed the aspect of this interesting question,
+and placed it in a very different light.  He also acquainted them with
+the precise amount of the income guaranteed by the Duke of Thigsberry
+to Violetta Stetta of the Italian Opera, which it appeared was payable
+quarterly, and not half-yearly, as the public had been given to
+understand, and which was EXclusive, and not INclusive (as had been
+monstrously stated,) of jewellery, perfumery, hair-powder for five
+footmen, and two daily changes of kid-gloves for a page.  Having
+entreated the old lady and gentleman to set their minds at rest on
+these absorbing points, for they might rely on his statement being the
+correct one, Mr Chuckster entertained them with theatrical chit-chat
+and the court circular; and so wound up a brilliant and fascinating
+conversation which he had maintained alone, and without any assistance
+whatever, for upwards of three-quarters of an hour.
+
+'And now that the nag has got his wind again,' said Mr Chuckster rising
+in a graceful manner, 'I'm afraid I must cut my stick.'
+
+Neither Mr nor Mrs Garland offered any opposition to his tearing
+himself away (feeling, no doubt, that such a man could ill be spared
+from his proper sphere of action), and therefore Mr Chuckster and Kit
+were shortly afterwards upon their way to town; Kit being perched upon
+the box of the cabriolet beside the driver, and Mr Chuckster seated in
+solitary state inside, with one of his boots sticking out at each of
+the front windows.
+
+When they reached the Notary's house, Kit followed into the office, and
+was desired by Mr Abel to sit down and wait, for the gentleman who
+wanted him had gone out, and perhaps might not return for some time.
+This anticipation was strictly verified, for Kit had had his dinner,
+and his tea, and had read all the lighter matter in the Law-List, and
+the Post-Office Directory, and had fallen asleep a great many times,
+before the gentleman whom he had seen before, came in; which he did at
+last in a very great hurry.
+
+He was closeted with Mr Witherden for some little time, and Mr Abel had
+been called in to assist at the conference, before Kit, wondering very
+much what he was wanted for, was summoned to attend them.
+
+'Christopher,' said the gentleman, turning to him directly he entered
+the room, 'I have found your old master and young mistress.'
+
+'No, Sir!  Have you, though?' returned Kit, his eyes sparkling with
+delight.  'Where are they, Sir?  How are they, Sir?  Are they--are they
+near here?'
+
+'A long way from here,' returned the gentleman, shaking his head.  'But
+I am going away to-night to bring them back, and I want you to go with
+me.'
+
+'Me, Sir?' cried Kit, full of joy and surprise.
+
+'The place,' said the strange gentleman, turning thoughtfully to the
+Notary, 'indicated by this man of the dogs, is--how far from
+here--sixty miles?'
+
+'From sixty to seventy.'
+
+'Humph!  If we travel post all night, we shall reach there in good time
+to-morrow morning.  Now, the only question is, as they will not know
+me, and the child, God bless her, would think that any stranger
+pursuing them had a design upon her grandfather's liberty--can I do
+better than take this lad, whom they both know and will readily
+remember, as an assurance to them of my friendly intentions?'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied the Notary.  'Take Christopher by all means.'
+
+'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Kit, who had listened to this discourse
+with a lengthening countenance, 'but if that's the reason, I'm afraid I
+should do more harm than good--Miss Nell, Sir, she knows me, and would
+trust in me, I am sure; but old master--I don't know why, gentlemen;
+nobody does--would not bear me in his sight after he had been ill, and
+Miss Nell herself told me that I must not go near him or let him see me
+any more.  I should spoil all that you were doing if I went, I'm
+afraid.  I'd give the world to go, but you had better not take me, Sir.'
+
+'Another difficulty!' cried the impetuous gentleman.  'Was ever man so
+beset as I?  Is there nobody else that knew them, nobody else in whom
+they had any confidence?  Solitary as their lives were, is there no one
+person who would serve my purpose?'
+
+'IS there, Christopher?' said the Notary.
+
+'Not one, Sir,' replied Kit.--'Yes, though--there's my mother.'
+
+'Did they know her?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'Know her, Sir! why, she was always coming backwards and forwards.
+They were as kind to her as they were to me.  Bless you, Sir, she
+expected they'd come back to her house.'
+
+'Then where the devil is the woman?' said the impatient gentleman,
+catching up his hat.  'Why isn't she here?  Why is that woman always
+out of the way when she is most wanted?'
+
+In a word, the single gentleman was bursting out of the office, bent
+upon laying violent hands on Kit's mother, forcing her into a
+post-chaise, and carrying her off, when this novel kind of abduction
+was with some difficulty prevented by the joint efforts of Mr Abel and
+the Notary, who restrained him by dint of their remonstrances, and
+persuaded him to sound Kit upon the probability of her being able and
+willing to undertake such a journey on so short a notice.
+
+This occasioned some doubts on the part of Kit, and some violent
+demonstrations on that of the single gentleman, and a great many
+soothing speeches on that of the Notary and Mr Abel.  The upshot of the
+business was, that Kit, after weighing the matter in his mind and
+considering it carefully, promised, on behalf of his mother, that she
+should be ready within two hours from that time to undertake the
+expedition, and engaged to produce her in that place, in all respects
+equipped and prepared for the journey, before the specified period had
+expired.
+
+Having given this pledge, which was rather a bold one, and not
+particularly easy of redemption, Kit lost no time in sallying forth,
+and taking measures for its immediate fulfilment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 41
+
+Kit made his way through the crowded streets, dividing the stream of
+people, dashing across the busy road-ways, diving into lanes and
+alleys, and stopping or turning aside for nothing, until he came in
+front of the Old Curiosity Shop, when he came to a stand; partly from
+habit and partly from being out of breath.
+
+It was a gloomy autumn evening, and he thought the old place had never
+looked so dismal as in its dreary twilight.  The windows broken, the
+rusty sashes rattling in their frames, the deserted house a dull
+barrier dividing the glaring lights and bustle of the street into two
+long lines, and standing in the midst, cold, dark, and empty--presented
+a cheerless spectacle which mingled harshly with the bright prospects
+the boy had been building up for its late inmates, and came like a
+disappointment or misfortune.  Kit would have had a good fire roaring
+up the empty chimneys, lights sparkling and shining through the
+windows, people moving briskly to and fro, voices in cheerful
+conversation, something in unison with the new hopes that were astir.
+He had not expected that the house would wear any different aspect--had
+known indeed that it could not--but coming upon it in the midst of
+eager thoughts and expectations, it checked the current in its flow,
+and darkened it with a mournful shadow.
+
+Kit, however, fortunately for himself, was not learned enough or
+contemplative enough to be troubled with presages of evil afar off,
+and, having no mental spectacles to assist his vision in this respect,
+saw nothing but the dull house, which jarred uncomfortably upon his
+previous thoughts.  So, almost wishing that he had not passed it,
+though hardly knowing why, he hurried on again, making up by his
+increased speed for the few moments he had lost.
+
+'Now, if she should be out,' thought Kit, as he approached the poor
+dwelling of his mother, 'and I not able to find her, this impatient
+gentleman would be in a pretty taking.  And sure enough there's no
+light, and the door's fast.  Now, God forgive me for saying so, but if
+this is Little Bethel's doing, I wish Little Bethel was--was farther
+off,' said Kit checking himself, and knocking at the door.
+
+A second knock brought no reply from within the house; but caused a
+woman over the way to look out and inquire who that was, awanting Mrs
+Nubbles.
+
+'Me,' said Kit.  'She's at--at Little Bethel, I suppose?'--getting out
+the name of the obnoxious conventicle with some reluctance, and laying
+a spiteful emphasis upon the words.
+
+The neighbour nodded assent.
+
+'Then pray tell me where it is,' said Kit, 'for I have come on a
+pressing matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the pulpit.'
+
+It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in question, as
+none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted thither, and few
+knew anything more of it than the name.  At last, a gossip of Mrs
+Nubbles's, who had accompanied her to chapel on one or two occasions
+when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her devotions, furnished the
+needful information, which Kit had no sooner obtained than he started
+off again.
+
+Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a
+straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who
+presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite allusion
+to the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which enabled him
+to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to the parish
+church and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto.  Kit found it, at
+last, after some trouble, and pausing at the door to take breath that
+he might enter with becoming decency, passed into the chapel.
+
+It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a particularly
+little Bethel--a Bethel of the smallest dimensions--with a small
+number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a small gentleman
+(by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was delivering in a by
+no means small voice, a by no means small sermon, judging of its
+dimensions by the condition of his audience, which, if their gross
+amount were but small, comprised a still smaller number of hearers, as
+the majority were slumbering.
+
+Among these was Kit's mother, who, finding it matter of extreme
+difficulty to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night, and
+feeling their inclination to close strongly backed and seconded by the
+arguments of the preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness that
+overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but that she
+could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost inaudible groan, as
+if in recognition of the orator's doctrines.  The baby in her arms was
+as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob, whose youth prevented him from
+recognising in this prolonged spiritual nourishment anything half as
+interesting as oysters, was alternately very fast asleep and very wide
+awake, as his inclination to slumber, or his terror of being personally
+alluded to in the discourse, gained the mastery over him.
+
+'And now I'm here,' thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew
+which was opposite his mother's, and on the other side of the little
+aisle, 'how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come out!  I
+might as well be twenty miles off.  She'll never wake till it's all
+over, and there goes the clock again!  If he would but leave off for a
+minute, or if they'd only sing!'
+
+But there was little encouragement to believe that either event would
+happen for a couple of hours to come.  The preacher went on telling
+them what he meant to convince them of before he had done, and it was
+clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises and forgot the
+other, he was good for that time at least.
+
+In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the chapel,
+and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front of the
+clerk's desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed him--Quilp!
+
+He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp was
+there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his knees,
+and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with the
+accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.
+He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and appeared
+utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not help
+feeling, directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend was
+fastened upon them, and upon nothing else.
+
+But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the
+Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the
+forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue his
+wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his parent, as
+the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew serious.
+Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set himself to attract
+his wandering attention, and this not being a very difficult task (one
+sneeze effected it), he signed to him to rouse his mother.
+
+Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in a
+forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over upon the
+pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs remained
+inside; and, while he made vehement gestures with his right hand, and
+held on with his left, stared, or seemed to stare, straight into little
+Jacob's eyes, threatening him by his strained look and attitude--so it
+appeared to the child--that if he so much as moved a muscle, he, the
+preacher, would be literally, and not figuratively, 'down upon him'
+that instant.  In this fearful state of things, distracted by the
+sudden appearance of Kit, and fascinated by the eyes of the preacher,
+the miserable Jacob sat bolt upright, wholly incapable of motion,
+strongly disposed to cry but afraid to do so, and returning his
+pastor's gaze until his infant eyes seemed starting from their sockets.
+
+'If I must do it openly, I must,' thought Kit.  With that he walked
+softly out of his pew and into his mother's, and as Mr Swiveller would
+have observed if he had been present, 'collared' the baby without
+speaking a word.
+
+'Hush, mother!' whispered Kit.  'Come along with me, I've got something
+to tell you.'
+
+'Where am I?' said Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'In this blessed Little Bethel,' returned her son, peevishly.
+
+'Blessed indeed!' cried Mrs Nubbles, catching at the word.  'Oh,
+Christopher, how have I been edified this night!'
+
+'Yes, yes, I know,' said Kit hastily; 'but come along, mother,
+everybody's looking at us.  Don't make a noise--bring Jacob--that's
+right!'
+
+'Stay, Satan, stay!' cried the preacher, as Kit was moving off.
+
+
+'This gentleman says you're to stay, Christopher,' whispered his mother.
+
+'Stay, Satan, stay!' roared the preacher again.  'Tempt not the woman
+that doth incline her ear to thee, but harken to the voice of him that
+calleth.  He hath a lamb from the fold!' cried the preacher, raising
+his voice still higher and pointing to the baby.  'He beareth off a
+lamb, a precious lamb!  He goeth about, like a wolf in the night
+season, and inveigleth the tender lambs!'
+
+Kit was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but considering this
+strong language, and being somewhat excited by the circumstances in
+which he was placed, he faced round to the pulpit with the baby in his
+arms, and replied aloud, 'No, I don't.  He's my brother.'
+
+'He's MY brother!' cried the preacher.
+
+'He isn't,' said Kit indignantly.  'How can you say such a thing?  And
+don't call me names if you please; what harm have I done?  I shouldn't
+have come to take 'em away, unless I was obliged, you may depend upon
+that.  I wanted to do it very quiet, but you wouldn't let me.  Now, you
+have the goodness to abuse Satan and them, as much as you like, Sir,
+and to let me alone if you please.'
+
+So saying, Kit marched out of the chapel, followed by his mother and
+little Jacob, and found himself in the open air, with an indistinct
+recollection of having seen the people wake up and look surprised, and
+of Quilp having remained, throughout the interruption, in his old
+attitude, without moving his eyes from the ceiling, or appearing to
+take the smallest notice of anything that passed.
+
+'Oh Kit!' said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, 'what
+have you done!  I never can go there again--never!'
+
+'I'm glad of it, mother.  What was there in the little bit of pleasure
+you took last night that made it necessary for you to be low-spirited
+and sorrowful tonight?  That's the way you do.  If you're happy or
+merry ever, you come here to say, along with that chap, that you're
+sorry for it.  More shame for you, mother, I was going to say.'
+
+'Hush, dear!' said Mrs Nubbles; 'you don't mean what you say I know,
+but you're talking sinfulness.'
+
+'Don't mean it?  But I do mean it!' retorted Kit.  'I don't believe,
+mother, that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are thought greater
+sins in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I do believe that those
+chaps are just about as right and sensible in putting down the one as
+in leaving off the other--that's my belief.  But I won't say anything
+more about it, if you'll promise not to cry, that's all; and you take
+the baby that's a lighter weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we
+go along (which we must do pretty quick) I'll give you the news I
+bring, which will surprise you a little, I can tell you.  There--that's
+right.  Now you look as if you'd never seen Little Bethel in all your
+life, as I hope you never will again; and here's the baby; and little
+Jacob, you get atop of my back and catch hold of me tight round the
+neck, and whenever a Little Bethel parson calls you a precious lamb or
+says your brother's one, you tell him it's the truest things he's said
+for a twelvemonth, and that if he'd got a little more of the lamb
+himself, and less of the mint-sauce--not being quite so sharp and sour
+over it--I should like him all the better.  That's what you've got to
+say to him, Jacob.'
+
+Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and cheering
+up his mother, the children, and himself, by the one simple process of
+determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them briskly forward; and
+on the road home, he related what had passed at the Notary's house, and
+the purpose with which he had intruded on the solemnities of Little
+Bethel.
+
+His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was
+required of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of which
+the most prominent were that it was a great honour and dignity to ride
+in a post-chaise, and that it was a moral impossibility to leave the
+children behind.  But this objection, and a great many others, founded
+on certain articles of dress being at the wash, and certain other
+articles having no existence in the wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were
+overcome by Kit, who opposed to each and every of them, the pleasure of
+recovering Nell, and the delight it would be to bring her back in
+triumph.
+
+'There's only ten minutes now, mother,' said Kit when they reached
+home.  'There's a bandbox.  Throw in what you want, and we'll be off
+directly.'
+
+To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which
+could, by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out
+everything likely to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was
+persuaded to come and stop with the children, and how the children at
+first cried dismally, and then laughed heartily on being promised all
+kinds of impossible and unheard-of toys; how Kit's mother wouldn't
+leave off kissing them, and how Kit couldn't make up his mind to be
+vexed with her for doing it; would take more time and room than you and
+I can spare.  So, passing over all such matters, it is sufficient to
+say that within a few minutes after the two hours had expired, Kit and
+his mother arrived at the Notary's door, where a post-chaise was
+already waiting.
+
+'With four horses I declare!' said Kit, quite aghast at the
+preparations.  'Well you ARE going to do it, mother!  Here she is, Sir.
+Here's my mother.  She's quite ready, sir.'
+
+'That's well,' returned the gentleman.  'Now, don't be in a flutter,
+ma'am; you'll be taken great care of.  Where's the box with the new
+clothing and necessaries for them?'
+
+'Here it is,' said the Notary.  'In with it, Christopher.'
+
+'All right, Sir,' replied Kit.  'Quite ready now, sir.'
+
+'Then come along,' said the single gentleman.  And thereupon he gave
+his arm to Kit's mother, handed her into the carriage as politely as
+you please, and took his seat beside her.
+
+Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels, and
+off they rattled, with Kit's mother hanging out at one window waving a
+damp pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many messages to
+little Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a word.
+
+Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with tears
+in his eyes--not brought there by the departure he witnessed, but by
+the return to which he looked forward.  'They went away,' he thought,
+'on foot with nobody to speak to them or say a kind word at parting,
+and they'll come back, drawn by four horses, with this rich gentleman
+for their friend, and all their troubles over!  She'll forget that she
+taught me to write--'
+
+Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of, for
+he stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the chaise
+had disappeared, and did not return into the house until the Notary and
+Mr Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the sound of the
+wheels was no longer distinguishable, had several times wondered what
+could possibly detain him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 42
+
+It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant, and
+to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of the
+narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back.
+
+In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the two
+sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with them and
+her recognition in their trials of something akin to her own loneliness
+of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such moments a time of
+deep delight, though the softened pleasure they yielded was of that
+kind which lives and dies in tears--in one of those wanderings at the
+quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and earth, and air, and rippling
+water, and sound of distant bells, claimed kindred with the emotions of
+the solitary child, and inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of
+a child's world or its easy joys--in one of those rambles which had now
+become her only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into
+darkness and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature
+lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene and
+still, when noise of tongues and glare of garish lights would have been
+solitude indeed.
+
+The sisters had gone home, and she was alone.  She raised her eyes to
+the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air,
+and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and more
+beyond, and more beyond again, until the whole great expanse sparkled
+with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in immeasurable space,
+eternal in their numbers as in their changeless and incorruptible
+existence.  She bent over the calm river, and saw them shining in the
+same majestic order as when the dove beheld them gleaming through the
+swollen waters, upon the mountain tops down far below, and dead
+mankind, a million fathoms deep.
+
+The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by the
+stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders.  The time and
+place awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope--less hope,
+perhaps, than resignation--on the past, and present, and what was yet
+before her.  Between the old man and herself there had come a gradual
+separation, harder to bear than any former sorrow.  Every evening, and
+often in the day-time too, he was absent, alone; and although she well
+knew where he went, and why--too well from the constant drain upon her
+scanty purse and from his haggard looks--he evaded all inquiry,
+maintained a strict reserve, and even shunned her presence.
+
+She sat meditating sorrowfully upon this change, and mingling it, as it
+were, with everything about her, when the distant church-clock bell
+struck nine.  Rising at the sound, she retraced her steps, and turned
+thoughtfully towards the town.
+
+She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the stream,
+led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon a ruddy
+light, and looking forward more attentively, discerned that it
+proceeded from what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who had
+made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path, and were
+sitting or lying round it.  As she was too poor to have any fear of
+them, she did not alter her course (which, indeed, she could not have
+done without going a long way round), but quickened her pace a little,
+and kept straight on.
+
+A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the
+spot, to glance towards the fire.  There was a form between it and her,
+the outline strongly developed against the light, which caused her to
+stop abruptly.  Then, as if she had reasoned with herself and were
+assured that it could not be, or had satisfied herself that it was not
+that of the person she had supposed, she went on again.
+
+But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had been
+carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the voice that
+spoke--she could not distinguish words--sounded as familiar to her as
+her own.
+
+She turned, and looked back.  The person had been seated before, but
+was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick on which
+he rested both hands.  The attitude was no less familiar to her than
+the tone of voice had been.  It was her grandfather.
+
+Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his
+associates could be, and for what purpose they were together.  Some
+vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong inclination
+it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not advancing across the
+open field, however, but creeping towards it by the hedge.
+
+In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and standing
+among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without much danger
+of being observed.
+
+There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy camps
+they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy--a tall athletic
+man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree at a little
+distance off, looking now at the fire, and now, under his black
+eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with a watchful but
+half-concealed interest in their conversation.  Of these, her
+grandfather was one; the others she recognised as the first
+card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the
+storm--the man whom they had called Isaac List, and his gruff
+companion.  One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to that people,
+was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be, empty.
+
+'Well, are you going?' said the stout man, looking up from the ground
+where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather's face.  'You were
+in a mighty hurry a minute ago.  Go, if you like.  You're your own
+master, I hope?'
+
+'Don't vex him,' returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog on
+the other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that he
+seemed to be squinting all over; 'he didn't mean any offence.'
+
+'You keep me poor, and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me
+besides,' said the old man, turning from one to the other.  'Ye'll
+drive me mad among ye.'
+
+The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child,
+contrasted with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands he
+was, smote upon the little listener's heart.  But she constrained
+herself to attend to all that passed, and to note each look and word.
+
+'Confound you, what do you mean?' said the stout man rising a little,
+and supporting himself on his elbow.  'Keep you poor!  You'd keep us
+poor if you could, wouldn't you?  That's the way with you whining,
+puny, pitiful players.  When you lose, you're martyrs; but I don't find
+that when you win, you look upon the other losers in that light.  As to
+plunder!' cried the fellow, raising his voice--'Damme, what do you
+mean by such ungentlemanly language as plunder, eh?'
+
+The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or two
+short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his unbounded
+indignation.  It was quite plain that he acted the bully, and his
+friend the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or rather, it would
+have been to any one but the weak old man; for they exchanged glances
+quite openly, both with each other and with the gipsy, who grinned his
+approval of the jest until his white teeth shone again.
+
+The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then
+said, turning to his assailant:
+
+'You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know.  Don't be so
+violent with me.  You were, were you not?'
+
+'Not of plundering among present company!  Honour among--among
+gentlemen, Sir,' returned the other, who seemed to have been very near
+giving an awkward termination to the sentence.
+
+'Don't be hard upon him, Jowl,' said Isaac List.  'He's very sorry for
+giving offence.  There--go on with what you were saying--go on.'
+
+'I'm a jolly old tender-hearted lamb, I am,' cried Mr Jowl, 'to be
+sitting here at my time of life giving advice when I know it won't be
+taken, and that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains.  But that's
+the way I've gone through life.  Experience has never put a chill upon
+my warm-heartedness.'
+
+'I tell you he's very sorry, don't I?' remonstrated Isaac List, 'and
+that he wishes you'd go on.'
+
+'Does he wish it?' said the other.
+
+'Ay,' groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and fro.
+'Go on, go on.  It's in vain to fight with it; I can't do it; go on.'
+
+'I go on then,' said Jowl, 'where I left off, when you got up so quick.
+If you're persuaded that it's time for luck to turn, as it certainly
+is, and find that you haven't means enough to try it (and that's where
+it is, for you know, yourself, that you never have the funds to keep on
+long enough at a sitting), help yourself to what seems put in your way
+on purpose.  Borrow it, I say, and, when you're able, pay it back
+again.'
+
+'Certainly,' Isaac List struck in, 'if this good lady as keeps the
+wax-works has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to
+bed, and doesn't lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing;
+quite a Providence, I should call it--but then I've been religiously
+brought up.'
+
+'You see, Isaac,' said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing
+himself closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to come
+between them; 'you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out every
+hour of the day; nothing would be more likely than for one of these
+strangers to get under the good lady's bed, or lock himself in the
+cupboard; suspicion would be very wide, and would fall a long way from
+the mark, no doubt.  I'd give him his revenge to the last farthing he
+brought, whatever the amount was.'
+
+'But could you?' urged Isaac List.  'Is your bank strong enough?'
+
+'Strong enough!' answered the other, with assumed disdain.  'Here, you
+Sir, give me that box out of the straw!'
+
+This was addressed to the gipsy, who crawled into the low tent on all
+fours, and after some rummaging and rustling returned with a cash-box,
+which the man who had spoken opened with a key he wore about his person.
+
+'Do you see this?' he said, gathering up the money in his hand and
+letting it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water.
+'Do you hear it?  Do you know the sound of gold?  There, put it
+back--and don't talk about banks again, Isaac, till you've got one of
+your own.'
+
+Isaac List, with great apparent humility, protested that he had never
+doubted the credit of a gentleman so notorious for his honourable
+dealing as Mr Jowl, and that he had hinted at the production of the
+box, not for the satisfaction of his doubts, for he could have none,
+but with a view to being regaled with a sight of so much wealth, which,
+though it might be deemed by some but an unsubstantial and visionary
+pleasure, was to one in his circumstances a source of extreme delight,
+only to be surpassed by its safe depository in his own personal
+pockets.  Although Mr List and Mr Jowl addressed themselves to each
+other, it was remarkable that they both looked narrowly at the old man,
+who, with his eyes fixed upon the fire, sat brooding over it, yet
+listening eagerly--as it seemed from a certain involuntary motion of
+the head, or twitching of the face from time to time--to all they said.
+
+'My advice,' said Jowl, lying down again with a careless air, 'is
+plain--I have given it, in fact.  I act as a friend.  Why should I help
+a man to the means perhaps of winning all I have, unless I considered
+him my friend?  It's foolish, I dare say, to be so thoughtful of the
+welfare of other people, but that's my constitution, and I can't help
+it; so don't blame me, Isaac List.'
+
+'I blame you!' returned the person addressed; 'not for the world, Mr
+Jowl.  I wish I could afford to be as liberal as you; and, as you say,
+he might pay it back if he won--and if he lost--'
+
+'You're not to take that into consideration at all,' said Jowl.
+
+'But suppose he did (and nothing's less likely, from all I know of
+chances), why, it's better to lose other people's money than one's own,
+I hope?'
+
+'Ah!' cried Isaac List rapturously, 'the pleasures of winning!  The
+delight of picking up the money--the bright, shining yellow-boys--and
+sweeping 'em into one's pocket!  The deliciousness of having a triumph
+at last, and thinking that one didn't stop short and turn back, but
+went half-way to meet it!  The--but you're not going, old gentleman?'
+
+'I'll do it,' said the old man, who had risen and taken two or three
+hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly.  'I'll have it,
+every penny.'
+
+'Why, that's brave,' cried Isaac, jumping up and slapping him on the
+shoulder; 'and I respect you for having so much young blood left.  Ha,
+ha, ha!  Joe Jowl's half sorry he advised you now.  We've got the laugh
+against him.  Ha, ha, ha!'
+
+'He gives me my revenge, mind,' said the old man, pointing to him
+eagerly with his shrivelled hand: 'mind--he stakes coin against coin,
+down to the last one in the box, be there many or few.  Remember that!'
+
+'I'm witness,' returned Isaac.  'I'll see fair between you.'
+
+'I have passed my word,' said Jowl with feigned reluctance, 'and I'll
+keep it.  When does this match come off?  I wish it was over.--To-night?'
+
+'I must have the money first,' said the old man; 'and that I'll have
+to-morrow--'
+
+'Why not to-night?' urged Jowl.
+
+'It's late now, and I should be flushed and flurried,' said the old
+man.  'It must be softly done.  No, to-morrow night.'
+
+'Then to-morrow be it,' said Jowl.  'A drop of comfort here.  Luck to
+the best man!  Fill!'
+
+The gipsy produced three tin cups, and filled them to the brim with
+brandy.  The old man turned aside and muttered to himself before he
+drank.  Her own name struck upon the listener's ear, coupled with some
+wish so fervent, that he seemed to breathe it in an agony of
+supplication.
+
+'God be merciful to us!' cried the child within herself, 'and help us
+in this trying hour!  What shall I do to save him!'
+
+The remainder of their conversation was carried on in a lower tone of
+voice, and was sufficiently concise; relating merely to the execution
+of the project, and the best precautions for diverting suspicion.  The
+old man then shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew.
+
+They watched his bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly, and
+when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved their
+hands, or shouted some brief encouragement.  It was not until they had
+seen him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the distant road,
+that they turned to each other, and ventured to laugh aloud.
+
+'So,' said Jowl, warming his hands at the fire, 'it's done at last.  He
+wanted more persuading than I expected.  It's three weeks ago, since we
+first put this in his head.  What'll he bring, do you think?'
+
+'Whatever he brings, it's halved between us,' returned Isaac List.
+
+The other man nodded.  'We must make quick work of it,' he said, 'and
+then cut his acquaintance, or we may be suspected.  Sharp's the word.'
+
+List and the gipsy acquiesced.  When they had all three amused
+themselves a little with their victim's infatuation, they dismissed the
+subject as one which had been sufficiently discussed, and began to talk
+in a jargon which the child did not understand.  As their discourse
+appeared to relate to matters in which they were warmly interested,
+however, she deemed it the best time for escaping unobserved; and crept
+away with slow and cautious steps, keeping in the shadow of the hedges,
+or forcing a path through them or the dry ditches, until she could
+emerge upon the road at a point beyond their range of vision.  Then she
+fled homeward as quickly as she could, torn and bleeding from the
+wounds of thorns and briars, but more lacerated in mind, and threw
+herself upon her bed, distracted.
+
+The first idea that flashed upon her mind was flight, instant flight;
+dragging him from that place, and rather dying of want upon the
+roadside, than ever exposing him again to such terrible temptations.
+Then, she remembered that the crime was not to be committed until next
+night, and there was the intermediate time for thinking, and resolving
+what to do.  Then, she was distracted with a horrible fear that he
+might be committing it at that moment; with a dread of hearing shrieks
+and cries piercing the silence of the night; with fearful thoughts of
+what he might be tempted and led on to do, if he were detected in the
+act, and had but a woman to struggle with.  It was impossible to bear
+such torture.  She stole to the room where the money was, opened the
+door, and looked in.  God be praised!  He was not there, and she was
+sleeping soundly.
+
+She went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed.
+But who could sleep--sleep! who could lie passively down, distracted by
+such terrors?  They came upon her more and more strongly yet.  Half
+undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old
+man's bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and roused him from his sleep.
+
+'What's this!' he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes upon
+her spectral face.
+
+'I have had a dreadful dream,' said the child, with an energy that
+nothing but such terrors could have inspired.  'A dreadful, horrible
+dream.  I have had it once before.  It is a dream of grey-haired men
+like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing sleepers of their gold.
+Up, up!'
+
+The old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who
+prays.
+
+'Not to me,' said the child, 'not to me--to Heaven, to save us from
+such deeds!  This dream is too real.  I cannot sleep, I cannot stay
+here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come.
+Up!  We must fly.'
+
+He looked at her as if she were a spirit--she might have been for all
+the look of earth she had--and trembled more and more.
+
+'There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute,' said the child.
+'Up! and away with me!'
+
+'To-night?' murmured the old man.
+
+'Yes, to-night,' replied the child.  'To-morrow night will be too late.
+The dream will have come again.  Nothing but flight can save us.  Up!'
+
+The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat
+of fear: and, bending before the child as if she had been an angel
+messenger sent to lead him where she would, made ready to follow her.
+She took him by the hand and led him on. As they passed the door of the
+room he had proposed to rob, she  shuddered and looked up into his
+face.  What a white face was that, and with what a look did he meet
+hers!
+
+She took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand as
+if she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the little
+stock she had, and hung her basket on her arm.  The old man took his
+wallet from her hands and strapped it on his shoulders--his staff,
+too, she had brought away--and then she led him forth.
+
+Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their
+trembling feet passed quickly.  Up the steep hill too, crowned by the
+old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once looked
+behind.
+
+But as they drew nearer the ruined walls, the moon rose in all her
+gentle glory, and, from their venerable age, garlanded with ivy, moss,
+and waving grass, the child looked back upon the sleeping town, deep in
+the valley's shade: and on the far-off river with its winding track of
+light: and on the distant hills; and as she did so, she clasped the
+hand she held, less firmly, and bursting into tears, fell upon the old
+man's neck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 43
+
+Her momentary weakness past, the child again summoned the resolution
+which had until now sustained her, and, endeavouring to keep steadily
+in her view the one idea that they were flying from disgrace and crime,
+and that her grandfather's preservation must depend solely on her
+firmness, unaided by one word of advice or any helping hand, urged him
+onward and looked back no more.
+
+While he, subdued and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to
+shrink and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior creature,
+the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within her, which
+elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and confidence she
+had never known.  There was no divided responsibility now; the whole
+burden of their two lives had fallen upon her, and henceforth she must
+think and act for both.  'I have saved him,' she thought.  'In all
+dangers and distresses, I will remember that.'
+
+At any other time, the recollection of having deserted the friend who
+had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of
+justification--the thought that they were guilty, in appearance, of
+treachery and ingratitude--even the having parted from the two
+sisters--would have filled her with sorrow and regret.  But now, all
+other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and anxieties
+of their wild and wandering life; and the very desperation of their
+condition roused and stimulated her.
+
+In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate
+face where thoughtful care already mingled with the winning grace and
+loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spiritual head, the lips
+that pressed each other with such high resolve and courage of the
+heart, the slight figure firm in its bearing and yet so very weak, told
+their silent tale; but told it only to the wind that rustled by, which,
+taking up its burden, carried, perhaps to some mother's pillow, faint
+dreams of childhood fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that
+knows no waking.
+
+The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale and
+dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached.  Then, from behind a
+distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in phantom
+shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly forms till
+darkness came again.  When it had climbed higher into the sky, and
+there was warmth in its cheerful beams, they laid them down to sleep,
+upon a bank, hard by some water.
+
+But Nell retained her grasp upon the old man's arm, and long after he
+was slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes.  Fatigue stole
+over her at last; her grasp relaxed, tightened, relaxed again, and they
+slept side by side.
+
+A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her.  A man
+of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them, and two of
+his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come
+close to the bank while they were sleeping.  The boat had neither oar
+nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to
+which they were harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting
+on the path.
+
+'Holloa!' said the man roughly.  'What's the matter here?'
+
+'We were only asleep, Sir,' said Nell.  'We have been walking all
+night.'
+
+'A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,' observed the man
+who had first accosted them.  'One of you is a trifle too old for that
+sort of work, and the other a trifle too young.  Where are you going?'
+
+Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which the
+man inquired if she meant a certain town which he named.  Nell, to
+avoid more questioning, said 'Yes, that was the place.'
+
+'Where have you come from?' was the next question; and this being an
+easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in which
+their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to be known
+to the men or to provoke further inquiry.
+
+'I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,' said
+the man.  'That's all.  Good day.'
+
+Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure,
+Nell looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat
+went on.  It had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she saw
+the men beckoning to her.
+
+'Did you call to me?' said Nell, running up to them.
+
+'You may go with us if you like,' replied one of those in the boat.
+'We're going to the same place.'
+
+The child hesitated for a moment.  Thinking, as she had thought with
+great trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she had seen
+with her grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness for the booty,
+follow them, and regaining their influence over him, set hers at
+nought; and that if they went with these men, all traces of them must
+surely be lost at that spot; determined to accept the offer.  The boat
+came close to the bank again, and before she had had any more time for
+consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding
+smoothly down the canal.
+
+The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes
+shaded by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country,
+intersected by running streams, and rich with wooded hills, cultivated
+land, and sheltered farms.  Now and then, a village with its modest
+spire, thatched roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out from among the
+trees; and, more than once, a distant town, with great church towers
+looming through its smoke, and high factories or workshops rising above
+the mass of houses, would come in view, and, by the length of time it
+lingered in the distance, show them how slowly they travelled.  Their
+way lay, for the most part, through the low grounds, and open plains;
+and except these distant places, and occasionally some men working in
+the fields, or lounging on the bridges under which they passed, to see
+them creep along, nothing encroached on their monotonous and secluded
+track.
+
+Nell was rather disheartened, when they stopped at a kind of wharf late
+in the afternoon, to learn from one of the men that they would not
+reach their place of destination until next day, and that, if she had
+no provision with her, she had better buy it there.  She had but a few
+pence, having already bargained with them for some bread, but even of
+these it was necessary to be very careful, as they were on their way to
+an utterly strange place, with no resource whatever.  A small loaf and
+a morsel of cheese, therefore, were all she could afford, and with
+these she took her place in the boat again, and, after half an hour's
+delay during which the men were drinking at the public-house, proceeded
+on the journey.
+
+They brought some beer and spirits into the boat with them, and what
+with drinking freely before, and again now, were soon in a fair way of
+being quarrelsome and intoxicated.  Avoiding the small cabin,
+therefore, which was very dark and filthy, and to which they often
+invited both her and her grandfather, Nell sat in the open air with the
+old man by her side: listening to their boisterous hosts with a
+palpitating heart, and almost wishing herself safe on shore again
+though she should have to walk all night.
+
+They were, in truth, very rugged, noisy fellows, and quite brutal among
+themselves, though civil enough to their two passengers.  Thus, when a
+quarrel arose between the man who was steering and his friend in the
+cabin, upon the question who had first suggested the propriety of
+offering Nell some beer, and when the quarrel led to a scuffle in which
+they beat each other fearfully, to her inexpressible terror, neither
+visited his displeasure upon her, but each contented himself with
+venting it on his adversary, on whom, in addition to blows, he bestowed
+a variety of compliments, which, happily for the child, were conveyed
+in terms, to her quite unintelligible.  The difference was finally
+adjusted, by the man who had come out of the cabin knocking the other
+into it head first, and taking the helm into his own hands, without
+evincing the least discomposure himself, or causing any in his friend,
+who, being of a tolerably strong constitution and perfectly inured to
+such trifles, went to sleep as he was, with his heels upwards, and in a
+couple of minutes or so was snoring comfortably.
+
+By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold, being
+but poorly clad, her anxious thoughts were far removed from her own
+suffering or uneasiness, and busily engaged in endeavouring to devise
+some scheme for their joint subsistence.  The same spirit which had
+supported her on the previous night, upheld and sustained her now.  Her
+grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the crime to which his
+madness urged him, was not committed.  That was her comfort.
+
+How every circumstance of her short, eventful life, came thronging into
+her mind, as they travelled on!  Slight incidents, never thought of or
+remembered until now; faces, seen once and ever since forgotten; words
+scarcely heeded at the time; scenes, of a year ago and those of
+yesterday, mixing up and linking themselves together; familiar places
+shaping themselves out in the darkness from things which, when
+approached, were, of all others, the most remote and most unlike them;
+sometimes, a strange confusion in her mind relative to the occasion of
+her being there, and the place to which she was going, and the people
+she was with; and imagination suggesting remarks and questions which
+sounded so plainly in her ears, that she would start, and turn, and be
+almost tempted to reply;--all the fancies and contradictions common in
+watching and excitement and restless change of place, beset the child.
+
+She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of the
+man on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had now
+succeeded to the boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a short
+pipe, quilted over with string for its longer preservation, requested
+that she would oblige him with a song.
+
+'You've got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong
+memory,' said this gentleman; 'the voice and eye I've got evidence for,
+and the memory's an opinion of my own.  And I'm never wrong.  Let me
+hear a song this minute.'
+
+'I don't think I know one, sir,' returned Nell.
+
+'You know forty-seven songs,' said the man, with a gravity which
+admitted of no altercation on the subject.  'Forty-seven's your number.
+Let me hear one of 'em--the best.  Give me a song this minute.'
+
+Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her friend,
+and trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him some little
+ditty which she had learned in happier times, and which was so
+agreeable to his ear, that on its conclusion he in the same peremptory
+manner requested to be favoured with another, to which he was so
+obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and with no words
+at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy for its
+deficiency in other respects.  The noise of this vocal performance
+awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck and shaking his late
+opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his pride and joy and
+chief delight, and that he desired no better entertainment.  With a
+third call, more imperative than either of the two former, Nell felt
+obliged to comply, and this time a chorus was maintained not only by
+the two men together, but also by the third man on horseback, who being
+by his position debarred from a nearer participation in the revels of
+the night, roared when his companions roared, and rent the very air.
+In this way, with little cessation, and singing the same songs again
+and again, the tired and exhausted child kept them in good humour all
+that night; and many a cottager, who was roused from his soundest sleep
+by the discordant chorus as it floated away upon the wind, hid his head
+beneath the bed-clothes and trembled at the sounds.
+
+At length the morning dawned.  It was no sooner light than it began to
+rain heavily.  As the child could not endure the intolerable vapours of
+the cabin, they covered her, in return for her exertions, with some
+pieces of sail-cloth and ends of tarpaulin, which sufficed to keep her
+tolerably dry and to shelter her grandfather besides.  As the day
+advanced the rain increased.  At noon it poured down more hopelessly
+and heavily than ever without the faintest promise of abatement.
+
+They had, for some time, been gradually approaching the place for which
+they were bound.  The water had become thicker and dirtier; other
+barges, coming from it, passed them frequently; the paths of coal-ash
+and huts of staring brick, marked the vicinity of some great
+manufacturing town; while scattered streets and houses, and smoke from
+distant furnaces, indicated that they were already in the outskirts.
+Now, the clustered roofs, and piles of buildings, trembling with the
+working of engines, and dimly resounding with their shrieks and
+throbbings; the tall chimneys vomiting forth a black vapour, which hung
+in a dense ill-favoured cloud above the housetops and filled the air
+with gloom; the clank of hammers beating upon iron, the roar of busy
+streets and noisy crowds, gradually augmenting until all the various
+sounds blended into one and none was distinguishable for itself,
+announced the termination of their journey.
+
+The boat floated into the wharf to which it belonged.  The men were
+occupied directly.  The child and her grandfather, after waiting in
+vain to thank them or ask them whither they should go, passed through a
+dirty lane into a crowded street, and stood, amid its din and tumult,
+and in the pouring rain, as strange, bewildered, and confused, as if
+they had lived a thousand years before, and were raised from the dead
+and placed there by a miracle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 44
+
+The throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no
+symptom of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs; and
+undisturbed in their business speculations, by the roar of carts and
+waggons laden with clashing wares, the slipping of horses' feet upon
+the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the rain on windows and
+umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more impatient passengers, and all
+the noise and tumult of a crowded street in the high tide of its
+occupation: while the two poor strangers, stunned and bewildered by the
+hurry they beheld but had no part in, looked mournfully on; feeling,
+amidst the crowd, a solitude which has no parallel but in the thirst of
+the shipwrecked mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the billows of a
+mighty ocean, his red eyes blinded by looking on the water which hems
+him in on every side, has not one drop to cool his burning tongue.
+
+They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and watched
+the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a ray of
+encouragement or hope.  Some frowned, some smiled, some muttered to
+themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating the
+conversation in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the
+cunning look of bargaining and plotting, some were anxious and eager,
+some slow and dull; in some countenances, were written gain; in others,
+loss.  It was like being in the confidence of all these people to stand
+quietly there, looking into their faces as they flitted past.  In busy
+places, where each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that
+every other man has his, his character and purpose are written broadly
+in his face.  In the public walks and lounges of a town, people go to
+see and to be seen, and there the same expression, with little variety,
+is repeated a hundred times.  The working-day faces come nearer to the
+truth, and let it out more plainly.
+
+Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude awakens,
+the child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a wondering
+interest, amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness of her own
+condition.  But cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and lack of any place
+in which to lay her aching head, soon brought her thoughts back to the
+point whence they had strayed.  No one passed who seemed to notice
+them, or to whom she durst appeal.  After some time, they left their
+place of refuge from the weather, and mingled with the concourse.
+
+Evening came on.  They were still wandering up and down, with fewer
+people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own
+breasts, and the same indifference from all around.  The lights in the
+streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, for with their
+help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster.  Shivering with the
+cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child
+needed her utmost firmness and resolution even to creep along.
+
+Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were peaceful
+country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered and
+thirsted, with less suffering than in its squalid strife!  They were
+but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very sight of
+which increased their hopelessness and suffering.
+
+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 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 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, cast 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.
+
+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!'
+
+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 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!'
+
+With thoughts like this, and with some vague design of travelling to a
+great distance among streams and mountains, where only very poor and
+simple people lived, and where they might maintain themselves by very
+humble helping work in farms, free from such terrors as that from which
+they fled--the child, with no resource but the poor man's gift, and no
+encouragement but that which flowed from her own heart, and its sense
+of the truth and right of what she did, nerved herself to this last
+journey and boldly pursued her task.
+
+'We shall be very slow to-day, dear,' she said, as they toiled
+painfully through the streets; 'my feet are sore, and I have pains in
+all my limbs from the wet of yesterday.  I saw that he looked at us and
+thought of that, when he said how long we should be upon the road.'
+
+'It was a dreary way he told us of,' returned her grandfather,
+piteously.  'Is there no other road?  Will you not let me go some other
+way than this?'
+
+'Places lie beyond these,' said the child, firmly, 'where we may live
+in peace, and be tempted to do no harm.  We will take the road that
+promises to have that end, and we would not turn out of it, if it were
+a hundred times worse than our fears lead us to expect.  We would not,
+dear, would we?'
+
+'No,' replied the old man, wavering in his voice, no less than in his
+manner.  'No.  Let us go on.  I am ready.  I am quite ready, Nell.'
+
+The child walked with more difficulty than she had led her companion to
+expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of no common
+severity, and every exertion increased them.  But they wrung from her
+no complaint, or look of suffering; and, though the two travellers
+proceeded very slowly, they did proceed.  Clearing the town in course
+of time, they began to feel that they were fairly on their way.
+
+A long suburb of red brick houses--some with patches of garden-ground,
+where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the shrinking leaves, and
+coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling vegetation sickened and
+sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace, making them by its
+presence seem yet more blighting and unwholesome than in the town
+itself--a long, flat, straggling suburb passed, they came, by slow
+degrees, upon a cheerless region, where not a blade of grass was seen
+to grow, where not a bud put forth its promise in the spring, where
+nothing green could live but on the surface of the stagnant pools,
+which here and there lay idly sweltering by the black road-side.
+
+Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its
+dark depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them
+with a dismal gloom.  On every side, and far as the eye could see into
+the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and
+presenting that endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form, which
+is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague of smoke,
+obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air.  On mounds of
+ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten
+pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and writhed like tortured
+creatures; clanking their iron chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl
+from time to time as though in torment unendurable, and making the
+ground tremble with their agonies.  Dismantled houses here and there
+appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others
+that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but
+yet inhabited.  Men, women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in
+attire, tended the engines, fed their tributary fire, begged upon the
+road, or scowled half-naked from the doorless houses.  Then came more
+of the wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in their
+wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and round
+again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left, was the
+same interminable perspective of brick towers, never ceasing in their
+black vomit, blasting all things living or inanimate, shutting out the
+face of day, and closing in on all these horrors with a dense dark
+cloud.
+
+But night-time in this dreadful spot!--night, when the smoke was
+changed to fire; when every chimney spirited up its flame; and places,
+that had been dark vaults all day, now shone red-hot, with figures
+moving to and fro within their blazing jaws, and calling to one another
+with hoarse cries--night, when the noise of every strange machine was
+aggravated by the darkness; when the people near them looked wilder and
+more savage; when bands of unemployed labourers paraded the roads, or
+clustered by torch-light round their leaders, who told them, in stern
+language, of their wrongs, and urged them on to frightful cries and
+threats; when maddened men, armed with sword and firebrand, spurning
+the tears and prayers of women who would restrain them, rushed forth on
+errands of terror and destruction, to work no ruin half so surely as
+their own--night, when carts came rumbling by, filled with rude
+coffins (for contagious disease and death had been busy with the living
+crops); when orphans cried, and distracted women shrieked and followed
+in their wake--night, when some called for bread, and some for drink to
+drown their cares, and some with tears, and some with staggering feet,
+and some with bloodshot eyes, went brooding home--night, which, unlike
+the night that Heaven sends on earth, brought with it no peace, nor
+quiet, nor signs of blessed sleep--who shall tell the terrors of the
+night to the young wandering child!
+
+And yet she lay down, with nothing between her and the sky; and, with
+no fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer for the
+poor old man.  So very weak and spent, she felt, so very calm and
+unresisting, that she had no thought of any wants of her own, but
+prayed that God would raise up some friend for him.  She tried to
+recall the way they had come, and to look in the direction where the
+fire by which they had slept last night was burning.  She had forgotten
+to ask the name of the poor man, their friend, and when she had
+remembered him in her prayers, it seemed ungrateful not to turn one
+look towards the spot where he was watching.
+
+A penny loaf was all they had had that day.  It was very little, but
+even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that crept over
+her senses.  She lay down, very gently, and, with a quiet smile upon
+her face, fell into a slumber.  It was not like sleep--and yet it must
+have been, or why those pleasant dreams of the little scholar all night
+long!  Morning came.  Much weaker, diminished powers even of sight and
+hearing, and yet the child made no complaint--perhaps would have made
+none, even if she had not had that inducement to be silent, travelling
+by her side.  She felt a hopelessness of their ever being extricated
+together from that forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very
+ill, perhaps dying; but no fear or anxiety.
+
+A loathing of food that she was not conscious of until they expended
+their last penny in the purchase of another loaf, prevented her
+partaking even of this poor repast.  Her grandfather ate greedily,
+which she was glad to see.
+
+Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety or
+improvement.  There was the same thick air, difficult to breathe; the
+same blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the same misery and
+distress.  Objects appeared more dim, the noise less, the path more
+rugged and uneven, for sometimes she stumbled, and became roused, as it
+were, in the effort to prevent herself from falling.  Poor child! the
+cause was in her tottering feet.
+
+Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained bitterly of hunger.
+She approached one of the wretched hovels by the way-side, and knocked
+with her hand upon the door.
+
+'What would you have here?' said a gaunt man, opening it.
+
+'Charity.  A morsel of bread.'
+
+'Do you see that?' returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a kind of
+bundle on the ground.  'That's a dead child.  I and five hundred other
+men were thrown out of work, three months ago.  That is my third dead
+child, and last.  Do you think I have charity to bestow, or a morsel of
+bread to spare?'
+
+The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her.  Impelled by
+strong necessity, she knocked at another: a neighbouring one, which,
+yielding to the slight pressure of her hand, flew open.
+
+It seemed that a couple of poor families lived in this hovel, for two
+women, each among children of her own, occupied different portions of
+the room.  In the centre, stood a grave gentleman in black who appeared
+to have just entered, and who held by the arm a boy.
+
+'Here, woman,' he said, 'here's your deaf and dumb son.  You may thank
+me for restoring him to you.  He was brought before me, this morning,
+charged with theft; and with any other boy it would have gone hard, I
+assure you.  But, as I had compassion on his infirmities, and thought
+he might have learnt no better, I have managed to bring him back to
+you.  Take more care of him for the future.'
+
+'And won't you give me back MY son!' said the other woman, hastily
+rising and confronting him.  'Won't you give me back MY son, Sir, who
+was transported for the same offence!'
+
+'Was he deaf and dumb, woman?' asked the gentleman sternly.
+
+'Was he not, Sir?'
+
+'You know he was not.'
+
+'He was,' cried the woman.  'He was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all that
+was good and right, from his cradle.  Her boy may have learnt no
+better! where did mine learn better?  where could he?  who was there to
+teach him better, or where was it to be learnt?'
+
+'Peace, woman,' said the gentleman, 'your boy was in possession of all
+his senses.'
+
+'He was,' cried the mother; 'and he was the more easy to be led astray
+because he had them.  If you save this boy because he may not know
+right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never taught the
+difference?  You gentlemen have as good a right to punish her boy, that
+God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech, as you have to punish
+mine, that you kept in ignorance yourselves.  How many of the girls and
+boys--ah, men and women too--that are brought before you and you don't
+pity, are deaf and dumb in their minds, and go wrong in that state, and
+are punished in that state, body and soul, while you gentlemen are
+quarrelling among yourselves whether they ought to learn this or
+that?--Be a just man, Sir, and give me back my son.'
+
+'You are desperate,' said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box, 'and
+I am sorry for you.'
+
+'I AM desperate,' returned the woman, 'and you have made me so.  Give
+me back my son, to work for these helpless children.  Be a just man,
+Sir, and, as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me back my son!'
+
+The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a place
+at which to ask for alms.  She led the old man softly from the door,
+and they pursued their journey.
+
+With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with an
+undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her sinking
+state, so long as she had energy to move, the child, throughout the
+remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to proceed: not even
+stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to compensate in some measure
+for the tardy pace at which she was obliged to walk.  Evening was
+drawing on, but had not closed in, when--still travelling among the
+same dismal objects--they came to a busy town.
+
+Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable.
+After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being repulsed,
+they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and
+try if the inmates of any lone house beyond, would have more pity on
+their exhausted state.
+
+They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the
+child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers
+would bear no more.  There appeared before them, at this juncture,
+going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who,
+with a portmanteau strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as
+he walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand.
+
+It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for
+he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance.  At length, he
+stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book.
+Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather,
+and, going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of
+her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to implore his help.
+
+He turned his head.  The child clapped her hands together, uttered a
+wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 46
+
+It was the poor schoolmaster.  No other than the poor schoolmaster.
+Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she
+had been on recognising him, he stood, for a moment, silent and
+confounded by this unexpected apparition, without even the presence of
+mind to raise her from the ground.
+
+But, quickly recovering his self-possession, he threw down his stick
+and book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured, by such
+simple means as occurred to him, to restore her to herself; while her
+grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and implored her with
+many endearing expressions to speak to him, were it only a word.
+
+'She is quite exhausted,' said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into
+his face.  'You have taxed her powers too far, friend.'
+
+'She is perishing of want,' rejoined the old man.  'I never thought how
+weak and ill she was, till now.'
+
+Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate, the
+schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man
+gather up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at
+his utmost speed.
+
+There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had
+been directing his steps when so unexpectedly overtaken.  Towards this
+place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the
+kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make way for
+God's sake, deposited it on a chair before the fire.
+
+The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance, did
+as people usually do under such circumstances.  Everybody called for
+his or her favourite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more
+air, at the same time carefully excluding what air there was, by
+closing round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody
+else didn't do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by
+themselves.
+
+The landlady, however, who possessed more readiness and activity than
+any of them, and who had withal a quicker perception of the merits of
+the case, soon came running in, with a little hot brandy and water,
+followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar, hartshorn,
+smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which, being duly
+administered, recovered the child so far as to enable her to thank them
+in a faint voice, and to extend her hand to the poor schoolmaster, who
+stood, with an anxious face, hard by.  Without suffering her to speak
+another word, or so much as to stir a finger any more, the women
+straightway carried her off to bed; and, having covered her up warm,
+bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel, they despatched a
+messenger for the doctor.
+
+The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals
+dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all
+speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his
+watch, and felt her pulse.  Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt
+her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied
+wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.
+
+'I should give her,' said the doctor at length, 'a tea-spoonful, every
+now and then, of hot brandy and water.'
+
+'Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!' said the delighted landlady.
+
+'I should also,' observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath on
+the stairs, 'I should also,' said the doctor, in the voice of an
+oracle, 'put her feet in hot water, and wrap them up in flannel.  I
+should likewise,' said the doctor with increased solemnity, 'give her
+something light for supper--the wing of a roasted fowl now--'
+
+'Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire this
+instant!' cried the landlady.  And so indeed it was, for the
+schoolmaster had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on so
+well that the doctor might have smelt it if he had tried; perhaps he
+did.
+
+'You may then,' said the doctor, rising gravely, 'give her a glass of
+hot mulled port wine, if she likes wine--'
+
+'And a toast, Sir?' suggested the landlady.
+
+'Ay,' said the doctor, in the tone of a man who makes a dignified
+concession.  'And a toast--of bread.  But be very particular to make it
+of bread, if you please, ma'am.'
+
+With which parting injunction, slowly and portentously delivered, the
+doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom
+which tallied so closely with their own.  Everybody said he was a very
+shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's constitutions
+were; which there appears some reason to suppose he did.
+
+While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep,
+from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready.  As she
+evinced extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her grandfather was
+below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at the thought of their
+being apart, he took his supper with her.  Finding her still very
+restless on this head, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to
+which he presently retired.  The key of this chamber happened by good
+fortune to be on that side of the door which was in Nell's room; she
+turned it on him when the landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed
+again with a thankful heart.
+
+The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the kitchen
+fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the
+fortunate chance which had brought him so opportunely to the child's
+assistance, and parrying, as well as in his simple way he could, the
+inquisitive cross-examination of the landlady, who had a great
+curiosity to be made acquainted with every particular of Nell's life
+and history.  The poor schoolmaster was so open-hearted, and so little
+versed in the most ordinary cunning or deceit, that she could not have
+failed to succeed in the first five minutes, but that he happened to be
+unacquainted with what she wished to know; and so he told her.  The
+landlady, by no means satisfied with this assurance, which she
+considered an ingenious evasion of the question, rejoined that he had
+his reasons of course.  Heaven forbid that she should wish to pry into
+the affairs of her customers, which indeed were no business of hers,
+who had so many of her own.  She had merely asked a civil question, and
+to be sure she knew it would meet with a civil answer.  She was quite
+satisfied--quite.  She had rather perhaps that he would have said at
+once that he didn't choose to be communicative, because that would have
+been plain and intelligible.  However, she had no right to be offended
+of course.  He was the best judge, and had a perfect right to say what
+he pleased; nobody could dispute that for a moment.  Oh dear, no!
+
+'I assure you, my good lady,' said the mild schoolmaster, 'that I have
+told you the plain truth.  As I hope to be saved, I have told you the
+truth.'
+
+'Why then, I do believe you are in earnest,' rejoined the landlady,
+with ready good-humour, 'and I'm very sorry I have teazed you.  But
+curiosity you know is the curse of our sex, and that's the fact.'
+
+The landlord scratched his head, as if he thought the curse sometimes
+involved the other sex likewise; but he was prevented from making any
+remark to that effect, if he had it in contemplation to do so, by the
+schoolmaster's rejoinder.
+
+'You should question me for half-a-dozen hours at a sitting, and
+welcome, and I would answer you patiently for the kindness of heart you
+have shown to-night, if I could,' he said.  'As it is, please to take
+care of her in the morning, and let me know early how she is; and to
+understand that I am paymaster for the three.'
+
+So, parting with them on most friendly terms (not the less cordial
+perhaps for this last direction), the schoolmaster went to his bed, and
+the host and hostess to theirs.
+
+The report in the morning was, that the child was better, but was
+extremely weak, and would at least require a day's rest, and careful
+nursing, before she could proceed upon her journey.  The schoolmaster
+received this communication with perfect cheerfulness, observing that
+he had a day to spare--two days for that matter--and could very well
+afford to wait.  As the patient was to sit up in the evening, he
+appointed to visit her in her room at a certain hour, and rambling out
+with his book, did not return until the hour arrived.
+
+Nell could not help weeping when they were left alone; whereat, and at
+sight of her pale face and wasted figure, the simple schoolmaster shed
+a few tears himself, at the same time showing in very energetic
+language how foolish it was to do so, and how very easily it could be
+avoided, if one tried.
+
+'It makes me unhappy even in the midst of all this kindness' said the
+child, 'to think that we should be a burden upon you.  How can I ever
+thank you?  If I had not met you so far from home, I must have died,
+and he would have been left alone.'
+
+'We'll not talk about dying,' said the schoolmaster; 'and as to
+burdens, I have made my fortune since you slept at my cottage.'
+
+'Indeed!' cried the child joyfully.
+
+'Oh yes,' returned her friend.  'I have been appointed clerk and
+schoolmaster to a village a long way from here--and a long way from the
+old one as you may suppose--at five-and-thirty pounds a year.
+Five-and-thirty pounds!'
+
+'I am very glad,' said the child, 'so very, very glad.'
+
+'I am on my way there now,' resumed the schoolmaster.  'They allowed me
+the stage-coach-hire--outside stage-coach-hire all the way.  Bless you,
+they grudge me nothing.  But as the time at which I am expected there,
+left me ample leisure, I determined to walk instead.  How glad I am, to
+think I did so!'
+
+'How glad should we be!'
+
+'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster, moving restlessly in his chair,
+'certainly, that's very true.  But you--where are you going, where are
+you coming from, what have you been doing since you left me, what had
+you been doing before?  Now, tell me--do tell me.  I know very little
+of the world, and perhaps you are better fitted to advise me in its
+affairs than I am qualified to give advice to you; but I am very
+sincere, and I have a reason (you have not forgotten it) for loving
+you.  I have felt since that time as if my love for him who died, had
+been transferred to you who stood beside his bed.  If this,' he added,
+looking upwards, 'is the beautiful creation that springs from ashes,
+let its peace prosper with me, as I deal tenderly and compassionately
+by this young child!'
+
+The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the affectionate
+earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which was stamped upon
+his every word and look, gave the child a confidence in him, which the
+utmost arts of treachery and dissimulation could never have awakened in
+her breast.  She told him all--that they had no friend or
+relative--that she had fled with the old man, to save him from a
+madhouse and all the miseries he dreaded--that she was flying now, to
+save him from himself--and that she sought an asylum in some remote
+and primitive place, where the temptation before which he fell would
+never enter, and her late sorrows and distresses could have no place.
+
+The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment.  'This child!'--he
+thought--'Has this child heroically persevered under all doubts and
+dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and sustained by
+strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude alone!  And yet the
+world is full of such heroism.  Have I yet to learn that the hardest
+and best-borne trials are those which are never chronicled in any
+earthly record, and are suffered every day!  And should I be surprised
+to hear the story of this child!'
+
+What more he thought or said, matters not.  It was concluded that Nell
+and her grandfather should accompany him to the village whither he was
+bound, and that he should endeavour to find them some humble occupation
+by which they could subsist.  'We shall be sure to succeed,' said the
+schoolmaster, heartily.  'The cause is too good a one to fail.'
+
+They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a
+stage-waggon, which travelled for some distance on the same road as
+they must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and the driver
+for a small gratuity would give Nell a place inside.  A bargain was
+soon struck when the waggon came; and in due time it rolled away; with
+the child comfortably bestowed among the softer packages, her
+grandfather and the schoolmaster walking on beside the driver, and the
+landlady and all the good folks of the inn screaming out their good
+wishes and farewells.
+
+What a soothing, luxurious, drowsy way of travelling, to lie inside
+that slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the horses'
+bells, the occasional smacking of the carter's whip, the smooth rolling
+of the great broad wheels, the rattle of the harness, the cheery
+good-nights of passing travellers jogging past on little short-stepped
+horses--all made pleasantly indistinct by the thick awning, which
+seemed made for lazy listening under, till one fell asleep!  The very
+going to sleep, still with an indistinct idea, as the head jogged to
+and fro upon the pillow, of moving onward with no trouble or fatigue,
+and hearing all these sounds like dreamy music, lulling to the
+senses--and the slow waking up, and finding one's self staring out
+through the breezy curtain half-opened in the front, far up into the
+cold bright sky with its countless stars, and downward at the driver's
+lantern dancing on like its namesake Jack of the swamps and marshes,
+and sideways at the dark grim trees, and forward at the long bare road
+rising up, up, up, until it stopped abruptly at a sharp high ridge as
+if there were no more road, and all beyond was sky--and the stopping at
+the inn to bait, and being helped out, and going into a room with fire
+and candles, and winking very much, and being agreeably reminded that
+the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort's sake to think it
+colder than it was!--What a delicious journey was that journey in the
+waggon.
+
+Then the going on again--so fresh at first, and shortly afterwards so
+sleepy.  The waking from a sound nap as the mail came dashing past like
+a highway comet, with gleaming lamps and rattling hoofs, and visions of
+a guard behind, standing up to keep his feet warm, and of a gentleman
+in a fur cap opening his eyes and looking wild and stupefied--the
+stopping at the turnpike where the man was gone to bed, and knocking at
+the door until he answered with a smothered shout from under the
+bed-clothes in the little room above, where the faint light was
+burning, and presently came down, night-capped and shivering, to throw
+the gate wide open, and wish all waggons off the road except by day.
+The cold sharp interval between night and morning--the distant streak
+of light widening and spreading, and turning from grey to white, and
+from white to yellow, and from yellow to burning red--the presence of
+day, with all its cheerfulness and life--men and horses at the
+plough--birds in the trees and hedges, and boys in solitary fields,
+frightening them away with rattles.  The coming to a town--people busy
+in the markets; light carts and chaises round the tavern yard;
+tradesmen standing at their doors; men running horses up and down the
+street for sale; pigs plunging and grunting in the dirty distance,
+getting off with long strings at their legs, running into clean
+chemists' shops and being dislodged with brooms by 'prentices; the
+night coach changing horses--the passengers cheerless, cold, ugly, and
+discontented, with three months' growth of hair in one night--the
+coachman fresh as from a band-box, and exquisitely beautiful by
+contrast:--so much bustle, so many things in motion, such a variety of
+incidents--when was there a journey with so many delights as that
+journey in the waggon!
+
+Sometimes walking for a mile or two while her grandfather rode inside,
+and sometimes even prevailing upon the schoolmaster to take her place
+and lie down to rest, Nell travelled on very happily until they came to
+a large town, where the waggon stopped, and where they spent a night.
+They passed a large church; and in the streets were a number of old
+houses, built of a kind of earth or plaster, crossed and re-crossed in
+a great many directions with black beams, which gave them a remarkable
+and very ancient look.  The doors, too, were arched and low, some with
+oaken portals and quaint benches, where the former inhabitants had sat
+on summer evenings.  The windows were latticed in little diamond panes,
+that seemed to wink and blink upon the passengers as if they were dim
+of sight.  They had long since got clear of the smoke and furnaces,
+except in one or two solitary instances, where a factory planted among
+fields withered the space about it, like a burning mountain.  When they
+had passed through this town, they entered again upon the country, and
+began to draw near their place of destination.
+
+It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon the
+road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity, but that
+the schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles of his
+village, had a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new clerk, and was
+unwilling to make his entry in dusty shoes, and travel-disordered
+dress.  It was a fine, clear, autumn morning, when they came upon the
+scene of his promotion, and stopped to contemplate its beauties.
+
+'See--here's the church!' cried the delighted schoolmaster in a low
+voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the schoolhouse, I'll
+be sworn.  Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this beautiful place!'
+
+They admired everything--the old grey porch, the mullioned windows, the
+venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard, the ancient tower,
+the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs of cottage, barn, and
+homestead, peeping from among the trees; the stream that rippled by the
+distant water-mill; the blue Welsh mountains far away.  It was for such
+a spot the child had wearied in the dense, dark, miserable haunts of
+labour.  Upon her bed of ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through
+which they had forced their way, visions of such scenes--beautiful
+indeed, but not more beautiful than this sweet reality--had been always
+present to her mind.  They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy
+distance, as the prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter;
+but, as they receded, she had loved and panted for them more.
+
+'I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,' said the schoolmaster,
+at length breaking the silence into which they had fallen in their
+gladness.  'I have a letter to present, and inquiries to make, you
+know.  Where shall I take you?  To the little inn yonder?'
+
+'Let us wait here,' rejoined Nell.  'The gate is open.  We will sit in
+the church porch till you come back.'
+
+'A good place too,' said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards it,
+disencumbering himself of his portmanteau, and placing it on the stone
+seat.  'Be sure that I come back with good news, and am not long gone!'
+
+So, the happy schoolmaster put on a bran-new pair of gloves which he
+had carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and hurried
+off, full of ardour and excitement.
+
+The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage hid
+him from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old
+churchyard--so solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress upon the
+fallen leaves, which strewed the path and made her footsteps noiseless,
+seemed an invasion of its silence.  It was a very aged, ghostly place;
+the church had been built many hundreds of years ago, and had once had
+a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel
+windows, and fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing; while
+other portions of the old building, which had crumbled away and fallen
+down, were mingled with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass,
+as if they too claimed a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes
+with the dust of men.  Hard by these gravestones of dead years, and
+forming a part of the ruin which some pains had been taken to render
+habitable in modern times, were two small dwellings with sunken windows
+and oaken doors, fast hastening to decay, empty and desolate.
+
+Upon these tenements, the attention of the child became exclusively
+riveted.  She knew not why.  The church, the ruin, the antiquated
+graves, had equal claims at least upon a stranger's thoughts, but from
+the moment when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings, she could
+turn to nothing else.  Even when she had made the circuit of the
+enclosure, and, returning to the porch, sat pensively waiting for their
+friend, she took her station where she could still look upon them, and
+felt as if fascinated towards that spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 47
+
+Kit's mother and the single gentleman--upon whose track it is expedient
+to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be chargeable
+with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its characters in
+situations of uncertainty and doubt--Kit's mother and the single
+gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four whose departure
+from the Notary's door we have already witnessed, soon left the town
+behind them, and struck fire from the flints of the broad highway.
+
+The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of her
+situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by this time
+little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the fire, or
+tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or had scalded
+their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst at the spouts of
+tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and meeting from the window
+the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers, and others, felt in the new
+dignity of her position like a mourner at a funeral, who, not being
+greatly afflicted by the loss of the departed, recognizes his every-day
+acquaintance from the window of the mourning coach, but is constrained
+to preserve a decent solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent
+to all external objects.
+
+To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single gentleman
+would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of steel.  Never
+did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless gentleman as he.
+He never sat in the same position for two minutes together, but was
+perpetually tossing his arms and legs about, pulling up the sashes and
+letting them violently down, or thrusting his head out of one window to
+draw it in again and thrust it out of another.  He carried in his
+pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious and unknown construction; and as
+sure as ever Kit's mother closed her eyes, so surely--whisk, rattle,
+fizz--there was the single gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of
+fire, and letting the sparks fall down among the straw as if there were
+no such thing as a possibility of himself and Kit's mother being
+roasted alive before the boys could stop their horses.  Whenever they
+halted to change, there he was--out of the carriage without letting
+down the steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker,
+pulling out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before
+he put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that
+Kit's mother was quite afraid of him.  Then, when the horses were to,
+in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile, out came
+the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit's mother as wide awake
+again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage.
+
+'Are you comfortable?' the single gentleman would say after one of
+these exploits, turning sharply round.
+
+'Quite, Sir, thank you.'
+
+'Are you sure?  An't you cold?'
+
+'It is a little chilly, Sir,' Kit's mother would reply.
+
+'I knew it!' cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the front
+glasses.  'She wants some brandy and water!  Of course she does.  How
+could I forget it?  Hallo!  Stop at the next inn, and call out for a
+glass of hot brandy and water.'
+
+It was in vain for Kit's mother to protest that she stood in need of
+nothing of the kind.  The single gentleman was inexorable; and whenever
+he had exhausted all other modes and fashions of restlessness, it
+invariably occurred to him that Kit's mother wanted brandy and water.
+
+In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they stopped to
+supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered everything eatable
+that the house contained; and because Kit's mother didn't eat
+everything at once, and eat it all, he took it into his head that she
+must be ill.
+
+'You're faint,' said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself but
+walk about the room.  'I see what's the matter with you, ma'am.  You're
+faint.'
+
+'Thank you, sir, I'm not indeed.'
+
+'I know you are.  I'm sure of it.  I drag this poor woman from the
+bosom of her family at a minute's notice, and she goes on getting
+fainter and fainter before my eyes.  I'm a pretty fellow!  How many
+children have you got, ma'am?'
+
+'Two, sir, besides Kit.'
+
+'Boys, ma'am?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Are they christened?'
+
+'Only half baptised as yet, sir.'
+
+'I'm godfather to both of 'em.  Remember that, if you please, ma'am.
+You had better have some mulled wine.'
+
+'I couldn't touch a drop indeed, sir.'
+
+'You must,' said the single gentleman.  'I see you want it.  I ought to
+have thought of it before.'
+
+Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as
+impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the recovery of
+some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman made Kit's mother
+swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature that the tears ran
+down her face, and then hustled her off to the chaise again, where--not
+impossibly from the effects of this agreeable sedative--she soon became
+insensible to his restlessness, and fell fast asleep.  Nor were the
+happy effects of this prescription of a transitory nature, as,
+notwithstanding that the distance was greater, and the journey longer,
+than the single gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it
+was broad day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town.
+
+'This is the place!' cried her companion, letting down all the glasses.
+'Drive to the wax-work!'
+
+The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his horse,
+to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke into a
+smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise that brought
+the good folks wondering to their doors and windows, and drowned the
+sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out half-past eight.
+They drove up to a door round which a crowd of persons were collected,
+and there stopped.
+
+'What's this?' said the single gentleman thrusting out his head.  'Is
+anything the matter here?'
+
+'A wedding Sir, a wedding!' cried several voices.  'Hurrah!'
+
+The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre
+of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of the
+postilions, and handed out Kit's mother, at sight of whom the populace
+cried out, 'Here's another wedding!' and roared and leaped for joy.
+
+'The world has gone mad, I think,' said the single gentleman, pressing
+through the concourse with his supposed bride.  'Stand back here, will
+you, and let me knock.'
+
+Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd.  A score of
+dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a
+knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than
+this particular engine on the occasion in question.  Having rendered
+these voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little,
+preferring that the single gentleman should bear their consequences
+alone.
+
+'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at his
+button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical
+aspect.
+
+'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'I have.'
+
+'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'
+
+'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from
+top to toe.
+
+'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's
+mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had
+it in contemplation to run away.  'A right you little dream of.  Mind,
+good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor--tut, tut, that
+can't be.  Where is the child you have here, my good fellow.  You call
+her Nell.  Where is she?'
+
+As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody in
+a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a
+white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the
+bridegroom's arm.
+
+'Where is she!' cried this lady.  'What news have you brought me?  What
+has become of her?'
+
+The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late
+Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the
+eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of
+conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity.  At length
+he stammered out,
+
+'I ask YOU where she is?  What do you mean?'
+
+'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any good,
+why weren't you here a week ago?'
+
+'She is not--not dead?' said the person to whom she addressed herself,
+turning very pale.
+
+'No, not so bad as that.'
+
+'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly.  'Let me come in.'
+
+They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.
+
+'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-married
+couple, 'one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons
+whom I seek.  They would not know me.  My features are strange to them,
+but if they or either of them are here, take this good woman with you,
+and let them see her first, for her they both know.  If you deny them
+from any mistaken regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by
+their recognition of this person as their old humble friend.'
+
+'I always said it!' cried the bride, 'I knew she was not a common
+child!  Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we could
+do, has been tried in vain.'
+
+With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment, all
+that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first meeting
+with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance; adding
+(which was quite true) that they had made every possible effort to
+trace them, but without success; having been at first in great alarm
+for their safety, as well as on account of the suspicions to which they
+themselves might one day be exposed in consequence of their abrupt
+departure.  They dwelt upon the old man's imbecility of mind, upon the
+uneasiness the child had always testified when he was absent, upon the
+company he had been supposed to keep, and upon the increased depression
+which had gradually crept over her and changed her both in health and
+spirits.  Whether she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing
+or conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or
+whether they had left the house together, they had no means of
+determining.  Certain they considered it, that there was but slender
+prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether their flight
+originated with the old man, or with the child, there was now no hope
+of their return.  To all this, the single gentleman listened with the
+air of a man quite borne down by grief and disappointment.  He shed
+tears when they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep
+affliction.
+
+Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short work
+of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the interview
+came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had sufficient evidence
+of having been told the truth, and that he endeavoured to force upon
+the bride and bridegroom an acknowledgment of their kindness to the
+unfriended child, which, however, they steadily declined accepting.  In
+the end, the happy couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their
+honeymoon in a country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit's
+mother stood ruefully before their carriage-door.
+
+'Where shall we drive you, sir?' said the post-boy.
+
+'You may drive me,' said the single gentleman, 'to the--' He was not
+going to add 'inn,' but he added it for the sake of Kit's mother; and
+to the inn they went.
+
+Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to show
+the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been stolen from
+her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced.  Opinion was
+divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a duke, an earl, a
+viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main fact, and that the
+single gentleman was her father; and all bent forward to catch a
+glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his noble nose, as he rode
+away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.
+
+What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been saved
+if he had only known, that at that moment both child and grandfather
+were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting the
+schoolmaster's return!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 48
+
+Popular rumour concerning the single gentleman and his errand,
+travelling from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the marvellous
+as it was bandied about--for your popular rumour, unlike the rolling
+stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its
+wanderings up and down--occasioned his dismounting at the inn-door to
+be looked upon as an exciting and attractive spectacle, which could
+scarcely be enough admired; and drew together a large concourse of
+idlers, who having recently been, as it were, thrown out of employment
+by the closing of the wax-work and the completion of the nuptial
+ceremonies, considered his arrival as little else than a special
+providence, and hailed it with demonstrations of the liveliest joy.
+
+Not at all participating in the general sensation, but wearing the
+depressed and wearied look of one who sought to meditate on his
+disappointment in silence and privacy, the single gentleman alighted,
+and handed out Kit's mother with a gloomy politeness which impressed
+the lookers-on extremely.  That done, he gave her his arm and escorted
+her into the house, while several active waiters ran on before as a
+skirmishing party, to clear the way and to show the room which was
+ready for their reception.
+
+'Any room will do,' said the single gentleman.  'Let it be near at
+hand, that's all.'
+
+'Close here, sir, if you please to walk this way.'
+
+'Would the gentleman like this room?' said a voice, as a little
+out-of-the-way door at the foot of the well staircase flew briskly open
+and a head popped out.  'He's quite welcome to it.  He's as welcome as
+flowers in May, or coals at Christmas.  Would you like this room, sir?
+Honour me by walking in.  Do me the favour, pray.'
+
+'Goodness gracious me!' cried Kit's mother, falling back in extreme
+surprise, 'only think of this!'
+
+She had some reason to be astonished, for the person who proffered the
+gracious invitation was no other than Daniel Quilp.  The little door
+out of which he had thrust his head was close to the inn larder; and
+there he stood, bowing with grotesque politeness; as much at his ease
+as if the door were that of his own house; blighting all the legs of
+mutton and cold roast fowls by his close companionship, and looking
+like the evil genius of the cellars come from underground upon some
+work of mischief.
+
+'Would you do me the honour?' said Quilp.
+
+'I prefer being alone,' replied the single gentleman.
+
+'Oh!' said Quilp.  And with that, he darted in again with one jerk and
+clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch clock when the
+hour strikes.
+
+'Why it was only last night, sir,' whispered Kit's mother, 'that I left
+him in Little Bethel.'
+
+'Indeed!' said her fellow-passenger.  'When did that person come here,
+waiter?'
+
+'Come down by the night-coach, this morning, sir.'
+
+'Humph!  And when is he going?'
+
+'Can't say, sir, really.  When the chambermaid asked him just now if he
+should want a bed, sir, he first made faces at her, and then wanted to
+kiss her.'
+
+'Beg him to walk this way,' said the single gentleman.  'I should be
+glad to exchange a word with him, tell him.  Beg him to come at once,
+do you hear?'
+
+The man stared on receiving these instructions, for the single
+gentleman had not only displayed as much astonishment as Kit's mother
+at sight of the dwarf, but, standing in no fear of him, had been at
+less pains to conceal his dislike and repugnance.  He departed on his
+errand, however, and immediately returned, ushering in its object.
+
+'Your servant, sir,' said the dwarf, 'I encountered your messenger
+half-way.  I thought you'd allow me to pay my compliments to you.  I
+hope you're well.  I hope you're very well.'
+
+There was a short pause, while the dwarf, with half-shut eyes and
+puckered face, stood waiting for an answer.  Receiving none, he turned
+towards his more familiar acquaintance.
+
+'Christopher's mother!' he cried.  'Such a dear lady, such a worthy
+woman, so blest in her honest son!  How is Christopher's mother?  Have
+change of air and scene improved her?  Her little family too, and
+Christopher?  Do they thrive?  Do they flourish?  Are they growing into
+worthy citizens, eh?'
+
+Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding question, Mr
+Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into the panting look
+which was customary with him, and which, whether it were assumed or
+natural, had equally the effect of banishing all expression from his
+face, and rendering it, as far as it afforded any index to his mood or
+meaning, a perfect blank.
+
+'Mr Quilp,' said the single gentleman.
+
+The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited the
+closest attention.
+
+'We two have met before--'
+
+'Surely,' cried Quilp, nodding his head.  'Oh surely, sir.  Such an
+honour and pleasure--it's both, Christopher's mother, it's both--is
+not to be forgotten so soon.  By no means!'
+
+'You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the house
+to which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some of the
+neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for rest or
+refreshment?'
+
+'How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous
+measure!' said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his
+friend Mr Sampson Brass.
+
+'I found,' said the single gentleman, 'you most unaccountably, in
+possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another man,
+and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon his
+property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden beggary,
+and driven from house and home.'
+
+'We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,' rejoined Quilp, 'we had
+our warrant.  Don't say driven either.  He went of his own
+accord--vanished in the night, sir.'
+
+'No matter,' said the single gentleman angrily.  'He was gone.'
+
+'Yes, he was gone,' said Quilp, with the same exasperating composure.
+'No doubt he was gone.  The only question was, where.  And it's a
+question still.'
+
+'Now, what am I to think,' said the single gentleman, sternly regarding
+him, 'of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any information
+then--nay, obviously holding back, and sheltering yourself with all
+kinds of cunning, trickery, and evasion--are dogging my footsteps now?'
+
+'I dogging!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Why, are you not?' returned his questioner, fretted into a state of
+the utmost irritation.  'Were you not a few hours since, sixty miles
+off, and in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say her
+prayers?'
+
+'She was there too, I think?' said Quilp, still perfectly unmoved.  'I
+might say, if I was inclined to be rude, how do I know but you are
+dogging MY footsteps.  Yes, I was at chapel.  What then?  I've read in
+books that pilgrims were used to go to chapel before they went on
+journeys, to put up petitions for their safe return.  Wise men!
+journeys are very perilous--especially outside the coach.  Wheels come
+off, horses take fright, coachmen drive too fast, coaches overturn.  I
+always go to chapel before I start on journeys.  It's the last thing I
+do on such occasions, indeed.'
+
+That Quilp lied most heartily in this speech, it needed no very great
+penetration to discover, although for anything that he suffered to
+appear in his face, voice, or manner, he might have been clinging to
+the truth with the quiet constancy of a martyr.
+
+'In the name of all that's calculated to drive one crazy, man,' said
+the unfortunate single gentleman, 'have you not, for some reason of
+your own, taken upon yourself my errand?  don't you know with what
+object I have come here, and if you do know, can you throw no light
+upon it?'
+
+'You think I'm a conjuror, sir,' replied Quilp, shrugging up his
+shoulders.  'If I was, I should tell my own fortune--and make it.'
+
+'Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,' returned the other, throwing
+himself impatiently upon a sofa.  'Pray leave us, if you please.'
+
+'Willingly,' returned Quilp.  'Most willingly.  Christopher's mother,
+my good soul, farewell.  A pleasant journey--back, sir.  Ahem!'
+
+With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features altogether
+indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of every monstrous
+grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the dwarf slowly retreated
+and closed the door behind him.
+
+'Oho!' he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself down
+in a chair with his arms akimbo.  'Oho!  Are you there, my friend?
+In-deed!'
+
+Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself for
+the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by twisting it
+into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp, rocking himself to
+and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at the same time, fell
+into certain meditations, of which it may be necessary to relate the
+substance.
+
+First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing to
+that spot, which were briefly these.  Dropping in at Mr Sampson Brass's
+office on the previous evening, in the absence of that gentleman and
+his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller, who chanced at
+the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and water on the dust
+of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the phrase goes, rather
+copiously.  But as clay in the abstract, when too much moistened,
+becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency, breaking down in
+unexpected places, retaining impressions but faintly, and preserving no
+strength or steadiness of character, so Mr Swiveller's clay, having
+imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture, was in a very loose and
+slippery state, insomuch that the various ideas impressed upon it were
+fast losing their distinctive character, and running into each other.
+It is not uncommon for human clay in this condition to value itself
+above all things upon its great prudence and sagacity; and Mr
+Swiveller, especially prizing himself upon these qualities, took
+occasion to remark that he had made strange discoveries in connection
+with the single gentleman who lodged above, which he had determined to
+keep within his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor cajolery
+should ever induce him to reveal.  Of this determination Mr Quilp
+expressed his high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to
+goad Mr Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single
+gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this was
+the secret which was never to be disclosed.
+
+Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that
+the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who had
+waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries that
+this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the
+conclusion that the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit
+was the recovery of his old client and the child.  Burning with
+curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce
+upon Kit's mother as the person least able to resist his arts, and
+consequently the most likely to be entrapped into such revelations as
+he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her
+house.  The good woman being from home, he made inquiries of a
+neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and being directed to
+the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay her, at the
+conclusion of the service.
+
+He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with
+his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over the
+joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared.  Watchful as
+a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business.
+Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound
+abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he
+withdrew with his family, shot out after him.  In fine, he traced them
+to the notary's house; learnt the destination of the carriage from one
+of the postilions; and knowing that a fast night-coach started for the
+same place, at the very hour which was on the point of striking, from a
+street hard by, darted round to the coach-office without more ado, and
+took his seat upon the roof.  After passing and repassing the carriage
+on the road, and being passed and repassed by it sundry times in the
+course of the night, according as their stoppages were longer or
+shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they reached the town
+almost together.  Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the
+crowd, learnt the single gentleman's errand, and its failure, and
+having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried
+off, reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed,
+and shut himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all
+these occurrences.
+
+'You are there, are you, my friend?' he repeated, greedily biting his
+nails.  'I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit's the confidential
+agent, is he?  I shall have to dispose of him, I fear.  If we had come
+up with them this morning,' he continued, after a thoughtful pause, 'I
+was ready to prove a pretty good claim.  I could have made my profit.
+But for these canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get
+this fiery gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend--our
+mutual friend, ha! ha!--and chubby, rosy Nell.  At the worst, it's a
+golden opportunity, not to be lost.  Let us find them first, and I'll
+find means of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while
+there are prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or
+kinsman safely.  I hate your virtuous people!' said the dwarf, throwing
+off a bumper of brandy, and smacking his lips, 'ah! I hate 'em every
+one!'
+
+This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real
+sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little
+come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined
+client:--the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him
+and elude his vigilance--the child, because she was the object of Mrs
+Quilp's commiseration and constant self-reproach--the single gentleman,
+because of his unconcealed aversion to himself--Kit and his mother,
+most mortally, for the reasons shown.  Above and beyond that general
+feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from
+his ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances,
+Daniel Quilp hated them every one.
+
+In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with
+more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure
+alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible
+inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man and his
+grandchild.  But all was in vain.  Not the slightest trace or clue
+could be obtained.  They had left the town by night; no one had seen
+them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no coach, cart,
+or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their description; nobody
+had fallen in with them, or heard of them.  Convinced at last that for
+the present all such attempts were hopeless, he appointed two or three
+scouts, with promises of large rewards in case of their forwarding him
+any intelligence, and returned to London by next day's coach.
+
+It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place
+upon the roof, that Kit's mother was alone inside; from which
+circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness
+of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify
+her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side
+of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great
+goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being
+upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another;
+getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head
+in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had
+such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time
+to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and
+embody that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little
+Bethel, and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley's
+and oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.
+
+Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother's intended return,
+was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise
+when he saw, leering over the coachman's shoulder like some familiar
+demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp.
+
+'How are you, Christopher?' croaked the dwarf from the coach-top.  'All
+right, Christopher.  Mother's inside.'
+
+'Why, how did he come here, mother?' whispered Kit.
+
+'I don't know how he came or why, my dear,' rejoined Mrs Nubbles,
+dismounting with her son's assistance, 'but he has been a terrifying of
+me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.'
+
+'He has?' cried Kit.
+
+'You wouldn't believe it, that you wouldn't,' replied his mother, 'but
+don't say a word to him, for I really don't believe he's human.  Hush!
+Don't turn round as if I was talking of him, but he's a squinting at me
+now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!'
+
+In spite of his mother's injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look.
+Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial
+contemplation.
+
+'Oh, he's the artfullest creetur!' cried Mrs Nubbles.  'But come away.
+Don't speak to him for the world.'
+
+'Yes I will, mother.  What nonsense.  I say, sir--'
+
+Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.
+
+'You let my mother alone, will you?' said Kit.  'How dare you tease a
+poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she
+hadn't got enough to make her so, without you.  An't you ashamed of
+yourself, you little monster?'
+
+'Monster!' said Quilp inwardly, with a smile.  'Ugliest dwarf that
+could be seen anywhere for a penny--monster--ah!'
+
+'You show her any of your impudence again,' resumed Kit, shouldering
+the bandbox, 'and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won't bear with you any
+more.  You have no right to do it; I'm sure we never interfered with
+you.  This isn't the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her
+again, you'll oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on
+account of your size) to beat you.'
+
+Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring
+his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him,
+retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached
+again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in
+a phantasmagoria.  Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an
+immediate assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures,
+snapped his fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as
+fast as she could, and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob
+and the baby, looking anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were
+following.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 49
+
+Kit's mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so
+often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp's thoughts than any
+intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with
+which they had parted.  He went his way, whistling from time to time
+some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed,
+jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with
+visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no
+intelligence of him for three whole days and two nights, and having had
+no previous notice of his absence, was doubtless by that time in a
+state of distraction, and constantly fainting away with anxiety and
+grief.
+
+This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf's humour, and
+so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until
+the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found
+himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which
+greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on
+before him expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made
+him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.
+
+In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when,
+gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried
+more light than is usual in a house of mourning.  Drawing nearer, and
+listening attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest
+conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his
+wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.
+
+'Ha!' cried the jealous dwarf, 'What's this!  Do they entertain
+visitors while I'm away!'
+
+A smothered cough from above, was the reply.  He felt in his pockets
+for his latch-key, but had forgotten it.  There was no resource but to
+knock at the door.
+
+'A light in the passage,' said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole.  'A
+very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you
+unawares.  Soho!'
+
+A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within.  But after a
+second application to the knocker, no louder than the first, the door
+was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom Quilp instantly
+gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street with the other.
+
+'You'll throttle me, master,' whispered the boy.  'Let go, will you.'
+
+'Who's up stairs, you dog?' retorted Quilp in the same tone.  'Tell me.
+And don't speak above your breath, or I'll choke you in good earnest.'
+
+The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled
+giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him
+by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution, or at
+least have made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy's
+nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself
+behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to
+catch him by the hair of the head, his master was obliged to come to a
+parley.
+
+'Will you answer me?' said Quilp.  'What's going on, above?'
+
+'You won't let one speak,' replied the boy.  'They--ha, ha, ha!--they
+think you're--you're dead.  Ha ha ha!'
+
+'Dead!' cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself.  'No.  Do
+they?  Do they really, you dog?'
+
+'They think you're--you're drowned,' replied the boy, who in his
+malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master.  'You was last
+seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over.  Ha
+ha!'
+
+The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and
+of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to
+Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have
+inspired him with.  He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant,
+and they both stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping and wagging
+their heads at each other, on either side of the post, like an
+unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.
+
+'Not a word,' said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe.  'Not a
+sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb.
+Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp!  Drowned!'
+
+So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his
+way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy of
+summersets on the pavement.
+
+The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped in,
+and planted himself behind the door of communication between that
+chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more
+airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed
+himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed enlarged with his
+pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but to see distinctly,
+what was passing.
+
+Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass seated
+at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum--his
+own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica--convenient to his
+hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things
+fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible
+to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of
+punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a
+teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of
+sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable
+joy.  At the same table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin;
+no longer sipping other people's punch feloniously with teaspoons, but
+taking deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter--not
+exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but
+preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow
+nevertheless--was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her grief
+with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid.  There were also
+present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them certain
+machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated with a
+stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish, and were
+naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence
+rather increased than detracted from that decided appearance of
+comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.
+
+'If I could poison that dear old lady's rum and water,' murmured Quilp,
+'I'd die happy.'
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the
+ceiling with a sigh, 'Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now!
+Who knows but he may be surveying of us from--from somewheres or
+another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye!  Oh Lor!'
+
+Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed;
+looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.
+
+'I can almost fancy,' said the lawyer shaking his head, 'that I see his
+eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor.  When shall we
+look upon his like again?  Never, never!' One minute we are
+here'--holding his tumbler before his eyes--'the next we are
+there'--gulping down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a
+little below the chest--'in the silent tomb.  To think that I should be
+drinking his very rum!  It seems like a dream.'
+
+With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr
+Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the
+purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners.
+
+'The search has been quite unsuccessful then?'
+
+'Quite, master.  But I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he'll
+come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?'
+
+The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the
+Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to receive him
+whenever he arrived.
+
+'Then we have nothing for it but resignation,' said Mr Brass; 'nothing
+but resignation and expectation.  It would be a comfort to have his
+body; it would be a dreary comfort.'
+
+'Oh, beyond a doubt,' assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; 'if we once had
+that, we should be quite sure.'
+
+'With regard to the descriptive advertisement,' said Sampson Brass,
+taking up his pen.  'It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his traits.
+Respecting his legs now--?'
+
+'Crooked, certainly,' said Mrs Jiniwin.  'Do you think they WERE
+crooked?' said Brass, in an insinuating tone.  'I think I see them now
+coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen' pantaloons a little
+shrunk and without straps.  Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we
+say crooked?'
+
+'I think they were a little so,' observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.
+
+'Legs crooked,' said Brass, writing as he spoke.  'Large head, short
+body, legs crooked--'
+
+'Very crooked,' suggested Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'We'll not say very crooked, ma'am,' said Brass piously.  'Let us not
+bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased.  He is gone, ma'am, to
+where his legs will never come in question.--We will content ourselves
+with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.'
+
+'I thought you wanted the truth,' said the old lady.  'That's all.'
+
+'Bless your eyes, how I love you,' muttered Quilp.  'There she goes
+again.  Nothing but punch!'
+
+'This is an occupation,' said the lawyer, laying down his pen and
+emptying his glass, 'which seems to bring him before my eyes like the
+Ghost of Hamlet's father, in the very clothes that he wore on
+work-a-days.  His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his
+trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all
+come before me like visions of my youth.  His linen!' said Mr Brass
+smiling fondly at the wall, 'his linen which was always of a particular
+colour, for such was his whim and fancy--how plain I see his linen now!'
+
+'You had better go on, sir,' said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.
+
+'True, ma'am, true,' cried Mr Brass.  'Our faculties must not freeze
+with grief.  I'll trouble you for a little more of that, ma'am.  A
+question now arises, with relation to his nose.'
+
+'Flat,' said Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'Aquiline!' cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the
+feature with his fist.  'Aquiline, you hag.  Do you see it?  Do you
+call this flat?  Do you?  Eh?'
+
+'Oh capital, capital!' shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit.
+'Excellent!  How very good he is!  He's a most remarkable man--so
+extremely whimsical!  Such an amazing power of taking people by
+surprise!'
+
+Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the dubious
+and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually subsided, nor to
+the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to the latter's running
+from the room, nor to the former's fainting away.  Keeping his eye
+fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the table, and beginning with
+his glass, drank off the contents, and went regularly round until he
+had emptied the other two, when he seized the case-bottle, and hugging
+it under his arm, surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer.
+
+'Not yet, Sampson,' said Quilp.  'Not just yet!'
+
+'Oh very good indeed!' cried Brass, recovering his spirits a little.
+'Ha ha ha!  Oh exceedingly good!  There's not another man alive who
+could carry it off like that.  A most difficult position to carry off.
+But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!'
+
+'Good night,' said the dwarf, nodding expressively.
+
+'Good night, sir, good night,' cried the lawyer, retreating backwards
+towards the door.  'This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful.
+Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed, remarkably so!'
+
+Waiting until Mr Brass's ejaculations died away in the distance (for he
+continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp advanced
+towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid amazement.
+
+'Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?' said the dwarf,
+holding the door open with great politeness.
+
+'And yesterday too, master.'
+
+'Dear me, you've had a deal of trouble.  Pray consider everything yours
+that you find upon the--upon the body.  Good night!'
+
+The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to argue
+the point just then, and shuffled out of the room.  The speedy
+clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still embracing the
+case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded arms, stood looking
+at his insensible wife like a dismounted nightmare.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 50
+
+Matrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties concerned
+in the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least her full half
+share.  Those of Mr and Mrs Quilp, however, were an exception to the
+general rule; the remarks which they occasioned being limited to a long
+soliloquy on the part of the gentleman, with perhaps a few deprecatory
+observations from the lady, not extending beyond a trembling
+monosyllable uttered at long intervals, and in a very submissive and
+humble tone.  On the present occasion, Mrs Quilp did not for a long
+time venture even on this gentle defence, but when she had recovered
+from her fainting-fit, sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to
+the reproaches of her lord and master.
+
+Of these Mr Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and
+rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that even
+his wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his proficiency in
+these respects, was well-nigh beside herself with alarm.  But the
+Jamaica rum, and the joy of having occasioned a heavy disappointment,
+by degrees cooled Mr Quilp's wrath; which from being at savage heat,
+dropped slowly to the bantering or chuckling point, at which it
+steadily remained.
+
+'So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?' said Quilp.  'You
+thought you were a widow, eh?  Ha, ha, ha, you jade.'
+
+'Indeed, Quilp,' returned his wife.  'I'm very sorry--'
+
+'Who doubts it!' cried the dwarf.  'You very sorry! to be sure you are.
+Who doubts that you're VERY sorry!'
+
+'I don't mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,' said
+his wife, 'but sorry that I should have been led into such a belief.  I
+am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.'
+
+In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her lord
+than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of interest in
+his safety which, all things considered, was rather unaccountable.
+Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance made no impression, farther than
+as it moved him to snap his fingers close to his wife's eyes, with
+divers grins of triumph and derision.
+
+'How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or letting
+me hear of you or know anything about you?' asked the poor little
+woman, sobbing.  'How could you be so cruel, Quilp?'
+
+'How could I be so cruel! cruel!' cried the dwarf.  'Because I was in
+the humour.  I'm in the humour now.  I shall be cruel when I like.  I'm
+going away again.'
+
+'Not again!'
+
+'Yes, again.  I'm going away now.  I'm off directly.  I mean to go and
+live wherever the fancy seizes me--at the wharf--at the
+counting-house--and be a jolly bachelor.  You were a widow in
+anticipation.  Damme,' screamed the dwarf, 'I'll be a bachelor in
+earnest.'
+
+'You can't be serious, Quilp,' sobbed his wife.
+
+'I tell you,' said the dwarf, exulting in his project, 'that I'll be a
+bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I'll have my bachelor's hall
+at the counting-house, and at such times come near it if you dare.  And
+mind too that I don't pounce in upon you at unseasonable hours again,
+for I'll be a spy upon you, and come and go like a mole or a weazel.
+Tom Scott--where's Tom Scott?'
+
+'Here I am, master,' cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up the
+window.
+
+'Wait there, you dog,' returned the dwarf, 'to carry a bachelor's
+portmanteau.  Pack it up, Mrs Quilp.  Knock up the dear old lady to
+help; knock her up.  Halloa there!  Halloa!'
+
+With these exclamations, Mr Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying to
+the door of the good lady's sleeping-closet, beat upon it therewith
+until she awoke in inexpressible terror, thinking that her amiable
+son-in-law surely intended to murder her in justification of the legs
+she had slandered.  Impressed with this idea, she was no sooner fairly
+awake than she screamed violently, and would have quickly precipitated
+herself out of the window and through a neighbouring skylight, if her
+daughter had not hastened in to undeceive her, and implore her
+assistance.  Somewhat reassured by her account of the service she was
+required to render, Mrs Jiniwin made her appearance in a flannel
+dressing-gown; and both mother and daughter, trembling with terror and
+cold--for the night was now far advanced--obeyed Mr Quilp's directions
+in submissive silence.  Prolonging his preparations as much as
+possible, for their greater comfort, that eccentric gentleman
+superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and having added to it with
+his own hands, a plate, knife and fork, spoon, teacup and saucer, and
+other small household matters of that nature, strapped up the
+portmanteau, took it on his shoulders, and actually marched off without
+another word, and with the case-bottle (which he had never once put
+down) still tightly clasped under his arm.  Consigning his heavier
+burden to the care of Tom Scott when he reached the street, taking a
+dram from the bottle for his own encouragement, and giving the boy a
+rap on the head with it as a small taste for himself, Quilp very
+deliberately led the way to the wharf, and reached it at between three
+and four o'clock in the morning.
+
+'Snug!' said Quilp, when he had groped his way to the wooden
+counting-house, and opened the door with a key he carried about with
+him.  'Beautifully snug!  Call me at eight, you dog.'
+
+With no more formal leave-taking or explanation, he clutched the
+portmanteau, shut the door on his attendant, and climbing on the desk,
+and rolling himself up as round as a hedgehog, in an old boat-cloak,
+fell fast asleep.
+
+Being roused in the morning at the appointed time, and roused with
+difficulty, after his late fatigues, Quilp instructed Tom Scott to make
+a fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and to prepare some
+coffee for breakfast; for the better furnishing of which repast he
+entrusted him with certain small moneys, to be expended in the purchase
+of hot rolls, butter, sugar, Yarmouth bloaters, and other articles of
+housekeeping; so that in a few minutes a savoury meal was smoking on
+the board.  With this substantial comfort, the dwarf regaled himself to
+his heart's content; and being highly satisfied with this free and
+gipsy mode of life (which he had often meditated, as offering, whenever
+he chose to avail himself of it, an agreeable freedom from the
+restraints of matrimony, and a choice means of keeping Mrs Quilp and
+her mother in a state of incessant agitation and suspense), bestirred
+himself to improve his retreat, and render it more commodious and
+comfortable.
+
+With this view, he issued forth to a place hard by, where sea-stores
+were sold, purchased a second-hand hammock, and had it slung in
+seamanlike fashion from the ceiling of the counting-house.  He also
+caused to be erected, in the same mouldy cabin, an old ship's stove
+with a rusty funnel to carry the smoke through the roof; and these
+arrangements completed, surveyed them with ineffable delight.
+
+'I've got a country-house like Robinson Crusoe,' said the dwarf, ogling
+the accommodations; 'a solitary, sequestered, desolate-island sort of
+spot, where I can be quite alone when I have business on hand, and be
+secure from all spies and listeners.  Nobody near me here, but rats,
+and they are fine stealthy secret fellows.  I shall be as merry as a
+grig among these gentry.  I'll look out for one like Christopher, and
+poison him--ha, ha, ha!  Business though--business--we must be mindful
+of business in the midst of pleasure, and the time has flown this
+morning, I declare.'
+
+Enjoining Tom Scott to await his return, and not to stand upon his
+head, or throw a summerset, or so much as walk upon his hands
+meanwhile, on pain of lingering torments, the dwarf threw himself into
+a boat, and crossing to the other side of the river, and then speeding
+away on foot, reached Mr Swiveller's usual house of entertainment in
+Bevis Marks, just as that gentleman sat down alone to dinner in its
+dusky parlour.
+
+'Dick,' said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, 'my pet, my
+pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!'
+
+'Oh you're there, are you?' returned Mr Swiveller; 'how are you?'
+
+'How's Dick?' retorted Quilp.  'How's the cream of clerkship, eh?'
+
+'Why, rather sour, sir,' replied Mr Swiveller.  'Beginning to border
+upon cheesiness, in fact.'
+
+'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, advancing.  'Has Sally proved
+unkind.  "Of all the girls that are so smart, there's none like--" eh,
+Dick!'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied Mr Swiveller, eating his dinner with great
+gravity, 'none like her.  She's the sphynx of private life, is Sally B.'
+
+'You're out of spirits,' said Quilp, drawing up a chair.  'What's the
+matter?'
+
+'The law don't agree with me,' returned Dick.  'It isn't moist enough,
+and there's too much confinement.  I have been thinking of running
+away.'
+
+'Bah!' said the dwarf.  'Where would you run to, Dick?'
+
+'I don't know' returned Mr Swiveller.  'Towards Highgate, I suppose.
+Perhaps the bells might strike up "Turn again Swiveller, Lord Mayor of
+London." Whittington's name was Dick.  I wish cats were scarcer.'
+
+Quilp looked at his companion with his eyes screwed up into a comical
+expression of curiosity, and patiently awaited his further explanation;
+upon which, however, Mr Swiveller appeared in no hurry to enter, as he
+ate a very long dinner in profound silence, finally pushed away his
+plate, threw himself back into his chair, folded his arms, and stared
+ruefully at the fire, in which some ends of cigars were smoking on
+their own account, and sending up a fragrant odour.
+
+'Perhaps you'd like a bit of cake'--said Dick, at last turning to the
+dwarf.  'You're quite welcome to it.  You ought to be, for it's of your
+making.'
+
+'What do you mean?' said Quilp.
+
+Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very greasy
+parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of plum-cake
+extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with a paste of
+white sugar an inch and a half deep.
+
+'What should you say this was?' demanded Mr Swiveller.
+
+'It looks like bride-cake,' replied the dwarf, grinning.
+
+'And whose should you say it was?' inquired Mr Swiveller, rubbing the
+pastry against his nose with a dreadful calmness.  'Whose?'
+
+'Not--'
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, 'the same.  You needn't mention her name.  There's no
+such name now.  Her name is Cheggs now, Sophy Cheggs.  Yet loved I as
+man never loved that hadn't wooden legs, and my heart, my heart is
+breaking for the love of Sophy Cheggs.'
+
+With this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the distressing
+circumstances of his own case, Mr Swiveller folded up the parcel again,
+beat it very flat between the palms of his hands, thrust it into his
+breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded his arms upon the whole.
+
+'Now, I hope you're satisfied, sir,' said Dick; 'and I hope Fred's
+satisfied.  You went partners in the mischief, and I hope you like it.
+This is the triumph I was to have, is it?  It's like the old
+country-dance of that name, where there are two gentlemen to one lady,
+and one has her, and the other hasn't, but comes limping up behind to
+make out the figure.  But it's Destiny, and mine's a crusher.'
+
+Disguising his secret joy in Mr Swiveller's defeat, Daniel Quilp
+adopted the surest means of soothing him, by ringing the bell, and
+ordering in a supply of rosy wine (that is to say, of its usual
+representative), which he put about with great alacrity, calling upon
+Mr Swiveller to pledge him in various toasts derisive of Cheggs, and
+eulogistic of the happiness of single men.  Such was their impression
+on Mr Swiveller, coupled with the reflection that no man could oppose
+his destiny, that in a very short space of time his spirits rose
+surprisingly, and he was enabled to give the dwarf an account of the
+receipt of the cake, which, it appeared, had been brought to Bevis
+Marks by the two surviving Miss Wackleses in person, and delivered at
+the office door with much giggling and joyfulness.
+
+'Ha!' said Quilp.  'It will be our turn to giggle soon.  And that
+reminds me--you spoke of young Trent--where is he?'
+
+Mr Swiveller explained that his respectable friend had recently
+accepted a responsible situation in a locomotive gaming-house, and was
+at that time absent on a professional tour among the adventurous
+spirits of Great Britain.
+
+'That's unfortunate,' said the dwarf, 'for I came, in fact, to ask you
+about him.  A thought has occurred to me, Dick; your friend over the
+way--'
+
+'Which friend?'
+
+'In the first floor.'
+
+'Yes?'
+
+'Your friend in the first floor, Dick, may know him.'
+
+'No, he don't,' said Mr Swiveller, shaking his head.
+
+'Don't!  No, because he has never seen him,' rejoined Quilp; 'but if we
+were to bring them together, who knows, Dick, but Fred, properly
+introduced, would serve his turn almost as well as little Nell or her
+grandfather--who knows but it might make the young fellow's fortune,
+and, through him, yours, eh?'
+
+'Why, the fact is, you see,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that they HAVE been
+brought together.'
+
+'Have been!' cried the dwarf, looking suspiciously at his companion.
+'Through whose means?'
+
+'Through mine,' said Dick, slightly confused. 'Didn't I mention it to
+you the last time you called over yonder?'
+
+'You know you didn't,' returned the dwarf.
+
+'I believe you're right,' said Dick.  'No.  I didn't, I recollect.  Oh
+yes, I brought 'em together that very day.  It was Fred's suggestion.'
+
+'And what came of it?'
+
+'Why, instead of my friend's bursting into tears when he knew who Fred
+was, embracing him kindly, and telling him that he was his grandfather,
+or his grandmother in disguise (which we fully expected), he flew into
+a tremendous passion; called him all manner of names; said it was in a
+great measure his fault that little Nell and the old gentleman had ever
+been brought to poverty; didn't hint at our taking anything to drink;
+and--and in short rather turned us out of the room than otherwise.'
+
+'That's strange,' said the dwarf, musing.
+
+'So we remarked to each other at the time,' returned Dick coolly, 'but
+quite true.'
+
+Quilp was plainly staggered by this intelligence, over which he brooded
+for some time in moody silence, often raising his eyes to Mr
+Swiveller's face, and sharply scanning its expression.  As he could
+read in it, however, no additional information or anything to lead him
+to believe he had spoken falsely; and as Mr Swiveller, left to his own
+meditations, sighed deeply, and was evidently growing maudlin on the
+subject of Mrs Cheggs; the dwarf soon broke up the conference and took
+his departure, leaving the bereaved one to his melancholy ruminations.
+
+'Have been brought together, eh?' said the dwarf as he walked the
+streets alone.  'My friend has stolen a march upon me.  It led him to
+nothing, and therefore is no great matter, save in the intention.  I'm
+glad he has lost his mistress.  Ha ha!  The blockhead mustn't leave the
+law at present.  I'm sure of him where he is, whenever I want him for
+my own purposes, and, besides, he's a good unconscious spy on Brass,
+and tells, in his cups, all that he sees and hears.  You're useful to
+me, Dick, and cost nothing but a little treating now and then.  I am
+not sure that it may not be worth while, before long, to take credit
+with the stranger, Dick, by discovering your designs upon the child;
+but for the present we'll remain the best friends in the world, with
+your good leave.'
+
+Pursuing these thoughts, and gasping as he went along, after his own
+peculiar fashion, Mr Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and shut
+himself up in his Bachelor's Hall, which, by reason of its
+newly-erected chimney depositing the smoke inside the room and carrying
+none of it off, was not quite so agreeable as more fastidious people
+might have desired.  Such inconveniences, however, instead of
+disgusting the dwarf with his new abode, rather suited his humour; so,
+after dining luxuriously from the public-house, he lighted his pipe,
+and smoked against the chimney until nothing of him was visible through
+the mist but a pair of red and highly inflamed eyes, with sometimes a
+dim vision of his head and face, as, in a violent fit of coughing, he
+slightly stirred the smoke and scattered the heavy wreaths by which
+they were obscured.  In the midst of this atmosphere, which must
+infallibly have smothered any other man, Mr Quilp passed the evening
+with great cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time with the pipe
+and the case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself with a
+melodious howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest
+resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental,
+ever invented by man.  Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight,
+when he turned into his hammock with the utmost satisfaction.
+
+The first sound that met his ears in the morning--as he half opened his
+eyes, and, finding himself so unusually near the ceiling, entertained a
+drowsy idea that he must have been transformed into a fly or
+blue-bottle in the course of the night,--was that of a stifled sobbing
+and weeping in the room.  Peeping cautiously over the side of his
+hammock, he descried Mrs Quilp, to whom, after contemplating her for
+some time in silence, he communicated a violent start by suddenly
+yelling out--'Halloa!'
+
+'Oh, Quilp!' cried his poor little wife, looking up.  'How you
+frightened me!'
+
+'I meant to, you jade,' returned the dwarf.  'What do you want here?
+I'm dead, an't I?'
+
+'Oh, please come home, do come home,' said Mrs Quilp, sobbing; 'we'll
+never do so any more, Quilp, and after all it was only a mistake that
+grew out of our anxiety.'
+
+'Out of your anxiety,' grinned the dwarf.  'Yes, I know that--out of
+your anxiety for my death.  I shall come home when I please, I tell
+you.  I shall come home when I please, and go when I please.  I'll be a
+Will o' the Wisp, now here, now there, dancing about you always,
+starting up when you least expect me, and keeping you in a constant
+state of restlessness and irritation.  Will you begone?'
+
+Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty.
+
+'I tell you no,' cried the dwarf.  'No.  If you dare to come here again
+unless you're sent for, I'll keep watch-dogs in the yard that'll growl
+and bite--I'll have man-traps, cunningly altered and improved for
+catching women--I'll have spring guns, that shall explode when you
+tread upon the wires, and blow you into little pieces.  Will you
+begone?'
+
+'Do forgive me.  Do come back,' said his wife, earnestly.
+
+'No-o-o-o-o!' roared Quilp.  'Not till my own good time, and then I'll
+return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to nobody for my
+goings or comings.  You see the door there.  Will you go?'
+
+Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic voice,
+and moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture, indicative of
+an intention to spring out of his hammock, and, night-capped as he was,
+bear his wife home again through the public streets, that she sped away
+like an arrow.  Her worthy lord stretched his neck and eyes until she
+had crossed the yard, and then, not at all sorry to have had this
+opportunity of carrying his point, and asserting the sanctity of his
+castle, fell into an immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down
+to sleep again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 51
+
+The bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor's Hall slept on
+amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog, and
+rats, until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom Scott to
+assist him to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted his couch, and
+made his toilet.  This duty performed, and his repast ended, he again
+betook himself to Bevis Marks.
+
+This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend and
+employer Mr Sampson Brass.  Both gentlemen however were from home, nor
+was the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post either.  The
+fact of their joint desertion of the office was made known to all
+comers by a scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr Swiveller, which
+was attached to the bell-handle, and which, giving the reader no clue
+to the time of day when it was first posted, furnished him with the
+rather vague and unsatisfactory information that that gentleman would
+'return in an hour.'
+
+'There's a servant, I suppose,' said the dwarf, knocking at the
+house-door.  'She'll do.'
+
+After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a small
+voice immediately accosted him with, 'Oh please will you leave a card
+or message?'
+
+'Eh?' said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to him)
+upon the small servant.
+
+To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the occasion of
+her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied, 'Oh please will
+you leave a card or message?'
+
+'I'll write a note,' said the dwarf, pushing past her into the office;
+'and mind your master has it directly he comes home.'  So Mr Quilp
+climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note, and the small
+servant, carefully tutored for such emergencies, looked on with her
+eyes wide open, ready, if he so much as abstracted a wafer, to rush
+into the street and give the alarm to the police.
+
+As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very short
+one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant.  He looked at her,
+long and earnestly.
+
+'How are you?' said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible
+grimaces.
+
+The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no audible
+reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she was
+inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the note or
+message.
+
+'Do they use you ill here?  is your mistress a Tartar?' said Quilp with
+a chuckle.
+
+In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look of
+infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very tight and
+round, and nodded violently.  Whether there was anything in the
+peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or anything
+in the expression of her features at the moment which attracted his
+attention for some other reason; or whether it merely occurred to him
+as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out of countenance;
+certain it is, that he planted his elbows square and firmly on the
+desk, and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands, looked at her fixedly.
+
+'Where do you come from?' he said after a long pause, stroking his chin.
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'What's your name?'
+
+'Nothing.'
+
+'Nonsense!' retorted Quilp.  'What does your mistress call you when she
+wants you?'
+
+'A little devil,' said the child.
+
+She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further questioning,
+'But please will you leave a card or message?'
+
+These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more
+inquiries.  Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew his
+eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully than
+before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it with
+scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly but very
+narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows.  The result of this secret
+survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and laughed slyly
+and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen almost to bursting.
+Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his mirth and its effects, he
+tossed the letter to the child, and hastily withdrew.
+
+Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and held
+his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the dusty area
+railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child, until he was
+quite tired out.  At last, he travelled back to the Wilderness, which
+was within rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat, and ordered tea in the
+wooden summer-house that afternoon for three persons; an invitation to
+Miss Sally Brass and her brother to partake of that entertainment at
+that place, having been the object both of his journey and his note.
+
+It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually take
+tea in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced state of
+decay, and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at low water.
+Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr Quilp ordered a
+cold collation to be prepared, and it was beneath its cracked and leaky
+roof that he, in due course of time, received Mr Sampson and his sister
+Sally.
+
+'You're fond of the beauties of nature,' said Quilp with a grin.  'Is
+this charming, Brass?  Is it unusual, unsophisticated, primitive?'
+
+'It's delightful indeed, sir,' replied the lawyer.
+
+'Cool?' said Quilp.
+
+'N-not particularly so, I think, sir,' rejoined Brass, with his teeth
+chattering in his head.
+
+'Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?' said Quilp.
+
+'Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,' rejoined Brass.  'Nothing more,
+sir, nothing more.'
+
+'And Sally?' said the delighted dwarf.  'Does she like it?'
+
+'She'll like it better,' returned that strong-minded lady, 'when she
+has tea; so let us have it, and don't bother.'
+
+'Sweet Sally!' cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to embrace
+her.  'Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.'
+
+'He's a very remarkable man indeed!' soliloquised Mr Brass.  'He's
+quite a Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!'
+
+These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent and
+distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having a bad
+cold in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have willingly borne
+some pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted his present raw
+quarters to a warm room, and dried himself at a fire.  Quilp,
+however--who, beyond the gratification of his demon whims, owed Sampson
+some acknowledgment of the part he had played in the mourning scene of
+which he had been a hidden witness, marked these symptoms of uneasiness
+with a delight past all expression, and derived from them a secret joy
+which the costliest banquet could never have afforded him.
+
+It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in the
+character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own account she
+would have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with a very ill
+grace, and would probably, indeed, have walked off before the tea
+appeared, she no sooner beheld the latent uneasiness and misery of her
+brother than she developed a grim satisfaction, and began to enjoy
+herself after her own manner.  Though the wet came stealing through the
+roof and trickling down upon their heads, Miss Brass uttered no
+complaint, but presided over the tea equipage with imperturbable
+composure.  While Mr Quilp, in his uproarious hospitality, seated
+himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted the place as the most
+beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms, and elevating his
+glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that jovial spot; and Mr
+Brass, with the rain plashing down into his tea-cup, made a dismal
+attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear at his ease; and Tom Scott,
+who was in waiting at the door under an old umbrella, exulted in his
+agonies, and bade fair to split his sides with laughing; while all this
+was passing, Miss Sally Brass, unmindful of the wet which dripped down
+upon her own feminine person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind the
+tea-board, erect and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her
+brother with a mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of
+self, to sit there all night, witnessing the torments which his
+avaricious and grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade
+him to resent.  And this, it must be observed, or the illustration
+would be incomplete, although in a business point of view she had the
+strongest sympathy with Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond measure
+indignant if he had thwarted their client in any one respect.
+
+In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some
+pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his
+usual manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his hand
+upon the lawyer's sleeve.
+
+'A word,' said the dwarf, 'before we go farther.  Sally, hark'ee for a
+minute.'
+
+Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences with
+their host which were the better for not having air.
+
+'Business,' said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister.  'Very
+private business.  Lay your heads together when you're by yourselves.'
+
+'Certainly, sir,' returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and
+pencil.  'I'll take down the heads if you please, sir.  Remarkable
+documents,' added the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling, 'most
+remarkable documents.  He states his points so clearly that it's a
+treat to have 'em!  I don't know any act of parliament that's equal to
+him in clearness.'
+
+'I shall deprive you of a treat,' said Quilp.  'Put up your book.  We
+don't want any documents.  So.  There's a lad named Kit--'
+
+Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.
+
+'Kit!' said Mr Sampson.--'Kit!  Ha! I've heard the name before, but I
+don't exactly call to mind--I don't exactly--'
+
+'You're as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a
+rhinoceros,' returned his obliging client with an impatient gesture.
+
+'He's extremely pleasant!' cried the obsequious Sampson.  'His
+acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising.  Quite a Buffoon,
+quite!'
+
+There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other; and
+it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said Buffon,
+but made use of a superfluous vowel.  Be this as it may, Quilp gave him
+no time for correction, as he performed that office himself by more
+than tapping him on the head with the handle of his umbrella.
+
+'Don't let's have any wrangling,' said Miss Sally, staying his hand.
+'I've showed you that I know him, and that's enough.'
+
+'She's always foremost!' said the dwarf, patting her on the back and
+looking contemptuously at Sampson.  'I don't like Kit, Sally.'
+
+'Nor I,' rejoined Miss Brass.
+
+'Nor I,' said Sampson.
+
+'Why, that's right!' cried Quilp.  'Half our work is done already.
+This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters; a
+prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, white-livered,
+sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a
+barking yelping dog to all besides.'
+
+'Fearfully eloquent!' cried Brass with a sneeze.  'Quite appalling!'
+
+'Come to the point,' said Miss Sally, 'and don't talk so much.'
+
+'Right again!' exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at
+Sampson, 'always foremost!  I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog
+to all besides, and most of all, to me.  In short, I owe him a grudge.'
+'That's enough, sir,' said Sampson.
+
+'No, it's not enough, sir,' sneered Quilp; 'will you hear me out?
+Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at this
+minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise prove a
+golden one to us all.  Apart from that, I repeat that he crosses my
+humour, and I hate him.  Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest.
+Devise your own means of putting him out of my way, and execute them.
+Shall it be done?'
+
+'It shall, sir,' said Sampson.
+
+'Then give me your hand,' retorted Quilp.  'Sally, girl, yours.  I rely
+as much, or more, on you than him.  Tom Scott comes back.  Lantern,
+pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!'
+
+No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the
+slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting.  The
+trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to each
+other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing more was
+needed.  Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease with which
+he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same uproarious,
+reckless little savage he had been a few seconds before.  It was ten
+o'clock at night before the amiable Sally supported her beloved and
+loving brother from the Wilderness, by which time he needed the utmost
+support her tender frame could render; his walk being from some unknown
+reason anything but steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in
+unexpected places.
+
+Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the
+fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping to
+his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock.  Leaving him to
+visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in the old
+church porch were not without their share, be it our task to rejoin
+them as they sat and watched.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 52
+
+After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of the
+churchyard, and hurried towards them, tingling in his hand, as he came
+along, a bundle of rusty keys.  He was quite breathless with pleasure
+and haste when he reached the porch, and at first could only point
+towards the old building which the child had been contemplating so
+earnestly.
+
+'You see those two old houses,' he said at last.
+
+'Yes, surely,' replied Nell.  'I have been looking at them nearly all
+the time you have been away.'
+
+'And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could
+have guessed what I have to tell you,' said her friend.  'One of those
+houses is mine.'
+
+Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the
+schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with
+exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke.
+
+They stopped before its low arched door.  After trying several of the
+keys in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock, which
+turned back, creaking, and admitted them into the house.
+
+The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly
+ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its beautiful
+groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of its ancient
+splendour.  Foliage carved in the stone, and emulating the mastery of
+Nature's hand, yet remained to tell how many times the leaves outside
+had come and gone, while it lived on unchanged.  The broken figures
+supporting the burden of the chimney-piece, though mutilated, were
+still distinguishable for what they had been--far different from the
+dust without--and showed sadly by the empty hearth, like creatures who
+had outlived their kind, and mourned their own too slow decay.
+
+In some old time--for even change was old in that old place--a wooden
+partition had been constructed in one part of the chamber to form a
+sleeping-closet, into which the light was admitted at the same period
+by a rude window, or rather niche, cut in the solid wall.  This screen,
+together with two seats in the broad chimney, had at some forgotten
+date been part of the church or convent; for the oak, hastily
+appropriated to its present purpose, had been little altered from its
+former shape, and presented to the eye a pile of fragments of rich
+carving from old monkish stalls.
+
+An open door leading to a small room or cell, dim with the light that
+came through leaves of ivy, completed the interior of this portion of
+the ruin.  It was not quite destitute of furniture.  A few strange
+chairs, whose arms and legs looked as though they had dwindled away
+with age; a table, the very spectre of its race: a great old chest that
+had once held records in the church, with other quaintly-fashioned
+domestic necessaries, and store of fire-wood for the winter, were
+scattered around, and gave evident tokens of its occupation as a
+dwelling-place at no very distant time.
+
+The child looked around her, with that solemn feeling with which we
+contemplate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in the
+great ocean of eternity.  The old man had followed them, but they were
+all three hushed for a space, and drew their breath softly, as if they
+feared to break the silence even by so slight a sound.
+
+'It is a very beautiful place!' said the child, in a low voice.
+
+'I almost feared you thought otherwise,' returned the schoolmaster.
+'You shivered when we first came in, as if you felt it cold or gloomy.'
+
+'It was not that,' said Nell, glancing round with a slight shudder.
+'Indeed I cannot tell you what it was, but when I saw the outside, from
+the church porch, the same feeling came over me.  It is its being so
+old and grey perhaps.'
+
+'A peaceful place to live in, don't you think so?' said her friend.
+
+'Oh yes,' rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly.  'A quiet,
+happy place--a place to live and learn to die in!' She would have said
+more, but that the energy of her thoughts caused her voice to falter,
+and come in trembling whispers from her lips.
+
+
+'A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and body
+in,' said the schoolmaster; 'for this old house is yours.'
+
+'Ours!' cried the child.
+
+'Ay,' returned the schoolmaster gaily, 'for many a merry year to come,
+I hope.  I shall be a close neighbour--only next door--but this house
+is yours.'
+
+Having now disburdened himself of his great surprise, the schoolmaster
+sat down, and drawing Nell to his side, told her how he had learnt that
+ancient tenement had been occupied for a very long time by an old
+person, nearly a hundred years of age, who kept the keys of the church,
+opened and closed it for the services, and showed it to strangers; how
+she had died not many weeks ago, and nobody had yet been found to fill
+the office; how, learning all this in an interview with the sexton, who
+was confined to his bed by rheumatism, he had been bold to make mention
+of his fellow-traveller, which had been so favourably received by that
+high authority, that he had taken courage, acting on his advice, to
+propound the matter to the clergyman.  In a word, the result of his
+exertions was, that Nell and her grandfather were to be carried before
+the last-named gentleman next day; and, his approval of their conduct
+and appearance reserved as a matter of form, that they were already
+appointed to the vacant post.
+
+'There's a small allowance of money,' said the schoolmaster.  'It is
+not much, but still enough to live upon in this retired spot.  By
+clubbing our funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of that.'
+
+'Heaven bless and prosper you!' sobbed the child.
+
+'Amen, my dear,' returned her friend cheerfully; 'and all of us, as it
+will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble to this
+tranquil life.  But we must look at MY house now.  Come!'
+
+They repaired to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as before; at
+length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten door.  It led
+into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which they had come,
+but not so spacious, and having only one other little room attached.
+It was not difficult to divine that the other house was of right the
+schoolmaster's, and that he had chosen for himself the least
+commodious, in his care and regard for them.  Like the adjoining
+habitation, it held such old articles of furniture as were absolutely
+necessary, and had its stack of fire-wood.
+
+To make these dwellings as habitable and full of comfort as they could,
+was now their pleasant care.  In a short time, each had its cheerful
+fire glowing and crackling on the hearth, and reddening the pale old
+wall with a hale and healthy blush.  Nell, busily plying her needle,
+repaired the tattered window-hangings, drew together the rents that
+time had worn in the threadbare scraps of carpet, and made them whole
+and decent.  The schoolmaster swept and smoothed the ground before the
+door, trimmed the long grass, trained the ivy and creeping plants which
+hung their drooping heads in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer
+walls a cheery air of home.  The old man, sometimes by his side and
+sometimes with the child, lent his aid to both, went here and there on
+little patient services, and was happy.  Neighbours, too, as they came
+from work, proffered their help; or sent their children with such small
+presents or loans as the strangers needed most.  It was a busy day; and
+night came on, and found them wondering that there was yet so much to
+do, and that it should be dark so soon.
+
+They took their supper together, in the house which may be henceforth
+called the child's; and, when they had finished their meal, drew round
+the fire, and almost in whispers--their hearts were too quiet and glad
+for loud expression--discussed their future plans.  Before they
+separated, the schoolmaster read some prayers aloud; and then, full of
+gratitude and happiness, they parted for the night.
+
+At that silent hour, when her grandfather was sleeping peacefully in
+his bed, and every sound was hushed, the child lingered before the
+dying embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had been a
+dream And she only now awoke.  The glare of the sinking flame,
+reflected in the oaken panels whose carved tops were dimly seen in the
+dusky roof--the aged walls, where strange shadows came and went with
+every flickering of the fire--the solemn presence, within, of that
+decay which falls on senseless things the most enduring in their
+nature: and, without, and round about on every side, of Death--filled
+her with deep and thoughtful feelings, but with none of terror or
+alarm.  A change had been gradually stealing over her, in the time of
+her loneliness and sorrow.  With failing strength and heightening
+resolution, there had sprung up a purified and altered mind; there had
+grown in her bosom blessed thoughts and hopes, which are the portion of
+few but the weak and drooping.  There were none to see the frail,
+perishable figure, as it glided from the fire and leaned pensively at
+the open casement; none but the stars, to look into the upturned face
+and read its history.  The old church bell rang out the hour with a
+mournful sound, as if it had grown sad from so much communing with the
+dead and unheeded warning to the living; the fallen leaves rustled; the
+grass stirred upon the graves; all else was still and sleeping.
+
+Some of those dreamless sleepers lay close within the shadow of the
+church--touching the wall, as if they clung to it for comfort and
+protection.  Others had chosen to lie beneath the changing shade of
+trees; others by the path, that footsteps might come near them; others,
+among the graves of little children.  Some had desired to rest beneath
+the very ground they had trodden in their daily walks; some, where the
+setting sun might shine upon their beds; some, where its light would
+fall upon them when it rose.  Perhaps not one of the imprisoned souls
+had been able quite to separate itself in living thought from its old
+companion.  If any had, it had still felt for it a love like that which
+captives have been known to bear towards the cell in which they have
+been long confined, and, even at parting, hung upon its narrow bounds
+affectionately.
+
+It was long before the child closed the window, and approached her bed.
+Again something of the same sensation as before--an involuntary
+chill--a momentary feeling akin to fear--but vanishing directly, and
+leaving no alarm behind.  Again, too, dreams of the little scholar; of
+the roof opening, and a column of bright faces, rising far away into
+the sky, as she had seen in some old scriptural picture once, and
+looking down on her, asleep.  It was a sweet and happy dream.  The
+quiet spot, outside, seemed to remain the same, saving that there was
+music in the air, and a sound of angels' wings.  After a time the
+sisters came there, hand in hand, and stood among the graves.  And then
+the dream grew dim, and faded.
+
+With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of yesterday's
+labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the restoration of its
+energies, cheerfulness, and hope.  They worked gaily in ordering and
+arranging their houses until noon, and then went to visit the clergyman.
+
+He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued spirit,
+accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with the world,
+which he had left many years before to come and settle in that place.
+His wife had died in the house in which he still lived, and he had long
+since lost sight of any earthly cares or hopes beyond it.
+
+He received them very kindly, and at once showed an interest in Nell;
+asking her name, and age, her birthplace, the circumstances which had
+led her there, and so forth.  The schoolmaster had already told her
+story.  They had no other friends or home to leave, he said, and had
+come to share his fortunes.  He loved the child as though she were his
+own.
+
+'Well, well,' said the clergyman.  'Let it be as you desire.  She is
+very young.'
+
+'Old in adversity and trial, sir,' replied the schoolmaster.
+
+'God help her.  Let her rest, and forget them,' said the old gentleman.
+'But an old church is a dull and gloomy place for one so young as you,
+my child.'
+
+'Oh no, sir,' returned Nell.  'I have no such thoughts, indeed.'
+
+'I would rather see her dancing on the green at nights,' said the old
+gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, and smiling sadly, 'than have
+her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches.  You must look to
+this, and see that her heart does not grow heavy among these solemn
+ruins.  Your request is granted, friend.'
+
+After more kind words, they withdrew, and repaired to the child's
+house; where they were yet in conversation on their happy fortune, when
+another friend appeared.
+
+This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house, and
+had resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since the death
+of the clergyman's wife, which had happened fifteen years before.  He
+had been his college friend and always his close companion; in the
+first shock of his grief he had come to console and comfort him; and
+from that time they had never parted company.  The little old gentleman
+was the active spirit of the place, the adjuster of all differences,
+the promoter of all merry-makings, the dispenser of his friend's
+bounty, and of no small charity of his own besides; the universal
+mediator, comforter, and friend.  None of the simple villagers had
+cared to ask his name, or, when they knew it, to store it in their
+memory.  Perhaps from some vague rumour of his college honours which
+had been whispered abroad on his first arrival, perhaps because he was
+an unmarried, unencumbered gentleman, he had been called the bachelor.
+The name pleased him, or suited him as well as any other, and the
+Bachelor he had ever since remained.  And the bachelor it was, it may
+be added, who with his own hands had laid in the stock of fuel which
+the wanderers had found in their new habitation.
+
+The bachelor, then--to call him by his usual appellation--lifted the
+latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the door, and
+stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it.
+
+'You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?' he said, greeting Nell's
+kind friend.
+
+'I am, sir.'
+
+'You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you.  I should have
+been in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across the country
+to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter in service some
+miles off, and have but just now returned.  This is our young
+church-keeper?  You are not the less welcome, friend, for her sake, or
+for this old man's; nor the worse teacher for having learnt humanity.'
+'She has been ill, sir, very lately,' said the schoolmaster, in answer
+to the look with which their visitor regarded Nell when he had kissed
+her cheek.
+
+'Yes, yes.  I know she has,' he rejoined.  'There have been suffering
+and heartache here.'
+
+'Indeed there have, sir.'
+
+The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again at
+the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held.
+
+'You will be happier here,' he said; 'we will try, at least, to make
+you so.  You have made great improvements here already.  Are they the
+work of your hands?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'We may make some others--not better in themselves, but with better
+means perhaps,' said the bachelor.  'Let us see now, let us see.'
+
+Nell accompanied him into the other little rooms, and over both the
+houses, in which he found various small comforts wanting, which he
+engaged to supply from a certain collection of odds and ends he had at
+home, and which must have been a very miscellaneous and extensive one,
+as it comprehended the most opposite articles imaginable.  They all
+came, however, and came without loss of time; for the little old
+gentleman, disappearing for some five or ten minutes, presently
+returned, laden with old shelves, rugs, blankets, and other household
+gear, and followed by a boy bearing a similar load.  These being cast
+on the floor in a promiscuous heap, yielded a quantity of occupation in
+arranging, erecting, and putting away; the superintendence of which
+task evidently afforded the old gentleman extreme delight, and engaged
+him for some time with great briskness and activity.  When nothing more
+was left to be done, he charged the boy to run off and bring his
+schoolmates to be marshalled before their new master, and solemnly
+reviewed.
+
+'As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you'd wish to see,' he said,
+turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; 'but I don't let 'em
+know I think so.  That wouldn't do, at all.'
+
+The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins, great
+and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house door,
+fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their hats and
+caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible dimensions, and making
+all manner of bows and scrapes, which the little old gentleman
+contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and expressed his approval of
+by a great many nods and smiles.  Indeed, his approbation of the boys
+was by no means so scrupulously disguised as he had led the
+schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it broke out in sundry loud
+whispers and confidential remarks which were perfectly audible to them
+every one.
+
+'This first boy, schoolmaster,' said the bachelor, 'is John
+Owen; a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too
+thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far.  That boy, my good
+sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his parents of
+their chief comfort--and between ourselves, when you come to see him at
+hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the finger-post, and
+sliding down the face of the little quarry, you'll never forget it.
+It's beautiful!'
+
+John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of
+the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.
+
+'Now, look at that lad, sir,' said the bachelor.  'You see that fellow?
+Richard Evans his name is, sir.  An amazing boy to learn, blessed with
+a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover with a good
+voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the best among us.
+Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he'll never die in his bed;
+he's always falling asleep in sermon-time--and to tell you the truth,
+Mr Marton, I always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain
+that it was natural to my constitution and I couldn't help it.'
+
+This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor
+turned to another.
+
+'But if we talk of examples to be shunned,' said he, 'if we come to
+boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here's
+the one, and I hope you won't spare him.  This is the lad, sir; this
+one with the blue eyes and light hair.  This is a swimmer, sir, this
+fellow--a diver, Lord save us!  This is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for
+plunging into eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing
+up a blind man's dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain
+and collar, while his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank,
+bewailing the loss of his guide and friend.  I sent the boy two guineas
+anonymously, sir,' added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper,
+'directly I heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he
+hasn't the least idea that it came from me.'
+
+Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and
+from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for
+their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting
+emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart and
+were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example.
+Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by
+his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition
+to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out
+of the way; which injunction, he informed the schoolmaster in the same
+audible confidence, he did not think he could have obeyed when he was a
+boy, had his life depended on it.
+
+Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor's disposition as so many
+assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the schoolmaster
+parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits, and deemed
+himself one of the happiest men on earth.  The windows of the two old
+houses were ruddy again, that night, with the reflection of the
+cheerful fires that burnt within; and the bachelor and his friend,
+pausing to look upon them as they returned from their evening walk,
+spoke softly together of the beautiful child, and looked round upon the
+churchyard with a sigh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 53
+
+Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her
+household tasks, and put everything in order for the good schoolmaster
+(though sorely against his will, for he would have spared her the
+pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a little bundle of
+keys with which the bachelor had formally invested her on the previous
+day, and went out alone to visit the old church.
+
+The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the fresh
+scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense.  The
+neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful sound;
+the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by Good Spirits
+over the dead.  Some young children sported among the tombs, and hid
+from each other, with laughing faces.  They had an infant with them,
+and had laid it down asleep upon a child's grave, in a little bed of
+leaves.  It was a new grave--the resting-place, perhaps, of some little
+creature, who, meek and patient in its illness, had often sat and
+watched them, and now seemed, to their minds, scarcely changed.
+
+She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was.  The child
+answered that that was not its name; it was a garden--his brother's.
+It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens, and the birds
+loved it better because he had been used to feed them.  When he had
+done speaking, he looked at her with a smile, and kneeling down and
+nestling for a moment with his cheek against the turf, bounded merrily
+away.
+
+She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through the
+wicket gate, and so into the village.  The old sexton, leaning on a
+crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her good
+morrow.
+
+'You are better?' said the child, stopping to speak with him.
+
+'Ay surely,' returned the old man.  'I'm thankful to say, much better.'
+
+'_You_ will be quite well soon.'
+
+'With Heaven's leave, and a little patience.  But come in, come in!'
+The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step,
+which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way into
+his little cottage.
+
+'It is but one room you see.  There is another up above, but the stair
+has got harder to climb o' late years, and I never use it.  I'm
+thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.'
+
+The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him--one of his trade
+too--could talk of time so easily.  He saw her eyes wandering to the
+tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.
+
+'I warrant now,' he said, 'that you think all those are used in making
+graves.'
+
+'Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.'
+
+'And well you might.  I am a gardener.  I dig the ground, and plant
+things that are to live and grow.  My works don't all moulder away, and
+rot in the earth.  You see that spade in the centre?'
+
+'The very old one--so notched and worn?  Yes.'
+
+'That's the sexton's spade, and it's a well-used one, as you see.
+We're healthy people here, but it has done a power of work.  If it
+could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an unexpected
+job that it and I have done together; but I forget 'em, for my memory's
+a poor one.--That's nothing new,' he added hastily.  'It always was.'
+
+'There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,' said the
+child.
+
+'Oh yes.  And tall trees.  But they are not so separate from the
+sexton's labours as you think.'
+
+'No!'
+
+'Not in my mind, and recollection--such as it is,' said the old man.
+'Indeed they often help it.  For say that I planted such a tree for
+such a man.  There it stands, to remind me that he died.  When I look
+at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his time, it helps me
+to the age of my other work, and I can tell you pretty nearly when I
+made his grave.'
+
+'But it may remind you of one who is still alive,' said the child.
+
+'Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives, then,'
+rejoined the old man; 'wife, husband, parents, brothers, sisters,
+children, friends--a score at least.  So it happens that the sexton's
+spade gets worn and battered.  I shall need a new one--next summer.'
+
+The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with his
+age and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in earnest.
+
+'Ah!' he said, after a brief silence.  'People never learn.  They never
+learn.  It's only we who turn up the ground, where nothing grows and
+everything decays, who think of such things as these--who think of
+them properly, I mean.  You have been into the church?'
+
+'I am going there now,' the child replied.
+
+'There's an old well there,' said the sexton, 'right underneath the
+belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well.  Forty year ago, you had only to
+let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of the
+windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water.  By little
+and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after that, a
+second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or the bucket
+swung tight and empty at the end.  In ten years' time, the water fell
+again, and a third knot was made.  In ten years more, the well dried
+up; and now, if you lower the bucket till your arms are tired, and let
+out nearly all the cord, you'll hear it, of a sudden, clanking and
+rattling on the ground below; with a sound of being so deep and so far
+down, that your heart leaps into your mouth, and you start away as if
+you were falling in.'
+
+'A dreadful place to come on in the dark!' exclaimed the child, who had
+followed the old man's looks and words until she seemed to stand upon
+its brink.
+
+'What is it but a grave!' said the sexton.  'What else!  And which of
+our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring subsided, of
+their own failing strength, and lessening life?  Not one!'
+
+'Are you very old yourself?' asked the child, involuntarily.
+
+'I shall be seventy-nine--next summer.'
+
+'You still work when you are well?'
+
+'Work!  To be sure.  You shall see my gardens hereabout.  Look at the
+window there.  I made, and have kept, that plot of ground entirely with
+my own hands.  By this time next year I shall hardly see the sky, the
+boughs will have grown so thick.  I have my winter work at night
+besides.'
+
+He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and produced
+some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made of old wood.
+
+'Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to
+them,' he said, 'like to buy these keepsakes from our church and ruins.
+Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here and there;
+sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long preserved.  See
+here--this is a little chest of the last kind, clasped at the edges
+with fragments of brass plates that had writing on 'em once, though it
+would be hard to read it now.  I haven't many by me at this time of
+year, but these shelves will be full--next summer.'
+
+The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards
+departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old man,
+drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one stern moral,
+never contemplated its application to himself; and, while he dwelt upon
+the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and deed to deem
+himself immortal.  But her musings did not stop here, for she was wise
+enough to think that by a good and merciful adjustment this must be
+human nature, and that the old sexton, with his plans for next summer,
+was but a type of all mankind.
+
+Full of these meditations, she reached the church.  It was easy to find
+the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on a scrap
+of yellow parchment.  Its very turning in the lock awoke a hollow
+sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the echoes that it
+raised in closing, made her start.
+
+If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly,
+because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through
+which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep
+impression of finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the
+very light, coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and the
+air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by
+time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch and aisle,
+and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone!  Here was the
+broken pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing
+on the pilgrims' steps, had trodden out their track, and left but
+crumbling stones.  Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the
+sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately tomb
+on which no epitaph remained--all--marble, stone, iron, wood, and
+dust--one common monument of ruin.  The best work and the worst, the
+plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least imposing--both
+of Heaven's work and Man's--all found one common level here, and told
+one common tale.
+
+Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were
+effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded
+hands--cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars--girded
+with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived.  Some of
+these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging
+upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty hooks.  Broken and
+dilapidated as they were, they yet retained their ancient form, and
+something of their ancient aspect.  Thus violent deeds live after men
+upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in
+mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but
+atoms of earth themselves.
+
+The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the stark figures
+on the tombs--they made it more quiet there, than elsewhere, to her
+fancy--and gazing round with a feeling of awe, tempered with a calm
+delight, felt that now she was happy, and at rest.  She took a Bible
+from the shelf, and read; then, laying it down, thought of the summer
+days and the bright springtime that would come--of the rays of sun that
+would fall in aslant, upon the sleeping forms--of the leaves that would
+flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the
+pavement--of the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of
+doors--of the sweet air, that would steal in, and gently wave the
+tattered banners overhead.  What if the spot awakened thoughts of
+death!  Die who would, it would still remain the same; these sights and
+sounds would still go on, as happily as ever.  It would be no pain to
+sleep amidst them.
+
+She left the chapel--very slowly and often turning back to gaze
+again--and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower,
+opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where she
+looked down, through narrow loopholes, on the place she had left, or
+caught a glimmering vision of the dusty bells.  At length she gained
+the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top.
+
+Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields
+and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the bright blue
+sky; the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke, that, coming from
+among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the green earth; the
+children yet at their gambols down below--all, everything, so beautiful
+and happy!  It was like passing from death to life; it was drawing
+nearer Heaven.
+
+The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked the
+door.  As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy hum of
+voices.  Her friend had begun his labours only on that day.  The noise
+grew louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come trooping out and
+disperse themselves with merry shouts and play.  'It's a good thing,'
+thought the child, 'I am very glad they pass the church.'  And then she
+stopped, to fancy how the noise would sound inside, and how gently it
+would seem to die away upon the ear.
+
+Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel, and
+in her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the same quiet
+train of thought.  Even when it had grown dusk, and the shadows of
+coming night made it more solemn still, the child remained, like one
+rooted to the spot, and had no fear or thought of stirring.
+
+They found her there, at last, and took her home.  She looked pale but
+very happy, until they separated for the night; and then, as the poor
+schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he felt a tear
+upon his face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 54
+
+The bachelor, among his various occupations, found in the old church a
+constant source of interest and amusement.  Taking that pride in it
+which men conceive for the wonders of their own little world, he had
+made its history his study; and many a summer day within its walls, and
+many a winter's night beside the parsonage fire, had found the bachelor
+still poring over, and adding to, his goodly store of tale and legend.
+
+As he was not one of those rough spirits who would strip fair Truth of
+every little shadowy vestment in which time and teeming fancies love to
+array her--and some of which become her pleasantly enough, serving,
+like the waters of her well, to add new graces to the charms they half
+conceal and half suggest, and to awaken interest and pursuit rather
+than languor and indifference--as, unlike this stern and obdurate
+class, he loved to see the goddess crowned with those garlands of wild
+flowers which tradition wreathes for her gentle wearing, and which are
+often freshest in their homeliest shapes--he trod with a light step and
+bore with a light hand upon the dust of centuries, unwilling to
+demolish any of the airy shrines that had been raised above it, if any
+good feeling or affection of the human heart were hiding thereabouts.
+Thus, in the case of an ancient coffin of rough stone, supposed, for
+many generations, to contain the bones of a certain baron, who, after
+ravaging, with cut, and thrust, and plunder, in foreign lands, came
+back with a penitent and sorrowing heart to die at home, but which had
+been lately shown by learned antiquaries to be no such thing, as the
+baron in question (so they contended) had died hard in battle, gnashing
+his teeth and cursing with his latest breath--the bachelor stoutly
+maintained that the old tale was the true one; that the baron,
+repenting him of the evil, had done great charities and meekly given up
+the ghost; and that, if ever baron went to heaven, that baron was then
+at peace.  In like manner, when the aforesaid antiquaries did argue and
+contend that a certain secret vault was not the tomb of a grey-haired
+lady who had been hanged and drawn and quartered by glorious Queen Bess
+for succouring a wretched priest who fainted of thirst and hunger at
+her door, the bachelor did solemnly maintain, against all comers, that
+the church was hallowed by the said poor lady's ashes; that her remains
+had been collected in the night from four of the city's gates, and
+thither in secret brought, and there deposited; and the bachelor did
+further (being highly excited at such times) deny the glory of Queen
+Bess, and assert the immeasurably greater glory of the meanest woman in
+her realm, who had a merciful and tender heart.  As to the assertion
+that the flat stone near the door was not the grave of the miser who
+had disowned his only child and left a sum of money to the church to
+buy a peal of bells, the bachelor did readily admit the same, and that
+the place had given birth to no such man.  In a word, he would have had
+every stone, and plate of brass, the monument only of deeds whose
+memory should survive.  All others he was willing to forget.  They
+might be buried in consecrated ground, but he would have had them
+buried deep, and never brought to light again.
+
+It was from the lips of such a tutor, that the child learnt her easy
+task.  Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent building
+and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood--majestic age
+surrounded by perpetual youth--it seemed to her, when she heard these
+things, sacred to all goodness and virtue.  It was another world, where
+sin and sorrow never came; a tranquil place of rest, where nothing evil
+entered.
+
+When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every tomb
+and flat grave-stone some history of its own, he took her down into the
+old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it had been
+lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps depending from
+the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented odours, and habits
+glittering with gold and silver, and pictures, and precious stuffs, and
+jewels all flashing and glistening through the low arches, the chaunt
+of aged voices had been many a time heard there, at midnight, in old
+days, while hooded figures knelt and prayed around, and told their
+rosaries of beads.  Thence, he took her above ground again, and showed
+her, high up in the old walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been
+wont to glide along--dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off--or
+to pause like gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers.  He showed her
+too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn
+those rotting scraps of armour up above--how this had been a helmet,
+and that a shield, and that a gauntlet--and how they had wielded the
+great two-handed swords, and beaten men down, with yonder iron mace.
+All that he told the child she treasured in her mind; and sometimes,
+when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times, and rising from
+her bed looked out at the dark church, she almost hoped to see the
+windows lighted up, and hear the organ's swell, and sound of voices, on
+the rushing wind.
+
+The old sexton soon got better, and was about again.  From him the
+child learnt many other things, though of a different kind.  He was not
+able to work, but one day there was a grave to be made, and he came to
+overlook the man who dug it.  He was in a talkative mood; and the
+child, at first standing by his side, and afterwards sitting on the
+grass at his feet, with her thoughtful face raised towards his, began
+to converse with him.
+
+Now, the man who did the sexton's duty was a little older than he,
+though much more active.  But he was deaf; and when the sexton (who
+peradventure, on a pinch, might have walked a mile with great
+difficulty in half-a-dozen hours) exchanged a remark with him about his
+work, the child could not help noticing that he did so with an
+impatient kind of pity for his infirmity, as if he were himself the
+strongest and heartiest man alive.
+
+'I'm sorry to see there is this to do,' said the child when she
+approached.  'I heard of no one having died.'
+
+'She lived in another hamlet, my dear,' returned the sexton.  'Three
+mile away.'
+
+'Was she young?'
+
+'Ye-yes' said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think.  David,
+was she more than sixty-four?'
+
+David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question.  The
+sexton, as he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was too
+infirm to rise without assistance, called his attention by throwing a
+little mould upon his red nightcap.
+
+'What's the matter now?' said David, looking up.
+
+'How old was Becky Morgan?' asked the sexton.
+
+'Becky Morgan?' repeated David.
+
+'Yes,' replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half
+irritable tone, which the old man couldn't hear, 'you're getting very
+deaf, Davy, very deaf to be sure!'
+
+The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a piece
+of slate he had by him for the purpose--and scraping off, in the
+process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans--set
+himself to consider the subject.
+
+'Let me think' quoth he.  'I saw last night what they had put upon the
+coffin--was it seventy-nine?'
+
+'No, no,' said the sexton.
+
+'Ah yes, it was though,' returned the old man with a sigh.  'For I
+remember thinking she was very near our age.  Yes, it was seventy-nine.'
+
+'Are you sure you didn't mistake a figure, Davy?' asked the sexton,
+with signs of some emotion.
+
+'What?' said the old man.  'Say that again.'
+
+'He's very deaf.  He's very deaf indeed,' cried the sexton petulantly;
+'are you sure you're right about the figures?'
+
+'Oh quite,' replied the old man.  'Why not?'
+
+'He's exceedingly deaf,' muttered the sexton to himself.  'I think he's
+getting foolish.'
+
+The child rather wondered what had led him to this belief, as, to say
+the truth, the old man seemed quite as sharp as he, and was infinitely
+more robust.  As the sexton said nothing more just then, however, she
+forgot it for the time, and spoke again.
+
+'You were telling me,' she said, 'about your gardening.  Do you ever
+plant things here?'
+
+'In the churchyard?' returned the sexton, 'Not I.'
+
+'I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,' the child rejoined;
+'there are some over there, you see.  I thought they were of your
+rearing, though indeed they grow but poorly.'
+
+'They grow as Heaven wills,' said the old man; 'and it kindly ordains
+that they shall never flourish here.'
+
+'I do not understand you.'
+
+'Why, this it is,' said the sexton.  'They mark the graves of those who
+had very tender, loving friends.'
+
+'I was sure they did!' the child exclaimed.  'I am very glad to know
+they do!'
+
+'Aye,' returned the old man, 'but stay.  Look at them.  See how they
+hang their heads, and droop, and wither.  Do you guess the reason?'
+
+'No,' the child replied.
+
+'Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon.  At
+first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come
+less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once a week to
+once a month; then, at long and uncertain intervals; then, not at all.
+Such tokens seldom flourish long.  I have known the briefest summer
+flowers outlive them.'
+
+'I grieve to hear it,' said the child.
+
+'Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,'
+returned the old man, shaking his head, 'but I say otherwise.  "It's a
+pretty custom you have in this part of the country," they say to me
+sometimes, "to plant the graves, but it's melancholy to see these
+things all withering or dead." I crave their pardon and tell them that,
+as I take it, 'tis a good sign for the happiness of the living.  And so
+it is.  It's nature.'
+
+'Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the
+stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in
+graves,' said the child in an earnest voice.
+
+'Perhaps so,' replied the old man doubtfully.  'It may be.'
+
+'Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,' thought the child within
+herself, 'I'll make this place my garden.  It will be no harm at least
+to work here day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of it, I am
+sure.'
+
+Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton, who
+turned towards old David, and called him by his name.  It was plain
+that Becky Morgan's age still troubled him; though why, the child could
+scarcely understand.
+
+The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man's
+attention.  Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put his
+hand to his dull ear.
+
+'Did you call?' he said.
+
+'I have been thinking, Davy,' replied the sexton, 'that she,' he
+pointed to the grave, 'must have been a deal older than you or me.'
+
+'Seventy-nine,' answered the old man with a shake of the head, 'I tell
+you that I saw it.'
+
+'Saw it?' replied the sexton; 'aye, but, Davy, women don't always tell
+the truth about their age.'
+
+'That's true indeed,' said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle in
+his eye.  'She might have been older.'
+
+'I'm sure she must have been.  Why, only think how old she looked.  You
+and I seemed but boys to her.'
+
+'She did look old,' rejoined David.  'You're right.  She did look old.'
+
+'Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and say if
+she could be but seventy-nine at last--only our age,' said the sexton.
+
+'Five year older at the very least!' cried the other.
+
+'Five!' retorted the sexton.  'Ten.  Good eighty-nine.  I call to mind
+the time her daughter died.  She was eighty-nine if she was a day, and
+tries to pass upon us now, for ten year younger.  Oh!  human vanity!'
+
+The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on
+this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such
+weight as to render it doubtful--not whether the deceased was of the
+age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal
+term of a hundred.  When they had settled this question to their mutual
+satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend's assistance, rose to go.
+
+'It's chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful--till the summer,' he
+said, as he prepared to limp away.
+
+'What?' asked old David.
+
+'He's very deaf, poor fellow!' cried the sexton.  'Good-bye!'
+
+'Ah!' said old David, looking after him.  'He's failing very fast.
+He ages every day.'
+
+And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in him
+than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the little
+fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose decease
+was no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and would be no
+business of theirs for half a score of years to come.
+
+The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as he
+threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to cough and
+fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind of sober
+chuckle, that the sexton was wearing fast.  At length she turned away,
+and walking thoughtfully through the churchyard, came unexpectedly upon
+the schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green grave in the sun, reading.
+
+'Nell here?' he said cheerfully, as he closed his book.  'It does me
+good to see you in the air and light.  I feared you were again in the
+church, where you so often are.'
+
+'Feared!' replied the child, sitting down beside him.  'Is it not a
+good place?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster.  'But you must be gay
+sometimes--nay, don't shake your head and smile so sadly.'
+
+'Not sadly, if you knew my heart.  Do not look at me as if you thought
+me sorrowful.  There is not a happier creature on earth, than I am now.'
+
+Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it
+between her own.  'It's God's will!' she said, when they had been
+silent for some time.
+
+'What?'
+
+'All this,' she rejoined; 'all this about us.  But which of us is sad
+now?  You see that I am smiling.'
+
+'And so am I,' said the schoolmaster; 'smiling to think how often we
+shall laugh in this same place.  Were you not talking yonder?'
+
+'Yes,'the child rejoined.
+
+'Of something that has made you sorrowful?'
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+'What was it?' said the schoolmaster, tenderly.  'Come.  Tell me what
+it was.'
+
+'I rather grieve--I _do_ rather grieve to think,' said the child,
+bursting into tears, 'that those who die about us, are so soon
+forgotten.'
+
+'And do you think,' said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had
+thrown around, 'that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded
+flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect?  Do you
+think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may
+be best remembered?  Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world,
+at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very
+graves--neglected as they look to us--are the chief instruments.'
+
+'Tell me no more,' said the child quickly.  'Tell me no more.  I feel,
+I know it.  How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of you?'
+
+'There is nothing,' cried her friend, 'no, nothing innocent or good,
+that dies, and is forgotten.  Let us hold to that faith, or none.  An
+infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the
+better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through
+them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt
+to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea.  There is not an angel added to
+the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that
+loved it here.  Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures
+could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear;
+for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to
+have their growth in dusty graves!'
+
+'Yes,' said the child, 'it is the truth; I know it is.  Who should feel
+its force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives again!  Dear,
+dear, good friend, if you knew the comfort you have given me!'
+
+The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in silence;
+for his heart was full.
+
+They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather
+approached.  Before they had spoken many words together, the church
+clock struck the hour of school, and their friend withdrew.
+
+'A good man,' said the grandfather, looking after him; 'a kind man.
+Surely he will never harm us, Nell.  We are safe here, at last, eh?  We
+will never go away from here?'
+
+The child shook her head and smiled.
+
+'She needs rest,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'too pale--too
+pale.  She is not like what she was.'
+
+'When?' asked the child.
+
+'Ha!' said the old man, 'to be sure--when?  How many weeks ago?  Could
+I count them on my fingers?  Let them rest though; they're better
+gone.'
+
+'Much better, dear,' replied the child.  'We will forget them;
+or, if we ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream
+that has passed away.'
+
+'Hush!' said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand and
+looking over his shoulder; 'no more talk of the dream, and all the
+miseries it brought.  There are no dreams here.  'Tis a quiet place,
+and they keep away.  Let us never think about them, lest they should
+pursue us again.  Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks--wet, cold, and
+famine--and horrors before them all, that were even worse--we must
+forget such things if we would be tranquil here.'
+
+'Thank Heaven!' inwardly exclaimed the child, 'for this most happy
+change!'
+
+'I will be patient,' said the old man, 'humble, very thankful, and
+obedient, if you will let me stay.  But do not hide from me; do not
+steal away alone; let me keep beside you.  Indeed, I will be very true
+and faithful, Nell.'
+
+'I steal away alone! why that,' replied the child, with assumed gaiety,
+'would be a pleasant jest indeed.  See here, dear grandfather, we'll
+make this place our garden--why not!  It is a very good one--and
+to-morrow we'll begin, and work together, side by side.'
+
+'It is a brave thought!' cried her grandfather.  'Mind, darling--we
+begin to-morrow!'
+
+Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their labour!
+Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the spot, as he!
+They plucked the long grass and nettles from the tombs, thinned the
+poor shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and cleared it of the
+leaves and weeds.  They were yet in the ardour of their work, when the
+child, raising her head from the ground over which she bent, observed
+that the bachelor was sitting on the stile close by, watching them in
+silence.
+
+'A kind office,' said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she
+curtseyed to him.  'Have you done all that, this morning?'
+
+'It is very little, sir,' returned the child, with downcast eyes, 'to
+what we mean to do.'
+
+'Good work, good work,' said the bachelor.  'But do you only labour at
+the graves of children, and young people?'
+
+'We shall come to the others in good time, sir,' replied Nell, turning
+her head aside, and speaking softly.
+
+It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident, or
+the child's unconscious sympathy with youth.  But it seemed to strike
+upon her grandfather, though he had not noticed it before.  He looked
+in a hurried manner at the graves, then anxiously at the child, then
+pressed her to his side, and bade her stop to rest.  Something he had
+long forgotten, appeared to struggle faintly in his mind.  It did not
+pass away, as weightier things had done; but came uppermost again, and
+yet again, and many times that day, and often afterwards.  Once, while
+they were yet at work, the child, seeing that he often turned and
+looked uneasily at her, as though he were trying to resolve some
+painful doubts or collect some scattered thoughts, urged him to tell
+the reason.  But he said it was nothing--nothing--and, laying her head
+upon his arm, patted her fair cheek with his hand, and muttered that
+she grew stronger every day, and would be a woman, soon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 55
+
+From that time, there sprung up in the old man's mind, a solicitude
+about the child which never slept or left him.  There are chords in the
+human heart--strange, varying strings--which are only struck by
+accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most
+passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual
+touch.  In the most insensible or childish minds, there is some train
+of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which
+will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the
+discoverer has the plainest end in view.  From that time, the old man
+never, for a moment, forgot the weakness and devotion of the child;
+from the time of that slight incident, he who had seen her toiling by
+his side through so much difficulty and suffering, and had scarcely
+thought of her otherwise than as the partner of miseries which he felt
+severely in his own person, and deplored for his own sake at least as
+much as hers, awoke to a sense of what he owed her, and what those
+miseries had made her.  Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment
+from that time to the end, did any care for himself, any thought of his
+own comfort, any selfish consideration or regard distract his thoughts
+from the gentle object of his love.
+
+He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire and lean
+upon his arm--he would sit opposite to her in the chimney-corner,
+content to watch, and look, until she raised her head and smiled upon
+him as of old--he would discharge by stealth, those household duties
+which tasked her powers too heavily--he would rise, in the cold dark
+nights, to listen to her breathing in her sleep, and sometimes crouch
+for hours by her bedside only to touch her hand.  He who knows all, can
+only know what hopes, and fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were
+in that one disordered brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor
+old man.  Sometimes--weeks had crept on, then--the child, exhausted,
+though with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside
+the fire.  At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and
+read to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor came
+in, and took his turn of reading.  The old man sat and listened--with
+little understanding for the words, but with his eyes fixed upon the
+child--and if she smiled or brightened with the story, he would say it
+was a good one, and conceive a fondness for the very book.  When, in
+their evening talk, the bachelor told some tale that pleased her (as
+his tales were sure to do), the old man would painfully try to store it
+in his mind; nay, when the bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip
+out after him, and humbly beg that he would tell him such a part again,
+that he might learn to win a smile from Nell.
+
+But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be out
+of doors, and walking in her solemn garden.  Parties, too, would come
+to see the church; and those who came, speaking to others of the child,
+sent more; so even at that season of the year they had visitors almost
+daily.  The old man would follow them at a little distance through the
+building, listening to the voice he loved so well; and when the
+strangers left, and parted from Nell, he would mingle with them to
+catch up fragments of their conversation; or he would stand for the
+same purpose, with his grey head uncovered, at the gate as they passed
+through.
+
+They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was proud
+to hear them!  But what was that, so often added, which wrung his
+heart, and made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner!  Alas!
+even careless strangers--they who had no feeling for her, but the
+interest of the moment--they who would go away and forget next week
+that such a being lived--even they saw it--even they pitied her--even
+they bade him good day compassionately, and whispered as they passed.
+
+The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew to
+have a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the same
+feeling; a tenderness towards her--a compassionate regard for her,
+increasing every day.  The very schoolboys, light-hearted and
+thoughtless as they were, even they cared for her.  The roughest among
+them was sorry if he missed her in the usual place upon his way to
+school, and would turn out of the path to ask for her at the latticed
+window.  If she were sitting in the church, they perhaps might peep in
+softly at the open door; but they never spoke to her, unless she rose
+and went to speak to them.  Some feeling was abroad which raised the
+child above them all.
+
+So, when Sunday came.  They were all poor country people in the church,
+for the castle in which the old family had lived, was an empty ruin,
+and there were none but humble folks for seven miles around.  There, as
+elsewhere, they had an interest in Nell.  They would gather round her
+in the porch, before and after service; young children would cluster at
+her skirts; and aged men and women forsake their gossips, to give her
+kindly greeting.  None of them, young or old, thought of passing the
+child without a friendly word.  Many who came from three or four miles
+distant, brought her little presents; the humblest and rudest had good
+wishes to bestow.
+
+She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in the
+churchyard.  One of these--he who had spoken of his brother--was her
+little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in the church,
+or climbed with her to the tower-top.  It was his delight to help her,
+or to fancy that he did so, and they soon became close companions.
+
+It happened, that, as she was reading in the old spot by herself one
+day, this child came running in with his eyes full of tears, and after
+holding her from him, and looking at her eagerly for a moment, clasped
+his little arms passionately about her neck.
+
+'What now?' said Nell, soothing him.  'What is the matter?'
+
+'She is not one yet!' cried the boy, embracing her still more closely.
+'No, no.  Not yet.'
+
+She looked at him wonderingly, and putting his hair back from his face,
+and kissing him, asked what he meant.
+
+'You must not be one, dear Nell,' cried the boy.  'We can't see them.
+They never come to play with us, or talk to us.  Be what you are.  You
+are better so.'
+
+'I do not understand you,' said the child.  'Tell me what you mean.'
+
+'Why, they say,' replied the boy, looking up into her face, that you
+will be an Angel, before the birds sing again.  But you won't be, will
+you?  Don't leave us Nell, though the sky is bright.  Do not leave us!'
+
+The child dropped her head, and put her hands before her face.
+
+'She cannot bear the thought!' cried the boy, exulting through his
+tears.  'You will not go.  You know how sorry we should be.  Dear Nell,
+tell me that you'll stay amongst us.  Oh!  Pray, pray, tell me that you
+will.'
+
+The little creature folded his hands, and knelt down at her feet.
+
+'Only look at me, Nell,' said the boy, 'and tell me that you'll stop,
+and then I shall know that they are wrong, and will cry no more.  Won't
+you say yes, Nell?'
+
+Still the drooping head and hidden face, and the child quite
+silent--save for her sobs.
+
+'After a time,' pursued the boy, trying to draw away her hand, 'the kind
+angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and that you
+stayed here to be with us.  Willy went away, to join them; but if he
+had known how I should miss him in our little bed at night, he never
+would have left me, I am sure.'
+
+Yet the child could make him no answer, and sobbed as though her heart
+were bursting.  'Why would you go, dear Nell?  I know you would not be
+happy when you heard that we were crying for your loss.  They say that
+Willy is in Heaven now, and that it's always summer there, and yet I'm
+sure he grieves when I lie down upon his garden bed, and he cannot turn
+to kiss me.  But if you do go, Nell,' said the boy, caressing her, and
+pressing his face to hers, 'be fond of him for my sake.  Tell him how I
+love him still, and how much I loved you; and when I think that you two
+are together, and are happy, I'll try to bear it, and never give you
+pain by doing wrong--indeed I never will!'
+
+The child suffered him to move her hands, and put them round his neck.
+There was a tearful silence, but it was not long before she looked upon
+him with a smile, and promised him, in a very gentle, quiet voice, that
+she would stay, and be his friend, as long as Heaven would let her.  He
+clapped his hands for joy, and thanked her many times; and being
+charged to tell no person what had passed between them, gave her an
+earnest promise that he never would.
+
+Nor did he, so far as the child could learn; but was her quiet
+companion in all her walks and musings, and never again adverted to the
+theme, which he felt had given her pain, although he was unconscious of
+its cause.  Something of distrust lingered about him still; for he
+would often come, even in the dark evenings, and call in a timid voice
+outside the door to know if she were safe within; and being answered
+yes, and bade to enter, would take his station on a low stool at her
+feet, and sit there patiently until they came to seek, and take him
+home.  Sure as the morning came, it found him lingering near the house
+to ask if she were well; and, morning, noon, or night, go where she
+would, he would forsake his playmates and his sports to bear her
+company.
+
+'And a good little friend he is, too,' said the old sexton to her once.
+'When his elder brother died--elder seems a strange word, for he was
+only seven years old--I remember this one took it sorely to heart.'
+
+The child thought of what the schoolmaster had told her, and felt how
+its truth was shadowed out even in this infant.
+
+'It has given him something of a quiet way, I think,' said the old man,
+'though for that he is merry enough at times.  I'd wager now that you
+and he have been listening by the old well.'
+
+'Indeed we have not,' the child replied.  'I have been afraid to go
+near it; for I am not often down in that part of the church, and do not
+know the ground.'
+
+'Come down with me,' said the old man.  'I have known it from a boy.
+Come!'
+
+They descended the narrow steps which led into the crypt, and paused
+among the gloomy arches, in a dim and murky spot.
+
+'This is the place,' said the old man.  'Give me your hand while you
+throw back the cover, lest you should stumble and fall in.  I am too
+old--I mean rheumatic--to stoop, myself.'
+
+'A black and dreadful place!' exclaimed the child.
+
+'Look in,' said the old man, pointing downward with his finger.
+
+The child complied, and gazed down into the pit.
+
+'It looks like a grave itself,' said the old man.
+
+'It does,' replied the child.
+
+'I have often had the fancy,' said the sexton, 'that it might have been
+dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old monks more
+religious.  It's to be closed up, and built over.'
+
+The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault.
+
+'We shall see,' said the sexton, 'on what gay heads other earth will
+have closed, when the light is shut out from here.  God knows!  They'll
+close it up, next spring.'
+
+'The birds sing again in spring,' thought the child, as she leaned at
+her casement window, and gazed at the declining sun.  'Spring! a
+beautiful and happy time!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 56
+
+A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr Swiveller
+walked into Sampson Brass's office at the usual hour, and being alone
+in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking
+from his pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to
+folding and pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband.
+Having completed the construction of this appendage, he surveyed his
+work with great complacency, and put his hat on again--very much over
+one eye, to increase the mournfulness of the effect.  These
+arrangements perfected to his entire satisfaction, he thrust his hands
+into his pockets, and walked up and down the office with measured steps.
+
+'It has always been the same with me,' said Mr Swiveller, 'always.
+'Twas ever thus--from childhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes
+decay, I never loved a tree or flower but 'twas the first to fade away;
+I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but
+when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a
+market-gardener.'
+
+Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the
+clients' chair, and flung himself into its open arms.
+
+'And this,' said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure, 'is
+life, I believe.  Oh, certainly.  Why not!  I'm quite satisfied.  I
+shall wear,' added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard
+at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary considerations from
+spurning it with his foot, 'I shall wear this emblem of woman's
+perfidy, in remembrance of her with whom I shall never again thread the
+windings of the mazy; whom I shall never more pledge in the rosy; who,
+during the short remainder of my existence, will murder the balmy.  Ha,
+ha, ha!'
+
+It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any
+incongruity in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr Swiveller did not
+wind up with a cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been
+undoubtedly at variance with his solemn reflections, but that, being in
+a theatrical mood, he merely achieved that performance which is
+designated in melodramas 'laughing like a fiend,'--for it seems that
+your fiends always laugh in syllables, and always in three syllables,
+never more nor less, which is a remarkable property in such gentry, and
+one worthy of remembrance.
+
+The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr Swiveller was still
+sitting in a very grim state in the clients' chair, when there came a
+ring--or, if we may adapt the sound to his then humour, a knell--at
+the office bell.  Opening the door with all speed, he beheld the
+expressive countenance of Mr Chuckster, between whom and himself a
+fraternal greeting ensued.
+
+'You're devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter-house,' said
+that gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the other in an
+easy manner.
+
+'Rather,' returned Dick.
+
+'Rather!' retorted Mr Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling
+which so well became him.  'I should think so.  Why, my good feller, do
+you know what o'clock it is--half-past nine a.m. in the morning?'
+
+'Won't you come in?' said Dick.  'All alone.  Swiveller solus.  "'Tis
+now the witching--"'
+
+'"Hour of night!"'
+
+'"When churchyards yawn,"'
+
+'"And graves give up their dead."'
+
+At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an
+attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the office.
+Such morsels of enthusiasm are common among the Glorious Apollos, and
+were indeed the links that bound them together, and raised them above
+the cold dull earth.
+
+'Well, and how are you my buck?' said Mr Chuckster, taking a stool.  'I
+was forced to come into the City upon some little private matters of my
+own, and couldn't pass the corner of the street without looking in, but
+upon my soul I didn't expect to find you.  It is so everlastingly
+early.'
+
+Mr Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments; and it appearing on further
+conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr Chuckster was in
+the like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in compliance with a
+solemn custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which they belonged, joined
+in a fragment of the popular duet of 'All's Well,' with a long shake
+at the end.
+
+'And what's the news?' said Richard.
+
+'The town's as flat, my dear feller,' replied Mr Chuckster, 'as the
+surface of a Dutch oven.  There's no news.  By-the-bye, that lodger of
+yours is a most extraordinary person.  He quite eludes the most
+vigorous comprehension, you know.  Never was such a feller!'
+
+'What has he been doing now?' said Dick.
+
+'By Jove, Sir,' returned Mr Chuckster, taking out an oblong snuff-box,
+the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox's head curiously carved in
+brass, 'that man is an unfathomable.  Sir, that man has made friends
+with our articled clerk.  There's no harm in him, but he is so
+amazingly slow and soft.  Now, if he wanted a friend, why couldn't he
+have one that knew a thing or two, and could do him some good by his
+manners and conversation.  I have my faults, sir,' said Mr Chuckster--
+
+'No, no,' interposed Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better than I
+know mine.  But,' said Mr Chuckster, 'I'm not meek.  My worst
+enemies--every man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine--never
+accused me of being meek.  And I tell you what, Sir, if I hadn't more
+of these qualities that commonly endear man to man, than our articled
+clerk has, I'd steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it round my neck, and drown
+myself.  I'd die degraded, as I had lived.  I would upon my honour.'
+
+Mr Chuckster paused, rapped the fox's head exactly on the nose with the
+knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily
+at Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he was going to
+sneeze, he would find himself mistaken.
+
+'Not contented, Sir,' said Mr Chuckster, 'with making friends with
+Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother.
+Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there--
+actually been there.  He patronises young Snobby besides; you'll find,
+Sir, that he'll be constantly coming backwards and forwards to this
+place: yet I don't suppose that beyond the common forms of civility, he
+has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me.  Now, upon my soul, you
+know,' said Mr Chuckster, shaking his head gravely, as men are wont to
+do when they consider things are going a little too far, 'this is
+altogether such a low-minded affair, that if I didn't feel for the
+governor, and know that he could never get on without me, I should be
+obliged to cut the connection.  I should have no alternative.'
+
+Mr Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend, stirred
+the fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing.
+
+'As to young Snob, sir,' pursued Mr Chuckster with a prophetic look,
+'you'll find he'll turn out bad.  In our profession we know something
+of human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller that came
+back to work out that shilling, will show himself one of these days in
+his true colours.  He's a low thief, sir.  He must be.'
+
+Mr Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject
+further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door,
+which seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business, caused
+him to assume a greater appearance of meekness than was perhaps quite
+consistent with his late declaration.  Mr Swiveller, hearing the same
+sound, caused his stool to revolve rapidly on one leg until it brought
+him to his desk, into which, having forgotten in the sudden flurry of
+his spirits to part with the poker, he thrust it as he cried 'Come in!'
+
+Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme of
+Mr Chuckster's wrath!  Never did man pluck up his courage so quickly,
+or look so fierce, as Mr Chuckster when he found it was he.  Mr
+Swiveller stared at him for a moment, and then leaping from his stool,
+and drawing out the poker from its place of concealment, performed the
+broad-sword exercise with all the cuts and guards complete, in a
+species of frenzy.
+
+'Is the gentleman at home?' said Kit, rather astonished by this
+uncommon reception.
+
+Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took occasion to
+enter his indignant protest against this form of inquiry; which he held
+to be of a disrespectful and snobbish tendency, inasmuch as the
+inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and there present, should have
+spoken of the other gentleman; or rather (for it was not impossible
+that the object of his search might be of inferior quality) should have
+mentioned his name, leaving it to his hearers to determine his degree
+as they thought proper.  Mr Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had
+some reason to believe this form of address was personal to himself,
+and that he was not a man to be trifled with--as certain snobs (whom he
+did not more particularly mention or describe) might find to their cost.
+
+'I mean the gentleman up-stairs,' said Kit, turning to Richard
+Swiveller.  'Is he at home?'
+
+'Why?' rejoined Dick.
+
+'Because if he is, I have a letter for him.'
+
+'From whom?' said Dick.
+
+'From Mr Garland.'
+
+'Oh!' said Dick, with extreme politeness.  'Then you may hand it over,
+Sir.  And if you're to wait for an answer, Sir, you may wait in the
+passage, Sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated apartment, sir.'
+
+'Thank you,' returned Kit.  'But I am to give it to himself, if you
+please.'
+
+The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster, and
+so moved his tender regard for his friend's honour, that he declared,
+if he were not restrained by official considerations, he must certainly
+have annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of the affront which
+he did consider, under the extraordinary circumstances of aggravation
+attending it, could but have met with the proper sanction and approval
+of a jury of Englishmen, who, he had no doubt, would have returned a
+verdict of justifiable Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the
+morals and character of the Avenger.  Mr Swiveller, without being quite
+so hot upon the matter, was rather shamed by his friend's excitement,
+and not a little puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and
+good-humoured), when the single gentleman was heard to call violently
+down the stairs.
+
+'Didn't I see somebody for me, come in?' cried the lodger.
+
+'Yes, Sir,' replied Dick.  'Certainly, Sir.'
+
+'Then where is he?' roared the single gentleman.
+
+'He's here, sir,' rejoined Mr Swiveller.  'Now young man, don't you
+hear you're to go up-stairs?  Are you deaf?'
+
+Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any
+altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing at
+each other in silence.
+
+'Didn't I tell you so?' said Mr Chuckster.  'What do you think of that?'
+
+Mr Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not
+perceiving in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude,
+scarcely knew what answer to return.  He was relieved from his
+perplexity, however, by the entrance of Mr Sampson and his sister,
+Sally, at sight of whom Mr Chuckster precipitately retired.
+
+Mr Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a
+consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of great
+interest and importance.  On the occasion of such conferences, they
+generally appeared in the office some half an hour after their usual
+time, and in a very smiling state, as though their late plots and
+designs had tranquillised their minds and shed a light upon their
+toilsome way.  In the present instance, they seemed particularly gay;
+Miss Sally's aspect being of a most oily kind, and Mr Brass rubbing his
+hands in an exceedingly jocose and light-hearted manner.
+
+'Well, Mr Richard,' said Brass.  'How are we this morning?  Are we
+pretty fresh and cheerful sir--eh, Mr Richard?'
+
+'Pretty well, sir,' replied Dick.
+
+'That's well,' said Brass.  'Ha ha!  We should be as gay as larks, Mr
+Richard--why not?  It's a pleasant world we live in sir, a very
+pleasant world.  There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if there
+were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.  Ha ha!  Any
+letters by the post this morning, Mr Richard?'
+
+Mr Swiveller answered in the negative.
+
+'Ha!' said Brass, 'no matter.  If there's little business to-day,
+there'll be more to-morrow.  A contented spirit, Mr Richard, is the
+sweetness of existence.  Anybody been here, sir?'
+
+'Only my friend'--replied Dick.  'May we ne'er want a--'
+
+'Friend,' Brass chimed in quickly, 'or a bottle to give him.  Ha ha!
+That's the way the song runs, isn't it?  A very good song, Mr Richard,
+very good.  I like the sentiment of it.  Ha ha!  Your friend's the
+young man from Witherden's office I think--yes--May we ne'er want a--
+Nobody else at all, been, Mr Richard?'
+
+'Only somebody to the lodger,' replied Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Oh indeed!' cried Brass.  'Somebody to the lodger eh?  Ha ha!  May we
+ne'er want a friend, or a----  Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr Richard?'
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy of
+spirits which his employer displayed.  'With him now.'
+
+'With him now!' cried Brass; 'Ha ha!  There let 'em be, merry and free,
+toor rul lol le.  Eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!'
+
+'Oh certainly,' replied Dick.
+
+'And who,' said Brass, shuffling among his papers, 'who is the lodger's
+visitor--not a lady visitor, I hope, eh, Mr Richard?  The morals of the
+Marks you know, sir--"when lovely women stoops to folly"--and all
+that--eh, Mr Richard?'
+
+'Another young man, who belongs to Witherden's too, or half belongs
+there,' returned Richard.  'Kit, they call him.'
+
+'Kit, eh!' said Brass.  'Strange name--name of a dancing-master's
+fiddle, eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!  Kit's there, is he?  Oh!'
+
+Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn't check this
+uncommon exuberance on the part of Mr Sampson; but as she made no
+attempt to do so, and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit acquiescence
+in it, he concluded that they had just been cheating somebody, and
+receiving the bill.
+
+'Will you have the goodness, Mr Richard,' said Brass, taking a letter
+from his desk, 'just to step over to Peckham Rye with that?  There's no
+answer, but it's rather particular and should go by hand.  Charge the
+office with your coach-hire back, you know; don't spare the office; get
+as much out of it as you can--clerk's motto--Eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!'
+
+Mr Swiveller solemnly doffed the aquatic jacket, put on his coat, took
+down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed.  As soon
+as he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling sweetly at her
+brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return) withdrew also.
+
+Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-door
+wide open, and establishing himself at his desk directly opposite, so
+that he could not fail to see anybody who came down-stairs and passed
+out at the street door, began to write with extreme cheerfulness and
+assiduity; humming as he did so, in a voice that was anything but
+musical, certain vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the
+union between Church and State, inasmuch as they were compounded of the
+Evening Hymn and God save the King.
+
+Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for a
+long time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning face,
+and hearing nothing, went on humming louder, and writing slower than
+ever.  At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his lodger's door
+opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the stairs.  Then, Mr Brass
+left off writing entirely, and, with his pen in his hand, hummed his
+very loudest; shaking his head meanwhile from side to side, like a man
+whose whole soul was in the music, and smiling in a manner quite
+seraphic.
+
+It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the sweet
+sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass stopped
+his singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at the same time
+beckoning to him with his pen.
+
+'Kit,' said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, 'how do you
+do?'
+
+Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had his
+hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him softly
+back.
+
+'You are not to go, if you please, Kit,' said the attorney in a
+mysterious and yet business-like way.  'You are to step in here, if you
+please.  Dear me, dear me!  When I look at you,' said the lawyer,
+quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his back towards
+it, 'I am reminded of the sweetest little face that ever my eyes
+beheld.  I remember your coming there, twice or thrice, when we were in
+possession.  Ah Kit, my dear fellow, gentleman in my profession have
+such painful duties to perform sometimes, that you needn't envy us--you
+needn't indeed!'
+
+'I don't, sir,' said Kit, 'though it isn't for the like of me to judge.'
+
+'Our only consolation, Kit,' pursued the lawyer, looking at him in a
+sort of pensive abstraction, 'is, that although we cannot turn away the
+wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so, to the shorn
+lambs.'
+
+'Shorn indeed!' thought Kit.  'Pretty close!' But he didn't say _so_.
+
+'On that occasion, Kit,' said Mr Brass, 'on that occasion that I have
+just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr Quilp is a
+very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had.  It might have
+cost me a client.  But suffering virtue inspired me, and I prevailed.'
+
+'He's not so bad after all,' thought honest Kit, as the attorney pursed
+up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with his better
+feelings.
+
+'I respect you, Kit,' said Brass with emotion.  'I saw enough of your
+conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is humble,
+and your fortune lowly.  It isn't the waistcoat that I look at.  It is
+the heart.  The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage.
+But the heart is the bird.  Ah!  How many sich birds are perpetually
+moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all
+mankind!'
+
+This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to his
+own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass's voice and manner
+added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all the mild
+austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his
+rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be completely set
+up in that line of business.
+
+'Well, well,' said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they
+compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-creatures,
+'this is wide of the bull's-eye.  You're to take that, if you please.'
+As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns on the desk.
+
+Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.
+
+'For yourself,' said Brass.  'From--'
+
+'No matter about the person they came from,' replied the lawyer.  'Say
+me, if you like.  We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and we
+mustn't ask questions or talk too much--you understand?  You're to take
+them, that's all; and between you and me, I don't think they'll be the
+last you'll have to take from the same place.  I hope not.  Good bye,
+Kit.  Good bye!'
+
+With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such
+slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation
+turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took the
+money and made the best of his way home.  Mr Brass remained airing
+himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his seraphic
+smile, simultaneously.
+
+'May I come in?' said Miss Sally, peeping.
+
+'Oh yes, you may come in,' returned her brother.
+
+'Ahem!' coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.
+
+'Why, yes,' returned Sampson, 'I should say as good as done.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 57
+
+Mr Chuckster's indignant apprehensions were not without foundation.
+Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr Garland
+was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and flourished
+exceedingly.  They were soon in habits of constant intercourse and
+communication; and the single gentleman labouring at this time under a
+slight attack of illness--the consequence most probably of his late
+excited feelings and subsequent disappointment--furnished a reason for
+their holding yet more frequent correspondence; so that some one of the
+inmates of Abel Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between
+that place and Bevis Marks, almost every day.
+
+As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any mincing of
+the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused to be driven by
+anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether old Mr Garland
+came, or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party.  Of all messages and inquiries,
+Kit was, in right of his position, the bearer; thus it came about that,
+while the single gentleman remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis
+Marks every morning with nearly as much regularity as the General
+Postman.
+
+Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply
+about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony's trot and the clatter
+of the little chaise at the corner of the street.  Whenever the sound
+reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to
+rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee.
+
+'Ha ha!' he would cry.  'Here's the pony again!  Most remarkable pony,
+extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?'
+
+Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass standing on
+the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of the street over
+the top of the window-blind, would take an observation of the visitors.
+
+'The old gentleman again!' he would exclaim, 'a very prepossessing old
+gentleman, Mr Richard--charming countenance, sir--extremely
+calm--benevolence in every feature, sir.  He quite realises my idea of
+King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his kingdom, Mr
+Richard--the same good humour, the same white hair and partial
+baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon.  Ah!  A sweet subject
+for contemplation, sir, very sweet!'
+
+Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would nod
+and smile to Kit from the window, and presently walk out into the
+street to greet him, when some such conversation as the following would
+ensue.
+
+'Admirably groomed, Kit'--Mr Brass is patting the pony--'does you great
+credit--amazingly sleek and bright to be sure.  He literally looks as
+if he had been varnished all over.'
+
+Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses his
+conviction, 'that Mr Brass will not find many like him.'
+
+'A beautiful animal indeed!' cries Brass.  'Sagacious too?'
+
+'Bless you!' replies Kit, 'he knows what you say to him as well as a
+Christian does.'
+
+'Does he indeed!' cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the same
+place from the same person in the same words a dozen times, but is
+paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding.  'Dear me!'
+
+'I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,' says Kit, pleased
+with the attorney's strong interest in his favourite, 'that I should
+come to be as intimate with him as I am now.'
+
+'Ah!' rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of virtue.
+'A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming.  A subject of
+proper pride and congratulation, Christopher.  Honesty is the best
+policy.--I always find it so myself.  I lost forty-seven pound ten by
+being honest this morning.  But it's all gain, it's gain!'
+
+Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with the
+water standing in his eyes.  Kit thinks that if ever there was a good
+man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass.
+
+'A man,' says Sampson, 'who loses forty-seven pound ten in one morning
+by his honesty, is a man to be envied.  If it had been eighty pound,
+the luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased.  Every pound
+lost, would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained.  The still
+small voice, Christopher,' cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on
+the bosom, 'is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness
+and joy!'
+
+Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so completely
+home to his feelings, that he is considering what he shall say, when Mr
+Garland appears.  The old gentleman is helped into the chaise with
+great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and the pony, after shaking
+his head several times, and standing for three or four minutes with all
+his four legs planted firmly on the ground, as if he had made up his
+mind never to stir from that spot, but there to live and die, suddenly
+darts off, without the smallest notice, at the rate of twelve English
+miles an hour.  Then, Mr Brass and his sister (who has joined him at
+the door) exchange an odd kind of smile--not at all a pleasant one in
+its expression--and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller,
+who, during their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats
+of pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and
+heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a penknife.
+
+Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened
+that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr Swiveller,
+if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some pretty distant place
+from which he could not be expected to return for two or three hours,
+or in all probability a much longer period, as that gentleman was not,
+to say the truth, renowned for using great expedition on such
+occasions, but rather for protracting and spinning out the time to the
+very utmost limit of possibility.  Mr Swiveller out of sight, Miss
+Sally immediately withdrew.  Mr Brass would then set the office-door
+wide open, hum his old tune with great gaiety of heart, and smile
+seraphically as before.  Kit coming down-stairs would be called in;
+entertained with some moral and agreeable conversation; perhaps
+entreated to mind the office for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over
+the way; and afterwards presented with one or two half-crowns as the
+case might be.  This occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but
+that they came from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his
+mother with great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity;
+and bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and
+for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them was
+having some new trifle every day of their lives.
+
+While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the office of
+Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone therein, began
+to find the time hang heavy on his hands.  For the better preservation
+of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent his faculties from
+rusting, he provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards,
+and accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty,
+thirty, or sometimes even fifty thousand pounds aside, besides many
+hazardous bets to a considerable amount.
+
+As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the
+magnitude of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think that
+on those evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they often went
+out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the
+direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection,
+must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp
+living.  Looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished
+an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt
+that his suspicions were correct, he stole softly to the door, and
+pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach.
+
+'Oh! I didn't mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn't,' cried the
+small servant, struggling like a much larger one.  'It's so very dull,
+down-stairs, Please don't you tell upon me, please don't.'
+
+'Tell upon you!' said Dick.  'Do you mean to say you were looking
+through the keyhole for company?'
+
+'Yes, upon my word I was,' replied the small servant.
+
+'How long have you been cooling your eye there?' said Dick.
+
+'Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before.'
+
+Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he had
+refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of which,
+no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted Mr
+Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered
+himself speedily.
+
+'Well--come in'--he said, after a little consideration.  'Here--sit
+down, and I'll teach you how to play.'
+
+'Oh! I durstn't do it,' rejoined the small servant; 'Miss Sally 'ud
+kill me, if she know'd I come up here.'
+
+'Have you got a fire down-stairs?' said Dick.
+
+'A very little one,' replied the small servant.
+
+'Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she know'd I went down there, so I'll
+come,' said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket.  'Why, how thin
+you are!  What do you mean by it?'
+
+'It ain't my fault.'
+
+'Could you eat any bread and meat?' said Dick, taking down his hat.
+'Yes?  Ah! I thought so.  Did you ever taste beer?'
+
+'I had a sip of it once,' said the small servant.
+
+'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the
+ceiling.  'She never tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip!  Why, how
+old are you?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a
+moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back,
+vanished straightway.
+
+Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public-house, who
+bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great
+pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a
+grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a particular
+recipe which Mr Swiveller had imparted to the landlord, at a period
+when he was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate his
+friendship.  Relieving the boy of his burden at the door, and charging
+his little companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, Mr Swiveller
+followed her into the kitchen.
+
+'There!' said Richard, putting the plate before her.  'First of all
+clear that off, and then you'll see what's next.'
+
+The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon
+empty.
+
+'Next,' said Dick, handing the purl, 'take a pull at that; but moderate
+your transports, you know, for you're not used to it.  Well, is it
+good?'
+
+'Oh! isn't it?' said the small servant.
+
+Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply,
+and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his companion
+while he did so.  These preliminaries disposed of, he applied himself
+to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being
+both sharp-witted and cunning.
+
+'Now,' said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and
+trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt,
+'those are the stakes.  If you win, you get 'em all.  If I win, I get
+'em.  To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the
+Marchioness, do you hear?'
+
+The small servant nodded.
+
+'Then, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'fire away!'
+
+The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered
+which to play, and Mr Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air
+which such society required, took another pull at the tankard, and
+waited for her lead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 58
+
+Mr Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying
+success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the
+purl, and the striking of ten o'clock, combined to render that
+gentleman mindful of the flight of Time, and the expediency of
+withdrawing before Mr Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned.
+
+'With which object in view, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller gravely, 'I
+shall ask your ladyship's permission to put the board in my pocket, and
+to retire from the presence when I have finished this tankard; merely
+observing, Marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, I care
+not how fast it rolls on, ma'am, on, while such purl on the bank still
+is growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run.  Marchioness,
+your health.  You will excuse my wearing my hat, but the palace is
+damp, and the marble floor is--if I may be allowed the
+expression--sloppy.'
+
+As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr Swiveller had
+been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude
+he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly
+sipped the last choice drops of nectar.
+
+'The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the
+Play?' said Mr Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table,
+and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a
+theatrical bandit.
+
+The Marchioness nodded.
+
+'Ha!' said Mr Swiveller, with a portentous frown.  ''Tis well.
+Marchioness!--but no matter.  Some wine there.  Ho!' He illustrated
+these melodramatic morsels by handing the tankard to himself with great
+humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and
+smacking his lips fiercely.
+
+The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical
+conventionalities as Mr Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play, or
+heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors and in
+other forbidden places), was rather alarmed by demonstrations so novel
+in their nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks, that
+Mr Swiveller felt it necessary to discharge his brigand manner for one
+more suitable to private life, as he asked,
+
+'Do they often go where glory waits 'em, and leave you here?'
+
+'Oh, yes; I believe you they do,' returned the small servant.  'Miss
+Sally's such a one-er for that, she is.'
+
+'Such a what?' said Dick.
+
+'Such a one-er,' returned the Marchioness.
+
+After a moment's reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his
+responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk on; as
+it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and her
+opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a
+momentary check of little consequence.
+
+'They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,' said the small servant with a
+shrewd look; 'they go to a many places, bless you!'
+
+'Is Mr Brass a wunner?' said Dick.
+
+'Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn't,' replied the small servant,
+shaking her head.  'Bless you, he'd never do anything without her.'
+
+'Oh!  He wouldn't, wouldn't he?' said Dick.
+
+'Miss Sally keeps him in such order,' said the small servant; 'he
+always asks her advice, he does; and he catches it sometimes.  Bless
+you, you wouldn't believe how much he catches it.'
+
+'I suppose,' said Dick, 'that they consult together, a good deal, and
+talk about a great many people--about me for instance, sometimes, eh,
+Marchioness?'
+
+The Marchioness nodded amazingly.
+
+'Complimentary?' said Mr Swiveller.
+
+The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left
+off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side, with a
+vehemence which threatened to dislocate her neck.
+
+'Humph!' Dick muttered.  'Would it be any breach of confidence,
+Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has
+now the honour to--?'
+
+'Miss Sally says you're a funny chap,' replied his friend.
+
+'Well, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that's not uncomplimentary.
+Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a degrading quality.  Old King
+Cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages
+of history.'
+
+'But she says,' pursued his companion, 'that you an't to be trusted.'
+
+'Why, really Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully; 'several
+ladies and gentlemen--not exactly professional persons, but
+tradespeople, ma'am, tradespeople--have made the same remark.  The
+obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined strongly to
+that opinion to-night when I ordered him to prepare the banquet.  It's
+a popular prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure I don't know why,
+for I have been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and I can
+safely say that I never forsook my trust until it deserted me--never.
+Mr Brass is of the same opinion, I suppose?'
+
+His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that
+Mr Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and
+seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, 'But don't you ever
+tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.'
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, rising, 'the word of a gentleman is
+as good as his bond--sometimes better, as in the present case, where
+his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security.  I am your
+friend, and I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in this
+same saloon.  But, Marchioness,' added Richard, stopping in his way to
+the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was
+following with the candle; 'it occurs to me that you must be in the
+constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes, to know all this.'
+
+'I only wanted,' replied the trembling Marchioness, 'to know where the
+key of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn't have taken much,
+if I had found it--only enough to squench my hunger.'
+
+'You didn't find it then?' said Dick.  'But of course you didn't, or
+you'd be plumper.  Good night, Marchioness.  Fare thee well, and if for
+ever, then for ever fare thee well--and put up the chain, Marchioness,
+in case of accidents.'
+
+With this parting injunction, Mr Swiveller emerged from the house; and
+feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as
+promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong
+and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings,
+and to bed at once.  Homeward he went therefore; and his apartments
+(for he still retained the plural fiction) being at no great distance
+from the office, he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber, where,
+having pulled off one boot and forgotten the other, he fell into deep
+cogitation.
+
+'This Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, folding his arms, 'is a very
+extraordinary person--surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of
+beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and
+taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors--can
+these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an
+opposition to the decrees of fate?  It is a most inscrutable and
+unmitigated staggerer!'
+
+When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became
+aware of his remaining boot, of which, with unimpaired solemnity he
+proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with exceeding gravity
+all the time, and sighing deeply.
+
+'These rubbers,' said Mr Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly
+the same style as he wore his hat, 'remind me of the matrimonial
+fireside.  Cheggs's wife plays cribbage; all-fours likewise.  She rings
+the changes on 'em now.  From sport to sport they hurry her to banish
+her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that she
+forgets--but she don't.  By this time, I should say,' added Richard,
+getting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the
+reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; 'by
+this time, I should say, the iron has entered into her soul.  It serves
+her right!'
+
+Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic
+mood, Mr Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and
+even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better
+of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead.  At last,
+undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.
+
+Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but as
+Mr Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the
+news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to playing the flute;
+thinking after mature consideration that it was a good, sound, dismal
+occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but
+calculated to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours.
+In pursuance of this resolution, he now drew a little table to his
+bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the
+best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most
+mournfully.
+
+The air was 'Away with melancholy'--a composition, which, when it is
+played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage
+of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the
+instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find
+the next, has not a lively effect.  Yet, for half the night, or more,
+Mr Swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the
+ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed to correct himself by the book,
+played this unhappy tune over and over again; never leaving off, save
+for a minute or two at a time to take breath and soliloquise about the
+Marchioness, and then beginning again with renewed vigour.  It was not
+until he had quite exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and
+had breathed into the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its
+very dregs, and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at
+both the next doors, and over the way--that he shut up the music-book,
+extinguished the candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and
+relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep.
+
+He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having taken half an
+hour's exercise at the flute, and graciously received a notice to quit
+from his landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for that
+purpose since the dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks; where the
+beautiful Sally was already at her post, bearing in her looks a
+radiance, mild as that which beameth from the virgin moon.
+
+Mr Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his coat
+for the aquatic jacket; which usually took some time fitting on, for in
+consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only to be got into
+by a series of struggles.  This difficulty overcome, he took his seat
+at the desk.
+
+'I say'--quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, 'you haven't seen
+a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?'
+
+'I didn't meet many in the street,' rejoined Mr Swiveller.  'I saw
+one--a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance--but as he was in
+company with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with whom he
+was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking to him.'
+
+'No, but have you?' returned Miss Brass.  'Seriously, you know.'
+
+'What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,' said
+Mr Swiveller.  'Haven't I this moment come?'
+
+'Well, all I know is,' replied Miss Sally, 'that it's not to be found,
+and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on the desk.'
+
+'Halloa!' thought Richard, 'I hope the Marchioness hasn't been at work
+here.'
+
+'There was a knife too,' said Miss Sally, 'of the same pattern.  They
+were given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone.  You
+haven't missed anything yourself, have you?'
+
+Mr Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be quite
+sure that it WAS a jacket and not a skirted coat; and having satisfied
+himself of the safety of this, his only moveable in Bevis Marks, made
+answer in the negative.
+
+'It's a very unpleasant thing, Dick,' said Miss Brass, pulling out the
+tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; 'but between you
+and me--between friends you know, for if Sammy knew it, I should never
+hear the last of it--some of the office-money, too, that has been left
+about, has gone in the same way.  In particular, I have missed three
+half-crowns at three different times.'
+
+'You don't mean that?' cried Dick.  'Be careful what you say, old boy,
+for this is a serious matter.  Are you quite sure?  Is there no
+mistake?'
+
+'It is so, and there can't be any mistake at all,' rejoined Miss Brass
+emphatically.
+
+'Then by Jove,' thought Richard, laying down his pen, 'I am afraid the
+Marchioness is done for!'
+
+The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more probable it
+appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was the culprit.
+When he considered on what a spare allowance of food she lived, how
+neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural cunning had been
+sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely doubted it.  And yet
+he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling to have a matter of such
+gravity disturbing the oddity of their acquaintance, that he thought,
+and thought truly, that rather than receive fifty pounds down, he would
+have the Marchioness proved innocent.
+
+While he was plunged in very profound and serious meditation upon this
+theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great mystery and
+doubt; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling a cheerful
+strain, was heard in the passage, and that gentleman himself, beaming
+with virtuous smiles, appeared.
+
+'Mr Richard, sir, good morning!  Here we are again, sir, entering upon
+another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and breakfast, and
+our spirits fresh and flowing.  Here we are, Mr Richard, rising with
+the sun to run our little course--our course of duty, sir--and, like
+him, to get through our day's work with credit to ourselves and
+advantage to our fellow-creatures.  A charming reflection sir, very
+charming!'
+
+While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr Brass was, somewhat
+ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up against
+the light a five-pound bank note, which he had brought in, in his hand.
+
+Mr Richard not receiving his remarks with anything like enthusiasm, his
+employer turned his eyes to his face, and observed that it wore a
+troubled expression.
+
+'You're out of spirits, sir,' said Brass.  'Mr Richard, sir, we should
+fall to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state.  It becomes us,
+Mr Richard, sir, to--'
+
+Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh.
+
+'Dear me!' said Mr Sampson, 'you too!  Is anything the matter?  Mr
+Richard, sir--'
+
+Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making signals to him,
+to acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent conversation.
+As his own position was not a very pleasant one until the matter was
+set at rest one way or other, he did so; and Miss Brass, plying her
+snuff-box at a most wasteful rate, corroborated his account.
+
+The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his features.
+Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money, as Miss Sally
+had expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened it, looked
+outside, shut it softly, returned on tiptoe, and said in a whisper,
+
+'This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance--Mr Richard,
+sir, a most painful circumstance.  The fact is, that I myself have
+missed several small sums from the desk, of late, and have refrained
+from mentioning it, hoping that accident would discover the offender;
+but it has not done so--it has not done so.  Sally--Mr Richard,
+sir--this is a particularly distressing affair!'
+
+As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some
+papers, in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets.
+Richard Swiveller pointed to it, and admonished him to take it up.
+
+'No, Mr Richard, sir,' rejoined Brass with emotion, 'I will not take it
+up.  I will let it lie there, sir.  To take it up, Mr Richard, sir,
+would imply a doubt of you; and in you, sir, I have unlimited
+confidence.  We will let it lie there, Sir, if you please, and we will
+not take it up by any means.'  With that, Mr Brass patted him twice or
+thrice on the shoulder, in a most friendly manner, and entreated him to
+believe that he had as much faith in his honesty as he had in his own.
+
+Although at another time Mr Swiveller might have looked upon this as a
+doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then-existing circumstances,
+a great relief to be assured that he was not wrongfully suspected.
+When he had made a suitable reply, Mr Brass wrung him by the hand, and
+fell into a brown study, as did Miss Sally likewise.  Richard too
+remained in a thoughtful state; fearing every moment to hear the
+Marchioness impeached, and unable to resist the conviction that she
+must be guilty.
+
+When they had severally remained in this condition for some minutes,
+Miss Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with her clenched
+fist, and cried, 'I've hit it!'--as indeed she had, and chipped a piece
+out of it too; but that was not her meaning.
+
+'Well,' cried Brass anxiously.  'Go on, will you!'
+
+'Why,' replied his sister with an air of triumph, 'hasn't there been
+somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or
+four weeks; hasn't that somebody been left alone in it
+sometimes--thanks to you; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody
+isn't the thief!'
+
+'What somebody?' blustered Brass.
+
+'Why, what do you call him--Kit.'
+
+'Mr Garland's young man?'
+
+'To be sure.'
+
+'Never!' cried Brass.  'Never.  I'll not hear of it.  Don't tell
+me'--said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as
+if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs.  'I'll never believe it
+of him.  Never!'
+
+'I say,' repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, 'that he's
+the thief.'
+
+'I say,' returned Sampson violently, 'that he is not.  What do you
+mean?  How dare you?  Are characters to be whispered away like this?
+Do you know that he's the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever
+lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name?  Come in, come in!'
+
+These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook
+of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had
+been uttered.  They were addressed to some person who had knocked at
+the office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr Brass, when
+this very Kit himself looked in.
+
+'Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?'
+
+'Yes, Kit,' said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and
+frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; 'Yes Kit, he is.  I am
+glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you.  Look in again, as you
+come down-stairs, Kit.  That lad a robber!' cried Brass when he had
+withdrawn, 'with that frank and open countenance!  I'd trust him with
+untold gold.  Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to
+Wrasp and Co.'s in Broad Street, and inquire if they have had
+instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter.  THAT lad a robber,'
+sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath.  'Am I blind, deaf,
+silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see it before me?  Kit
+a robber!  Bah!'
+
+Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable scorn
+and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as if to
+shut the base world from his view, and breathed defiance from under its
+half-closed lid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 59
+
+When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the
+single gentleman's apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or
+so, Mr Sampson Brass was alone in the office.  He was not singing as
+usual, nor was he seated at his desk.  The open door showed him
+standing before the fire with his back towards it, and looking so very
+strange that Kit supposed he must have been suddenly taken ill.
+
+'Is anything the matter, sir?' said Kit.
+
+'Matter!' cried Brass.  'No.  Why anything the matter?'
+
+'You are so very pale,' said Kit, 'that I should hardly have known you.'
+
+'Pooh pooh! mere fancy,' cried Brass, stooping to throw up the cinders.
+'Never better, Kit, never better in all my life.  Merry too.  Ha ha!
+How's our friend above-stairs, eh?'
+
+'A great deal better,' said Kit.
+
+'I'm glad to hear it,' rejoined Brass; 'thankful, I may say.  An
+excellent gentleman--worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little
+trouble--an admirable lodger.  Ha ha!  Mr Garland--he's well I hope,
+Kit--and the pony--my friend, my particular friend you know.  Ha ha!'
+
+Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel
+Cottage.  Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and impatient,
+mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him by the
+button-hole.
+
+'I have been thinking, Kit,' said the lawyer, 'that I could throw some
+little emoluments in your mother's way--You have a mother, I think?  If
+I recollect right, you told me--'
+
+'Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.'
+
+'A widow, I think? an industrious widow?'
+
+'A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.'
+
+'Ah!' cried Brass.  'That's affecting, truly affecting.  A poor widow
+struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a
+delicious picture of human goodness.--Put down your hat, Kit.'
+
+'Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.'
+
+'Put it down while you stay, at any rate,' said Brass, taking it from
+him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a place for
+it on the desk.  'I was thinking, Kit, that we have often houses to let
+for people we are concerned for, and matters of that sort.  Now you
+know we're obliged to put people into those houses to take care of
+'em--very often undeserving people that we can't depend upon.  What's
+to prevent our having a person that we CAN depend upon, and enjoying
+the delight of doing a good action at the same time?  I say, what's to
+prevent our employing this worthy woman, your mother?  What with one
+job and another, there's lodging--and good lodging too--pretty well
+all the year round, rent free, and a weekly allowance besides, Kit,
+that would provide her with a great many comforts she don't at present
+enjoy.  Now what do you think of that?  Do you see any objection?  My
+only desire is to serve you, Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.'
+
+As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled among
+the papers again, as if in search of something.
+
+'How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?' replied Kit
+with his whole heart.  'I don't know how to thank you sir, I don't
+indeed.'
+
+'Why then,' said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his
+face close to Kit's with such a repulsive smile that the latter, even
+in the very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite startled.  'Why
+then, it's done.'
+
+Kit looked at him in some confusion.
+
+'Done, I say,' added Sampson, rubbing his hands and veiling himself
+again in his usual oily manner.  'Ha ha! and so you shall find Kit, so
+you shall find.  But dear me,' said Brass, 'what a time Mr Richard is
+gone!  A sad loiterer to be sure!  Will you mind the office one minute,
+while I run up-stairs?  Only one minute.  I'll not detain you an
+instant longer, on any account, Kit.'
+
+Talking as he went, Mr Brass bustled out of the office, and in a very
+short time returned.  Mr Swiveller came back, almost at the same
+instant; and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up for lost
+time, Miss Brass herself encountered him in the doorway.
+
+'Oh!' sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered.  'There goes
+your pet, Sammy, eh?'
+
+'Ah!  There he goes,' replied Brass.  'My pet, if you please.  An
+honest fellow, Mr Richard, sir--a worthy fellow indeed!'
+
+'Hem!' coughed Miss Brass.
+
+'I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,' said the angry Sampson, 'that
+I'd stake my life upon his honesty.  Am I never to hear the last of
+this?  Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean suspicions?
+Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant fellow?  If you come
+to that, I'd sooner suspect your honesty than his.'
+
+Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow pinch,
+regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time.
+
+'She drives me wild, Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass, 'she exasperates me
+beyond all bearing.  I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am.  These
+are not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she carries me
+out of myself.'
+
+'Why don't you leave him alone?' said Dick.
+
+'Because she can't, sir,' retorted Brass; 'because to chafe and vex me
+is a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don't
+believe she'd have her health.  But never mind,' said Brass, 'never
+mind.  I've carried my point.  I've shown my confidence in the lad.  He
+has minded the office again.  Ha ha!  Ugh, you viper!'
+
+The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff-box in her
+pocket; still looking at her brother with perfect composure.
+
+'He has minded the office again,' said Brass triumphantly; 'he has had
+my confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he--why, where's the--'
+
+'What have you lost?' inquired Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Dear me!' said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another, and
+looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly tossing
+the papers about, 'the note, Mr Richard, sir, the five-pound note--what
+can have become of it?  I laid it down here--God bless me!'
+
+'What!' cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and
+scattering the papers on the floor.  'Gone!  Now who's right?  Now
+who's got it?  Never mind five pounds--what's five pounds?  He's
+honest, you know, quite honest.  It would be mean to suspect him.
+Don't run after him.  No, no, not for the world!'
+
+'Is it really gone though?' said Dick, looking at Brass with a face as
+pale as his own.
+
+'Upon my word, Mr Richard, Sir,' replied the lawyer, feeling in all his
+pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, 'I fear this is a black
+business.  It's certainly gone, Sir.  What's to be done?'
+
+'Don't run after him,' said Miss Sally, taking more snuff.  'Don't run
+after him on any account.  Give him time to get rid of it, you know.
+It would be cruel to find him out!'
+
+Mr Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each other, in
+a state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse, caught up their
+hats and rushed out into the street--darting along in the middle of the
+road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as though they were running
+for their lives.
+
+It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and
+having the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance
+ahead.  As they were pretty certain of the road he must have taken,
+however, and kept on at a great pace, they came up with him, at the
+very moment when he had taken breath, and was breaking into a run again.
+
+'Stop!' cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr
+Swiveller pounced upon the other.  'Not so fast sir.  You're in a
+hurry?'
+
+'Yes, I am,' said Kit, looking from one to the other in great surprise.
+
+'I--I--can hardly believe it,' panted Sampson, 'but something of value
+is missing from the office.  I hope you don't know what.'
+
+'Know what! good Heaven, Mr Brass!' cried Kit, trembling from head to
+foot; 'you don't suppose--'
+
+'No, no,' rejoined Brass quickly, 'I don't suppose anything.  Don't say
+I said you did.  You'll come back quietly, I hope?'
+
+'Of course I will,' returned Kit.  'Why not?'
+
+'To be sure!' said Brass.  'Why not?  I hope there may turn out to be
+no why not.  If you knew the trouble I've been in, this morning,
+through taking your part, Christopher, you'd be sorry for it.'
+
+'And I am sure you'll be sorry for having suspected me sir,' replied
+Kit.  'Come.  Let us make haste back.'
+
+'Certainly!' cried Brass, 'the quicker, the better.  Mr Richard--have
+the goodness, sir, to take that arm.  I'll take this one.  It's not
+easy walking three abreast, but under these circumstances it must be
+done, sir; there's no help for it.'
+
+Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when they
+secured him thus, and for a moment seemed disposed to resist.  But,
+quickly recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made any
+struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the public
+streets, he only repeated, with great earnestness and with the tears
+standing in his eyes, that they would be sorry for this--and suffered
+them to lead him off.  While they were on the way back, Mr Swiveller,
+upon whom his present functions sat very irksomely, took an opportunity
+of whispering in his ear that if he would confess his guilt, even by so
+much as a nod, and promise not to do so any more, he would connive at
+his kicking Sampson Brass on the shins and escaping up a court; but Kit
+indignantly rejecting this proposal, Mr Richard had nothing for it, but
+to hold him tight until they reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into
+the presence of the charming Sarah, who immediately took the precaution
+of locking the door.
+
+'Now, you know,' said Brass, 'if this is a case of innocence, it is a
+case of that description, Christopher, where the fullest disclosure is
+the best satisfaction for everybody.  Therefore if you'll consent to an
+examination,' he demonstrated what kind of examination he meant by
+turning back the cuffs of his coat, 'it will be a comfortable and
+pleasant thing for all parties.'
+
+'Search me,' said Kit, proudly holding up his arms.  'But mind, sir--I
+know you'll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.'
+
+'It is certainly a very painful occurrence,' said Brass with a sigh, as
+he dived into one of Kit's pockets, and fished up a miscellaneous
+collection of small articles; 'very painful.  Nothing here, Mr Richard,
+Sir, all perfectly satisfactory.  Nor here, sir.  Nor in the waistcoat,
+Mr Richard, nor in the coat tails.  So far, I am rejoiced, I am sure.'
+
+Richard Swiveller, holding Kit's hat in his hand, was watching the
+proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the slightest
+possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of his eyes,
+looked with the other up the inside of one of the poor fellow's sleeves
+as if it were a telescope--when Sampson turning hastily to him, bade
+him search the hat.
+
+'Here's a handkerchief,' said Dick.
+
+'No harm in that sir,' rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the other
+sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was contemplating an
+immense extent of prospect.  'No harm in a handkerchief Sir, whatever.
+The faculty don't consider it a healthy custom, I believe, Mr Richard,
+to carry one's handkerchief in one's hat--I have heard that it keeps
+the head too warm--but in every other point of view, its being there,
+is extremely satisfactory--extremely so.'
+
+An exclamation, at once from Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit
+himself, cut the lawyer short.  He turned his head, and saw Dick
+standing with the bank-note in his hand.
+
+'In the hat?' cried Brass in a sort of shriek.
+
+'Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,' said Dick,
+aghast at the discovery.
+
+Mr Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at
+the floor--everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite stupefied and
+motionless.
+
+'And this,' cried Sampson, clasping his hands, 'is the world that turns
+upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions round
+Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort!  This is human natur,
+is it!  Oh natur, natur!  This is the miscreant that I was going to
+benefit with all my little arts, and that, even now, I feel so much
+for, as to wish to let him go!  But,' added Mr Brass with greater
+fortitude, 'I am myself a lawyer, and bound to set an example in
+carrying the laws of my happy country into effect.  Sally my dear,
+forgive me, and catch hold of him on the other side.  Mr Richard, sir,
+have the goodness to run and fetch a constable.  The weakness is past
+and over sir, and moral strength returns.  A constable, sir, if you
+please!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 60
+
+Kit stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed upon
+the ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr Brass
+maintained on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp of Miss
+Sally upon the other; although this latter detention was in itself no
+small inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides screwing her
+knuckles inconveniently into his throat from time to time, had fastened
+upon him in the first instance with so tight a grip that even in the
+disorder and distraction of his thoughts he could not divest himself of
+an uneasy sense of choking.  Between the brother and sister he remained
+in this posture, quite unresisting and passive, until Mr Swiveller
+returned, with a police constable at his heels.
+
+This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes; looking
+upon all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to housebreaking or
+ventures on the highway, as matters in the regular course of business;
+and regarding the perpetrators in the light of so many customers coming
+to be served at the wholesale and retail shop of criminal law where he
+stood behind the counter; received Mr Brass's statement of facts with
+about as much interest and surprise, as an undertaker might evince if
+required to listen to a circumstantial account of the last illness of a
+person whom he was called in to wait upon professionally; and took Kit
+into custody with a decent indifference.
+
+'We had better,' said this subordinate minister of justice, 'get to the
+office while there's a magistrate sitting.  I shall want you to come
+along with us, Mr Brass, and the--' he looked at Miss Sally as if in
+some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other fabulous monster.
+
+'The lady, eh?' said Sampson.
+
+'Ah!' replied the constable.  'Yes--the lady.  Likewise the young man
+that found the property.'
+
+'Mr Richard, Sir,' said Brass in a mournful voice.  'A sad necessity.
+But the altar of our country sir--'
+
+'You'll have a hackney-coach, I suppose?' interrupted the constable,
+holding Kit (whom his other captors had released) carelessly by the
+arm, a little above the elbow.  'Be so good as send for one, will you?'
+
+'But, hear me speak a word,' cried Kit, raising his eyes and looking
+imploringly about him.  'Hear me speak a word.  I am no more guilty
+than any one of you.  Upon my soul I am not.  I a thief!  Oh, Mr Brass,
+you know me better.  I am sure you know me better.  This is not right
+of you, indeed.'
+
+'I give you my word, constable--' said Brass.  But here the constable
+interposed with the constitutional principle 'words be blowed;'
+observing that words were but spoon-meat for babes and sucklings, and
+that oaths were the food for strong men.
+
+'Quite true, constable,' assented Brass in the same mournful tone.
+'Strictly correct.  I give you my oath, constable, that down to a few
+minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such confidence
+in that lad, that I'd have trusted him with--a hackney-coach, Mr
+Richard, sir; you're very slow, Sir.'
+
+'Who is there that knows me,' cried Kit, 'that would not trust me--
+that does not? ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me; whether I
+have ever wronged them of a farthing.  Was I ever once dishonest when I
+was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would begin now!  Oh consider
+what you do.  How can I meet the kindest friends that ever human
+creature had, with this dreadful charge upon me!'
+
+Mr Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if he
+had thought of that before and was about to make some other gloomy
+observations when the voice of the single gentleman was heard,
+demanding from above-stairs what was the matter, and what was the cause
+of all that noise and hurry.  Kit made an involuntary start towards the
+door in his anxiety to answer for himself, but being speedily detained
+by the constable, had the agony of seeing Sampson Brass run out alone
+to tell the story in his own way.
+
+'And he can hardly believe it, either,' said Sampson, when he returned,
+'nor nobody will.  I wish I could doubt the evidence of my senses, but
+their depositions are unimpeachable.  It's of no use cross-examining my
+eyes,' cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them, 'they stick to their
+first account, and will.  Now, Sarah, I hear the coach in the Marks;
+get on your bonnet, and we'll be off.  A sad errand! a moral funeral,
+quite!'
+
+'Mr Brass,' said Kit.  'Do me one favour.  Take me to Mr Witherden's
+first.'
+
+Sampson shook his head irresolutely.
+
+'Do,' said Kit.  'My master's there.  For Heaven's sake, take me there,
+first.'
+
+'Well, I don't know,' stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons for
+wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary.  'How do
+we stand in point of time, constable, eh?'
+
+The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with great
+philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would have time
+enough, but that if they stood shilly-shallying there, any longer, they
+must go straight to the Mansion House; and finally expressed his
+opinion that that was where it was, and that was all about it.
+
+Mr Richard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still
+remaining immoveable in the most commodious corner with his face to the
+horses, Mr Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner, and
+declared himself quite ready.  Therefore, the constable, still holding
+Kit in the same manner, and pushing him on a little before him, so as
+to keep him at about three-quarters of an arm's length in advance
+(which is the professional mode), thrust him into the vehicle and
+followed himself.  Miss Sally entered next; and there being now four
+inside, Sampson Brass got upon the box, and made the coachman drive on.
+
+Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which had
+taken place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach window,
+almost hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon in the streets which
+might give him reason to believe he was in a dream.  Alas!  Everything
+was too real and familiar: the same succession of turnings, the same
+houses, the same streams of people running side by side in different
+directions upon the pavement, the same bustle of carts and carriages in
+the road, the same well-remembered objects in the shop windows: a
+regularity in the very noise and hurry which no dream ever mirrored.
+Dream-like as the story was, it was true.  He stood charged with
+robbery; the note had been found upon him, though he was innocent in
+thought and deed; and they were carrying him back, a prisoner.
+
+Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping heart
+of his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the
+consciousness of innocence would be insufficient to support him in the
+presence of his friends if they believed him guilty, and sinking in
+hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to the notary's,
+poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window, observant of
+nothing,--when all at once, as though it had been conjured up by magic,
+he became aware of the face of Quilp.
+
+And what a leer there was upon the face!  It was from the open window
+of a tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread himself
+over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head resting on
+both his hands, that what between this attitude and his being swoln
+with suppressed laughter, he looked puffed and bloated into twice his
+usual breadth.  Mr Brass, on recognising him, immediately stopped the
+coach.  As it came to a halt directly opposite to where he stood, the
+dwarf pulled off his hat, and saluted the party with a hideous and
+grotesque politeness.
+
+'Aha!' he cried.  'Where now, Brass? where now? Sally with you too?
+Sweet Sally!  And Dick?  Pleasant Dick!  And Kit! Honest Kit!'
+
+'He's extremely cheerful!' said Brass to the coachman.  'Very much so!
+Ah, sir--a sad business!  Never believe in honesty any more, sir.'
+
+'Why not?' returned the dwarf.  'Why not, you rogue of a lawyer, why
+not?'
+
+'Bank-note lost in our office sir,' said Brass, shaking his head.
+'Found in his hat sir--he previously left alone there--no mistake at
+all sir--chain of evidence complete--not a link wanting.'
+
+'What!' cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window.  'Kit a
+thief!  Kit a thief!  Ha ha ha!  Why, he's an uglier-looking thief than
+can be seen anywhere for a penny.  Eh, Kit--eh?  Ha ha ha!  Have you
+taken Kit into custody before he had time and opportunity to beat me!
+Eh, Kit, eh?'  And with that, he burst into a yell of laughter,
+manifestly to the great terror of the coachman, and pointed to a dyer's
+pole hard by, where a dangling suit of clothes bore some resemblance to
+a man upon a gibbet.
+
+'Is it coming to that, Kit!' cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands
+violently.  'Ha ha ha ha!  What a disappointment for little Jacob, and
+for his darling mother!  Let him have the Bethel minister to comfort
+and console him, Brass.  Eh, Kit, eh?  Drive on coachey, drive on.  Bye
+bye, Kit; all good go with you; keep up your spirits; my love to the
+Garlands--the dear old lady and gentleman.  Say I inquired after 'em,
+will you?  Blessings on 'em, on you, and on everybody, Kit.  Blessings
+on all the world!'
+
+With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent
+until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and when
+he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled upon the
+ground in an ecstacy of enjoyment.
+
+When they reached the notary's, which they were not long in doing, for
+they had encountered the dwarf in a bye street at a very little
+distance from the house, Mr Brass dismounted; and opening the coach
+door with a melancholy visage, requested his sister to accompany him
+into the office, with the view of preparing the good people within, for
+the mournful intelligence that awaited them.  Miss Sally complying, he
+desired Mr Swiveller to accompany them.  So, into the office they went;
+Mr Sampson and his sister arm-in-arm; and Mr Swiveller following, alone.
+
+The notary was standing before the fire in the outer office, talking to
+Mr Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat writing at the
+desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation as happened to fall
+in his way.  This posture of affairs Mr Brass observed through the
+glass-door as he was turning the handle, and seeing that the notary
+recognised him, he began to shake his head and sigh deeply while that
+partition yet divided them.
+
+'Sir,' said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two
+fore-fingers of his right hand beaver glove, 'my name is Brass--Brass
+of Bevis Marks, Sir.  I have had the honour and pleasure, Sir, of being
+concerned against you in some little testamentary matters.  How do you
+do, sir?'
+
+'My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr
+Brass,' said the notary, turning away.
+
+'Thank you Sir,' said Brass, 'thank you, I am sure.  Allow me, Sir, to
+introduce my sister--quite one of us Sir, although of the weaker
+sex--of great use in my business Sir, I assure you.  Mr Richard, sir,
+have the goodness to come foward if you please--No really,' said Brass,
+stepping between the notary and his private office (towards which he
+had begun to retreat), and speaking in the tone of an injured man,
+'really Sir, I must, under favour, request a word or two with you,
+indeed.'
+
+'Mr Brass,' said the other, in a decided tone, 'I am engaged.  You see
+that I am occupied with these gentlemen.  If you will communicate your
+business to Mr Chuckster yonder, you will receive every attention.'
+
+'Gentlemen,' said Brass, laying his right hand on his waistcoat, and
+looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile--'Gentlemen, I
+appeal to you--really, gentlemen--consider, I beg of you.  I am of the
+law.  I am styled "gentleman" by Act of Parliament.  I maintain the
+title by the annual payment of twelve pound sterling for a certificate.
+I am not one of your players of music, stage actors, writers of books,
+or painters of pictures, who assume a station that the laws of their
+country don't recognise.  I am none of your strollers or vagabonds.  If
+any man brings his action against me, he must describe me as a
+gentleman, or his action is null and void.  I appeal to you--is this
+quite respectful?  Really gentlemen--'
+
+'Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr
+Brass?' said the notary.
+
+'Sir,' rejoined Brass, 'I will.  Ah Mr Witherden! you little know
+the--but I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir, I believe
+the name of one of these gentlemen is Garland.'
+
+'Of both,' said the notary.
+
+'In-deed!' rejoined Brass, cringing excessively.  'But I might have
+known that, from the uncommon likeness.  Extremely happy, I am sure, to
+have the honour of an introduction to two such gentlemen, although the
+occasion is a most painful one.  One of you gentlemen has a servant
+called Kit?'
+
+'Both,' replied the notary.
+
+'Two Kits?' said Brass smiling.  'Dear me!'
+
+'One Kit, sir,' returned Mr Witherden angrily, 'who is employed by both
+gentlemen.  What of him?'
+
+'This of him, sir,' rejoined Brass, dropping his voice impressively.
+'That young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and unlimited
+confidence in, and always behaved to as if he was my equal--that young
+man has this morning committed a robbery in my office, and been taken
+almost in the fact.'
+
+'This must be some falsehood!' cried the notary.
+
+'It is not possible,' said Mr Abel.
+
+'I'll not believe one word of it,' exclaimed the old gentleman.
+
+Mr Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined,
+
+'Mr Witherden, sir, YOUR words are actionable, and if I was a man of
+low and mean standing, who couldn't afford to be slandered, I should
+proceed for damages.  Hows'ever, sir, being what I am, I merely scorn
+such expressions.  The honest warmth of the other gentleman I respect,
+and I'm truly sorry to be the messenger of such unpleasant news.  I
+shouldn't have put myself in this painful position, I assure you, but
+that the lad himself desired to be brought here in the first instance,
+and I yielded to his prayers.  Mr Chuckster, sir, will you have the
+goodness to tap at the window for the constable that's waiting in the
+coach?'
+
+The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when these
+words were uttered, and Mr Chuckster, doing as he was desired, and
+leaping off his stool with something of the excitement of an inspired
+prophet whose foretellings had in the fulness of time been realised,
+held the door open for the entrance of the wretched captive.
+
+Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the rude
+eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called Heaven to
+witness that he was innocent, and that how the property came to be
+found upon him he knew not!  Such a confusion of tongues, before the
+circumstances were related, and the proofs disclosed!  Such a dead
+silence when all was told, and his three friends exchanged looks of
+doubt and amazement!
+
+'Is it not possible,' said Mr Witherden, after a long pause, 'that this
+note may have found its way into the hat by some accident,--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,
+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 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 appearances 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.
+
+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?'
+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.
+
+While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about his
+employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion concerning him;
+but all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself broken the
+intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and delicacy, late on
+the previous night, but had himself expressed no opinion of his
+innocence or guilt.  Kit was on the point of mustering courage to ask
+Barbara's mother about Barbara, when the turnkey who had conducted him,
+reappeared, a second turnkey appeared behind his visitors, and the
+third turnkey with the newspaper cried 'Time's up!'--adding in the same
+breath 'Now for the next party!' and then plunging deep into his
+newspaper again.  Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from
+his mother, and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears.  As he
+was crossing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the
+guidance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to
+stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand.
+
+'This is Christopher Nubbles, isn't it, that come in last night for
+felony?' said the man.
+
+His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question.
+
+'Then here's your beer,' said the other man to Christopher.  'What are
+you looking at?  There an't a discharge in it.'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said Kit.  'Who sent it me?'
+
+'Why, your friend,' replied the man.  'You're to have it every day, he
+says.  And so you will, if he pays for it.'
+
+'My friend!' repeated Kit.
+
+'You're all abroad, seemingly,' returned the other man.  'There's his
+letter.  Take hold!'
+
+Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows.
+
+'Drink of this cup, you'll find there's a spell in its every drop
+'gainst the ills of mortality.  Talk of the cordial that sparkled for
+Helen!  HER cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and
+Co.'s).--If they ever send it in a flat state, complain to the
+Governor.  Yours, R. S.'
+
+'R. S.!' said Kit, after some consideration.  'It must be Mr Richard
+Swiveller.  Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him heartily.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 62
+
+A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on
+Quilp's wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog, as
+though it suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson Brass, as
+he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the excellent
+proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and probably waiting with
+his accustomed patience and sweetness of temper the fulfilment of the
+appointment which now brought Mr Brass within his fair domain.
+
+'A treacherous place to pick one's steps in, of a dark night,' muttered
+Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some stray lumber,
+and limped in pain.  'I believe that boy strews the ground differently
+every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one; unless his master does it
+with his own hands, which is more than likely.  I hate to come to this
+place without Sally.  She's more protection than a dozen men.'
+
+As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr Brass
+came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and over his
+shoulder.
+
+'What's he about, I wonder?' murmured the lawyer, standing on tiptoe,
+and endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing inside, which
+at that distance was impossible--'drinking, I suppose,--making himself
+more fiery and furious, and heating his malice and mischievousness till
+they boil.  I'm always afraid to come here by myself, when his
+account's a pretty large one.  I don't believe he'd mind throttling me,
+and dropping me softly into the river when the tide was at its
+strongest, any more than he'd mind killing a rat--indeed I don't know
+whether he wouldn't consider it a pleasant joke.  Hark!  Now he's
+singing!'
+
+Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it
+was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous repetition
+of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long stress upon the
+last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar.  Nor did the burden of
+this performance bear any reference to love, or war, or wine, or
+loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of song, but to a subject
+not often set to music or generally known in ballads; the words being
+these:--'The worthy magistrate, after remarking that the prisoner would
+find some difficulty in persuading a jury to believe his tale,
+committed him to take his trial at the approaching sessions; and
+directed the customary recognisances to be entered into for the
+pros-e-cu-tion.'
+
+Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all
+possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and
+began again.
+
+'He's dreadfully imprudent,' muttered Brass, after he had listened to
+two or three repetitions of the chant.  'Horribly imprudent.  I wish he
+was dumb.  I wish he was deaf.  I wish he was blind.  Hang him,' cried
+Brass, as the chant began again.  'I wish he was dead!'
+
+Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client,
+Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and
+waiting until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the
+wooden house, and knocked at the door.
+
+'Come in!' cried the dwarf.
+
+'How do you do to-night sir?' said Sampson, peeping in.  'Ha ha ha!
+How do you do sir?  Oh dear me, how very whimsical!  Amazingly
+whimsical to be sure!'
+
+'Come in, you fool!' returned the dwarf, 'and don't stand there shaking
+your head and showing your teeth.  Come in, you false witness, you
+perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!'
+
+'He has the richest humour!' cried Brass, shutting the door behind him;
+'the most amazing vein of comicality!  But isn't it rather injudicious,
+sir--?'
+
+'What?' demanded Quilp.  'What, Judas?'
+
+'Judas!' cried Brass.  'He has such extraordinary spirits!  His humour
+is so extremely playful!  Judas!  Oh yes--dear me, how very good!  Ha
+ha ha!'
+
+All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with
+ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed
+figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a
+corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the
+dwarf worshipped.  A mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim
+and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with a representation
+of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted
+that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral; but,
+without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic
+portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea-monster.  Being
+originally much too large for the apartment which it was now employed
+to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the waist.  Even in this
+state it reached from floor to ceiling; and thrusting itself forward,
+with that excessively wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive
+politeness, by which figure-heads are usually characterised, seemed to
+reduce everything else to mere pigmy proportions.
+
+'Do you know it?' said the dwarf, watching Sampson's eyes.  'Do you see
+the likeness?'
+
+'Eh?' said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a
+little back, as connoisseurs do.  'Now I look at it again, I fancy I
+see a--yes, there certainly is something in the smile that reminds me
+of--and yet upon my word I--'
+
+Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the
+smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much
+perplexed; being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like himself,
+and had therefore bought it for a family portrait; or whether he was
+pleased to consider it as the likeness of some enemy.  He was not very
+long in doubt; for, while he was surveying it with that knowing look
+which people assume when they are contemplating for the first time
+portraits which they ought to recognise but don't, the dwarf threw down
+the newspaper from which he had been chanting the words already quoted,
+and seizing a rusty iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the
+figure such a stroke on the nose that it rocked again.
+
+'Is it like Kit--is it his picture, his image, his very self?' cried
+the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible countenance, and
+covering it with deep dimples.  'Is it the exact model and counterpart
+of the dog--is it--is it--is it?'  And with every repetition of the
+question, he battered the great image, until the perspiration streamed
+down his face with the violence of the exercise.
+
+Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from a
+secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable spectacle
+by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is better than a
+play to people who don't live near it, there was something in the
+earnestness of Mr Quilp's manner which made his legal adviser feel that
+the counting-house was a little too small, and a deal too lonely, for
+the complete enjoyment of these humours.  Therefore, he stood as far
+off as he could, while the dwarf was thus engaged; whimpering out but
+feeble applause; and when Quilp left off and sat down again from pure
+exhaustion, approached with more obsequiousness than ever.
+
+'Excellent indeed!' cried Brass.  'He he!  Oh, very good Sir.  You
+know,' said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised
+animal, 'he's quite a remarkable man--quite!'
+
+'Sit down,' said the dwarf.  'I bought the dog yesterday.  I've been
+screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and cutting
+my name on him.  I mean to burn him at last.'
+
+'Ha ha!' cried Brass.  'Extremely entertaining, indeed!'
+
+'Come here,' said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near.  'What's
+injudicious, hey?'
+
+'Nothing Sir--nothing.  Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I thought
+that song--admirably humorous in itself you know--was perhaps rather--'
+
+'Yes,' said Quilp, 'rather what?'
+
+'Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the confines
+of injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,' returned Brass, looking timidly at
+the dwarf's cunning eyes, which were turned towards the fire and
+reflected its red light.
+
+'Why?' inquired Quilp, without looking up.
+
+'Why, you know, sir,' returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar:
+'--the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings
+together, of friends, for objects in themselves extremely laudable, but
+which the law terms conspiracies, are--you take me, sir?--best kept
+snug and among friends, you know.'
+
+'Eh!' said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance.
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!' cried Brass,
+nodding his head.  'Mum, sir, even here--my meaning, sir, exactly.'
+
+'YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,--what's your meaning?'
+retorted Quilp.  'Why do you talk to me of combining together?  Do I
+combine?  Do I know anything about your combinings?'
+
+'No no, sir--certainly not; not by any means,' returned Brass.
+
+'If you so wink and nod at me,' said the dwarf, looking about him as if
+for his poker, 'I'll spoil the expression of your monkey's face, I
+will.'
+
+'Don't put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,' rejoined Brass,
+checking himself with great alacrity.  'You're quite right, sir, quite
+right.  I shouldn't have mentioned the subject, sir.  It's much better
+not to.  You're quite right, sir.  Let us change it, if you please.
+You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger.  He has not
+returned, sir.'
+
+'No?' said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching
+it to prevent its boiling over.  'Why not?'
+
+'Why, sir,' returned Brass, 'he--dear me, Mr Quilp, sir--'
+
+'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of
+carrying the saucepan to his mouth.
+
+'You have forgotten the water, sir,' said Brass.  'And--excuse me,
+sir--but it's burning hot.'
+
+Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr
+Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off
+all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about
+half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the
+fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely.  Having swallowed this gentle
+stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr Brass proceed.
+
+'But first,' said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, 'have a drop
+yourself--a nice drop--a good, warm, fiery drop.'
+
+'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'if there was such a thing as a mouthful of
+water that could be got without trouble--'
+
+'There's no such thing to be had here,' cried the dwarf.  'Water for
+lawyers!  Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering
+pitch and tar--that's the thing for them--eh, Brass, eh?'
+
+'Ha ha ha!' laughed Mr Brass.  'Oh very biting! and yet it's like being
+tickled--there's a pleasure in it too, sir!'
+
+'Drink that,' said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more.
+'Toss it off, don't leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy!'
+
+The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which
+immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form came
+rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the colour of
+his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a violent fit of
+coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard to declare, with the
+constancy of a martyr, that it was 'beautiful indeed!'  While he was
+yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf renewed their conversation.
+
+'The lodger,' said Quilp, '--what about him?'
+
+'He is still, sir,'
+returned Brass, with intervals of coughing, 'stopping with the Garland
+family.  He has only been home once, Sir, since the day of the
+examination of that culprit.  He informed Mr Richard, sir, that he
+couldn't bear the house after what had taken place; that he was
+wretched in it; and that he looked upon himself as being in a certain
+kind of way the cause of the occurrence.--A very excellent lodger Sir.
+I hope we may not lose him.'
+
+'Yah!' cried the dwarf.  'Never thinking of anybody but yourself--why
+don't you retrench then--scrape up, hoard, economise, eh?'
+
+'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'upon my word I think Sarah's as good an
+economiser as any going.  I do indeed, Mr Quilp.'
+
+'Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink, man!' cried the dwarf.
+'You took a clerk to oblige me.'
+
+'Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,' replied Sampson.  'Yes, Sir,
+I did.'
+
+'Then now you may discharge him,' said Quilp.  'There's a means of
+retrenchment for you at once.'
+
+'Discharge Mr Richard, sir?' cried Brass.
+
+'Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the question?
+Yes.'
+
+'Upon my word, Sir,' said Brass, 'I wasn't prepared for this--'
+
+'How could you be?' sneered the dwarf, 'when I wasn't?  How often am I
+to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have my eye
+on him and know where he was--and that I had a plot, a scheme, a little
+quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very cream and essence
+was, that this old man and grandchild (who have sunk underground I
+think) should be, while he and his precious friend believed them rich,
+in reality as poor as frozen rats?'
+
+'I quite understood that, sir,' rejoined Brass.  'Thoroughly.'
+
+'Well, Sir,' retorted Quilp, 'and do you understand now, that they're
+not poor--that they can't be, if they have such men as your lodger
+searching for them, and scouring the country far and wide?'
+
+'Of course I do, Sir,' said Sampson.
+
+'Of course you do,' retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his
+words.  'Of course do you understand then, that it's no matter what
+comes of this fellow? of course do you understand that for any other
+purpose he's no man for me, nor for you?'
+
+'I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,' returned Brass, 'that he was of
+no use at all in the business.  You can't put any confidence in him,
+sir.  If you'll believe me I've found that fellow, in the commonest
+little matters of the office that have been trusted to him, blurting
+out the truth, though expressly cautioned.  The aggravation of that
+chap sir, has exceeded anything you can imagine, it has indeed.
+Nothing but the respect and obligation I owe to you, sir--'
+
+As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue,
+unless he received a timely interruption, Mr Quilp politely tapped him
+on the crown of his head with the little saucepan, and requested that
+he would be so obliging as to hold his peace.
+
+'Practical, sir, practical,' said Brass, rubbing the place and smiling;
+'but still extremely pleasant--immensely so!'
+
+'Hearken to me, will you?' returned Quilp, 'or I'll be a little more
+pleasant, presently.  There's no chance of his comrade and friend
+returning.  The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn, for some
+knavery, and has found his way abroad.  Let him rot there.'
+
+'Certainly, sir.  Quite proper.--Forcible!' cried Brass, glancing at
+the admiral again, as if he made a third in company.  'Extremely
+forcible!'
+
+'I hate him,' said Quilp between his teeth, 'and have always hated him,
+for family reasons.  Besides, he was an intractable ruffian; otherwise
+he would have been of use.  This fellow is pigeon-hearted and
+light-headed.  I don't want him any longer.  Let him hang or
+drown--starve--go to the devil.'
+
+'By all means, sir,' returned Brass.  'When would you wish him, sir,
+to--ha, ha!--to make that little excursion?'
+
+'When this trial's over,' said Quilp.  'As soon as that's ended, send
+him about his business.'
+
+'It shall be done, sir,' returned Brass; 'by all means.  It will be
+rather a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under
+control.  Ah, Mr Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased
+Providence to bring you and Sarah together, in earlier life, what
+blessed results would have flowed from such a union!  You never saw our
+dear father, sir?--A charming gentleman.  Sarah was his pride and joy,
+sir.  He would have closed his eyes in bliss, would Foxey, Mr Quilp, if
+he could have found her such a partner.  You esteem her, sir?'
+
+'I love her,' croaked the dwarf.
+
+'You're very good, Sir,' returned Brass, 'I am sure.  Is there any
+other order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little matter
+of Mr Richard?'
+
+'None,' replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan.  'Let us drink the
+lovely Sarah.'
+
+'If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn't quite boiling,'
+suggested Brass humbly, 'perhaps it would be better.  I think it will
+be more agreeable to Sarah's feelings, when she comes to hear from me
+of the honour you have done her, if she learns it was in liquor rather
+cooler than the last, Sir.'
+
+But to these remonstrances, Mr Quilp turned a deaf ear.  Sampson Brass,
+who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled to take
+further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that, instead of at all
+contributing to his recovery, they had the novel effect of making the
+counting-house spin round and round with extreme velocity, and causing
+the floor and ceiling to heave in a very distressing manner.  After a
+brief stupor, he awoke to a consciousness of being partly under the
+table and partly under the grate.  This position not being the most
+comfortable one he could have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger
+to his feet, and, holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host.
+
+Mr Brass's first impression was, that his host was gone and had left
+him there alone--perhaps locked him in for the night.  A strong smell
+of tobacco, however, suggested a new train of ideas, he looked upward,
+and saw that the dwarf was smoking in his hammock.
+
+'Good bye, Sir,' cried Brass faintly.  'Good bye, Sir.'
+
+'Won't you stop all night?' said the dwarf, peeping out.  'Do stop all
+night!'
+
+'I couldn't indeed, Sir,' replied Brass, who was almost dead from
+nausea and the closeness of the room.  'If you'd have the goodness to
+show me a light, so that I may see my way across the yard, sir--'
+
+Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head
+first, or his arms first, but bodily--altogether.
+
+'To be sure,' he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only
+light in the place.  'Be careful how you go, my dear friend.  Be sure
+to pick your way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are upwards.
+There's a dog in the lane.  He bit a man last night, and a woman the
+night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child--but that was in play.
+Don't go too near him.'
+
+'Which side of the road is he, sir?' asked Brass, in great dismay.
+
+'He lives on the right hand,' said Quilp, 'but sometimes he hides on
+the left, ready for a spring.  He's uncertain in that respect.  Mind
+you take care of yourself.  I'll never forgive you if you don't.
+There's the light out--never mind--you know the way--straight on!'
+Quilp had slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast, and
+now stood chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture of
+delight, as he heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now and then
+falling heavily down.  At length, however, he got quit of the place,
+and was out of hearing.
+
+The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his hammock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 63
+
+The professional gentleman who had given Kit the consolatory piece of
+information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business at the
+Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon disposed of,
+turned out to be quite correct in his prognostications.  In eight days'
+time, the sessions commenced.  In one day afterwards, the Grand Jury
+found a True Bill against Christopher Nubbles for felony; and in two
+days from that finding, the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called
+upon to plead Guilty or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the
+said Christopher did feloniously abstract and steal from the
+dwelling-house and office of one Sampson Brass, gentleman, one Bank
+Note for Five Pounds issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of
+England; in contravention of the Statutes in that case made and
+provided, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his
+crown and dignity.
+
+To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trembling voice,
+pleaded Not Guilty; and here, let those who are in the habit of forming
+hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had Christopher,
+if innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe, that confinement
+and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and that to one who has
+been close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing
+but stone walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a
+great hall filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling
+circumstance.  To this, it must be added, that life in a wig is to a
+large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life
+with its own head of hair; and if, in addition to these considerations,
+there be taken into account Kit's natural emotion on seeing the two Mr
+Garlands and the little Notary looking on with pale and anxious faces,
+it will perhaps seem matter of no very great wonder that he should have
+been rather out of sorts, and unable to make himself quite at home.
+
+Although he had never seen either of the Mr Garlands, or Mr Witherden,
+since the time of his arrest, he had been given to understand that they
+had employed counsel for him.  Therefore, when one of the gentlemen in
+wigs got up and said 'I am for the prisoner, my Lord,' Kit made him a
+bow; and when another gentleman in a wig got up and said 'And I'm
+against him, my Lord,' Kit trembled very much, and bowed to him too.
+And didn't he hope in his own heart that his gentleman was a match for
+the other gentleman, and would make him ashamed of himself in no time!
+
+The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in
+dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly
+procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune
+to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury
+that if they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less
+pangs and agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly
+undergo if they convicted that prisoner.  And when he had told them all
+about the case, and that he had never known a worse case, he stopped a
+little while, like a man who had something terrible to tell them, and
+then said that he understood an attempt would be made by his learned
+friend (and here he looked sideways at Kit's gentleman) to impeach the
+testimony of those immaculate witnesses whom he should call before
+them; but he did hope and trust that his learned friend would have a
+greater respect and veneration for the character of the prosecutor;
+than whom, as he well knew, there did not exist, and never had existed,
+a more honourable member of that most honourable profession to which he
+was attached.  And then he said, did the jury know Bevis Marks?  And if
+they did know Bevis Marks (as he trusted for their own character, they
+did) did they know the historical and elevating associations connected
+with that most remarkable spot?  Did they believe that a man like Brass
+could reside in a place like Bevis Marks, and not be a virtuous and
+most upright character?  And when he had said a great deal to them on
+this point, he remembered that it was an insult to their understandings
+to make any remarks on what they must have felt so strongly without
+him, and therefore called Sampson Brass into the witness-box,
+straightway.
+
+Then up comes Mr Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to the
+judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him before, and
+who hopes he has been pretty well since their last meeting, folds his
+arms, and looks at his gentleman as much as to say 'Here I am--full of
+evidence--Tap me!'  And the gentleman does tap him presently, and with
+great discretion too; drawing off the evidence by little and little,
+and making it run quite clear and bright in the eyes of all present.
+Then, Kit's gentleman takes him in hand, but can make nothing of him;
+and after a great many very long questions and very short answers, Mr
+Sampson Brass goes down in glory.
+
+To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by Mr
+Brass's gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit's.  In short, Kit's
+gentleman can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she has
+said before (only a little stronger this time, as against his client),
+and therefore lets her go, in some confusion.  Then, Mr Brass's
+gentleman calls Richard Swiveller, and Richard Swiveller appears
+accordingly.
+
+Now, Mr Brass's gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this witness
+is disposed to be friendly to the prisoner--which, to say the truth, he
+is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered to lie in what is
+familiarly termed badgering.  Wherefore, he begins by requesting the
+officer to be quite sure that this witness kisses the book, then goes
+to work at him, tooth and nail.
+
+'Mr Swiveller,' says this gentleman to Dick, when he had told his tale
+with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it: 'Pray sir,
+where did you dine yesterday?'--'Where did I dine yesterday?'--'Aye,
+sir, where did you dine yesterday--was it near here, sir?'--'Oh to be
+sure--yes--just over the way.'--'To be sure.  Yes.  Just over the way,'
+repeats Mr Brass's gentleman, with a glance at the court.--'Alone,
+sir?'--'I beg your pardon,' says Mr Swiveller, who has not caught the
+question--'Alone, sir?' repeats Mr Brass's gentleman in a voice of
+thunder, 'did you dine alone?  Did you treat anybody, sir? Come!'--'Oh
+yes, to be sure--yes, I did,' says Mr Swiveller with a smile.--'Have
+the goodness to banish a levity, sir, which is very ill-suited to the
+place in which you stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful
+that it's only that place),' says Mr Brass's gentleman, with a nod of
+the head, insinuating that the dock is Mr Swiveller's legitimate sphere
+of action; 'and attend to me.  You were waiting about here, yesterday,
+in expectation that this trial was coming on.  You dined over the way.
+You treated somebody.  Now, was that somebody brother to the prisoner
+at the bar?'--Mr Swiveller is proceeding to explain--'Yes or No, sir,'
+cries Mr Brass's gentleman--'But will you allow me--'--'Yes or No,
+sir'--'Yes it was, but--'--'Yes it was,' cries the gentleman, taking
+him up short.  'And a very pretty witness YOU are!'
+
+Down sits Mr Brass's gentleman.  Kit's gentleman, not knowing how the
+matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject.  Richard
+Swiveller retires abashed.  Judge, jury and spectators have visions of
+his lounging about, with an ill-looking, large-whiskered, dissolute
+young fellow of six feet high.  The reality is, little Jacob, with the
+calves of his legs exposed to the open air, and himself tied up in a
+shawl.  Nobody knows the truth; everybody believes a falsehood; and all
+because of the ingenuity of Mr Brass's gentleman.
+
+Then come the witnesses to character, and here Mr Brass's gentleman
+shines again.  It turns out that Mr Garland has had no character with
+Kit, no recommendation of him but from his own mother, and that he was
+suddenly dismissed by his former master for unknown reasons.  'Really
+Mr Garland,' says Mr Brass's gentleman, 'for a person who has arrived
+at your time of life, you are, to say the least of it, singularly
+indiscreet, I think.'  The jury think so too, and find Kit guilty.  He
+is taken off, humbly protesting his innocence.  The spectators settle
+themselves in their places with renewed attention, for there are
+several female witnesses to be examined in the next case, and it has
+been rumoured that Mr Brass's gentleman will make great fun in
+cross-examining them for the prisoner.
+
+Kit's mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs,
+accompanied by Barbara's mother (who, honest soul! never does anything
+but cry, and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues.  The
+newspaper-reading turnkey has told them all.  He don't think it will be
+transportation for life, because there's time to prove the good
+character yet, and that is sure to serve him.  He wonders what he did
+it for.  'He never did it!' cries Kit's mother.  'Well,' says the
+turnkey, 'I won't contradict you.  It's all one, now, whether he did it
+or not.'
+
+Kit's mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it--
+God, and those to whom he has given such tenderness, only know in how
+much agony.  Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under pretence of
+having the children lifted up to kiss him, prays Barbara's mother in a
+whisper to take her home.
+
+'Some friend will rise up for us, mother,' cried Kit, 'I am sure.  If
+not now, before long.  My innocence will come out, mother, and I shall
+be brought back again; I feel confidence in that.  You must teach
+little Jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they thought I had
+ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to understand, it would
+break my heart to know it, if I was thousands of miles away.--Oh! is
+there no good gentleman here, who will take care of her!'
+
+The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon the
+earth, insensible.  Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows the
+bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in one arm
+after the manner of theatrical ravishers, and, nodding to Kit, and
+commanding Barbara's mother to follow, for he has a coach waiting,
+bears her swiftly off.
+
+Well; Richard took her home.  And what astonishing absurdities in the
+way of quotation from song and poem he perpetrated on the road, no man
+knows.  He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered; and,
+having no money to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis Marks,
+bidding the driver (for it was Saturday night) wait at the door while
+he went in for 'change.'
+
+'Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass cheerfully, 'Good evening!'
+
+Monstrous as Kit's tale had appeared, at first, Mr Richard did, that
+night, half suspect his affable employer of some deep villany.  Perhaps
+it was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his careless
+nature this impulse; but, be that as it may, it was very strong upon
+him, and he said in as few words as possible, what he wanted.
+
+'Money?' cried Brass, taking out his purse.  'Ha ha!  To be sure, Mr
+Richard, to be sure, sir.  All men must live.  You haven't change for a
+five-pound note, have you sir?'
+
+'No,' returned Dick, shortly.
+
+'Oh!' said Brass, 'here's the very sum.  That saves trouble.  You're
+very welcome I'm sure.--Mr Richard, sir--'
+
+Dick, who had by this time reached the door, turned round.
+
+'You needn't,' said Brass, 'trouble yourself to come back any more,
+Sir.'
+
+'Eh?'
+
+'You see, Mr Richard,' said Brass, thrusting his hands in his pockets,
+and rocking himself to and fro on his stool, 'the fact is, that a man
+of your abilities is lost, Sir, quite lost, in our dry and mouldy line.
+It's terrible drudgery--shocking.  I should say, now, that the stage,
+or the--or the army, Mr Richard--or something very superior in the
+licensed victualling way--was the kind of thing that would call out the
+genius of such a man as you.  I hope you'll look in to see us now and
+then.  Sally, Sir, will be delighted I'm sure.  She's extremely sorry
+to lose you, Mr Richard, but a sense of her duty to society reconciles
+her.  An amazing creature that, sir!  You'll find the money quite
+correct, I think.  There's a cracked window sir, but I've not made any
+deduction on that account.  Whenever we part with friends, Mr Richard,
+let us part liberally.  A delightful sentiment, sir!'
+
+To all these rambling observations, Mr Swiveller answered not one word,
+but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight round
+ball: looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some intention
+of bowling him down with it.  He only took it under his arm, however,
+and marched out of the office in profound silence.  When he had closed
+the door, he re-opened it, stared in again for a few moments with the
+same portentous gravity, and nodding his head once, in a slow and
+ghost-like manner, vanished.
+
+He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with
+great designs for the comforting of Kit's mother and the aid of Kit
+himself.
+
+But the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard
+Swiveller, are extremely precarious.  The spiritual excitement of the
+last fortnight, working upon a system affected in no slight degree by
+the spirituous excitement of some years, proved a little too much for
+him.  That very night, Mr Richard was seized with an alarming illness,
+and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a raging fever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 64
+
+Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce
+thirst which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change of
+posture, a moment's peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through deserts
+of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or sound
+suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull eternal
+weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his miserable
+body, and the weary wandering of his mind, constant still to one
+ever-present anxiety--to a sense of something left undone, of some
+fearful obstacle to be surmounted, of some carking care that would not
+be driven away, and which haunted the distempered brain, now in this
+form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but recognisable for the
+same phantom in every shape it took: darkening every vision like an
+evil conscience, and making slumber horrible--in these slow tortures
+of his dread disease, the unfortunate Richard lay wasting and consuming
+inch by inch, until, at last, when he seemed to fight and struggle to
+rise up, and to be held down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and
+dreamed no more.
+
+He awoke.  With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than sleep
+itself, he began gradually to remember something of these sufferings,
+and to think what a long night it had been, and whether he had not been
+delirious twice or thrice.  Happening, in the midst of these
+cogitations, to raise his hand, he was astonished to find how heavy it
+seemed, and yet how thin and light it really was.  Still, he felt
+indifferent and happy; and having no curiosity to pursue the subject,
+remained in the same waking slumber until his attention was attracted
+by a cough.  This made him doubt whether he had locked his door last
+night, and feel a little surprised at having a companion in the room.
+Still, he lacked energy to follow up this train of thought; and
+unconsciously fell, in a luxury of repose, to staring at some green
+stripes on the bed-furniture, and associating them strangely with
+patches of fresh turf, while the yellow ground between made
+gravel-walks, and so helped out a long perspective of trim gardens.
+
+He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite lost
+himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more.  The
+walks shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising himself a
+little in the bed, and holding the curtain open with one hand, he
+looked out.
+
+The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but with what
+unbounded astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins, and
+articles of linen airing by the fire, and such-like furniture of a sick
+chamber--all very clean and neat, but all quite different from anything
+he had left there, when he went to bed!  The atmosphere, too, filled
+with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar; the floor newly sprinkled;
+the--the what?  The Marchioness?
+
+Yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table.  There she sat, intent
+upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as if she
+feared to disturb him--shuffling the cards, cutting, dealing, playing,
+counting, pegging--going through all the mysteries of cribbage as if
+she had been in full practice from her cradle!  Mr Swiveller
+contemplated these things for a short time, and suffering the curtain
+to fall into its former position, laid his head on the pillow again.
+
+'I'm dreaming,' thought Richard, 'that's clear.  When I went to bed, my
+hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see through
+'em.  If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake, in an Arabian
+Night, instead of a London one.  But I have no doubt I'm asleep.  Not
+the least.'
+
+Here the small servant had another cough.
+
+'Very remarkable!' thought Mr Swiveller.  'I never dreamt such a real
+cough as that before.  I don't know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either
+a cough or a sneeze.  Perhaps it's part of the philosophy of dreams
+that one never does.  There's another--and another--I say!--I'm
+dreaming rather fast!'
+
+For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr Swiveller, after some
+reflection, pinched himself in the arm.
+
+'Queerer still!' he thought.  'I came to bed rather plump than
+otherwise, and now there's nothing to lay hold of.  I'll take another
+survey.'
+
+The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr Swiveller
+that the objects by which he was surrounded were real, and that he saw
+them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes.
+
+'It's an Arabian Night; that's what it is,' said Richard.  'I'm in
+Damascus or Grand Cairo.  The Marchioness is a Genie, and having had a
+wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young man alive,
+and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of China, has
+brought me away, room and all, to compare us together.  Perhaps,' said
+Mr Swiveller, turning languidly round on his pillow, and looking on
+that side of his bed which was next the wall, 'the Princess may be
+still--No, she's gone.'
+
+Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking it
+to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and doubt, Mr
+Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take the first
+favourable opportunity of addressing his companion.  An occasion
+presented itself.  The Marchioness dealt, turned up a knave, and
+omitted to take the usual advantage; upon which Mr Swiveller called out
+as loud as he could--'Two for his heels!'
+
+The Marchioness jumped up quickly and clapped her hands.  'Arabian
+Night, certainly,' thought Mr Swiveller; 'they always clap their hands
+instead of ringing the bell.  Now for the two thousand black slaves,
+with jars of jewels on their heads!'
+
+It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy; for
+directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry; declaring, not
+in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was 'so glad, she
+didn't know what to do.'
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully, 'be pleased to draw
+nearer.  First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me where I
+shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my flesh?'
+
+The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again;
+whereupon Mr Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected
+likewise.
+
+'I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appearances,
+Marchioness,' said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a trembling
+lip, 'that I have been ill.'
+
+'You just have!' replied the small servant, wiping her eyes.  'And
+haven't you been a talking nonsense!'
+
+'Oh!' said Dick.  'Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?'
+
+'Dead, all but,' replied the small servant.  'I never thought you'd get
+better.  Thank Heaven you have!'
+
+Mr Swiveller was silent for a long while.  By and bye, he began to talk
+again, inquiring how long he had been there.
+
+'Three weeks to-morrow,' replied the servant.
+
+'Three what?' said Dick.
+
+'Weeks,' returned the Marchioness emphatically; 'three long, slow
+weeks.'
+
+The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard to
+fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his full
+length.  The Marchioness, having arranged the bed-clothes more
+comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool--a
+discovery that filled her with delight--cried a little more, and then
+applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast.
+
+While she was thus engaged, Mr Swiveller looked on with a grateful
+heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made
+herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally Brass,
+whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough.  When the Marchioness
+had finished her toasting, she spread a clean cloth on a tray, and
+brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak tea, with which
+(she said) the doctor had left word he might refresh himself when he
+awoke.  She propped him up with pillows, if not as skilfully as if she
+had been a professional nurse all her life, at least as tenderly; and
+looked on with unutterable satisfaction while the patient--stopping
+every now and then to shake her by the hand--took his poor meal with an
+appetite and relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under
+any other circumstances, would have failed to provoke.  Having cleared
+away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down
+at the table to take her own tea.
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'how's Sally?'
+
+The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very
+uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.
+
+'What, haven't you seen her lately?' said Dick.
+
+'Seen her!' cried the small servant.  'Bless you, I've run away!'
+
+Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so
+remained for about five minutes.  By slow degrees he resumed his
+sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:
+
+'And where do you live, Marchioness?'
+
+'Live!' cried the small servant.  'Here!'
+
+'Oh!' said Mr Swiveller.
+
+And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been
+shot.  Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had
+finished her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth;
+when he motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and, being
+propped up again, opened a farther conversation.
+
+'And so,' said Dick, 'you have run away?'
+
+'Yes,' said the Marchioness, 'and they've been a tizing of me.'
+
+'Been--I beg your pardon,' said Dick--'what have they been doing?'
+
+'Been a tizing of me--tizing you know--in the newspapers,' rejoined the
+Marchioness.
+
+'Aye, aye,' said Dick, 'advertising?'
+
+The small servant nodded, and winked.  Her eyes were so red with waking
+and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater
+consistency.  And so Dick felt.
+
+'Tell me,' said he, 'how it was that you thought of coming here.'
+
+'Why, you see,' returned the Marchioness, 'when you was gone, I hadn't
+any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn't
+know where either him or you was to be found, you know.  But one
+morning, when I was--'
+
+'Was near a keyhole?' suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she
+faltered.
+
+'Well then,' said the small servant, nodding; 'when I was near the
+office keyhole--as you see me through, you know--I heard somebody
+saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at,
+and that you was took very bad, and wouldn't nobody come and take care
+of you.  Mr Brass, he says, "It's no business of mine," he says; and
+Miss Sally, she says, "He's a funny chap, but it's no business of
+mine;" and the lady went away, and slammed the door to, when she went
+out, I can tell you.  So I run away that night, and come here, and told
+'em you was my brother, and they believed me, and I've been here ever
+since.'
+
+'This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death!' cried
+Dick.
+
+'No I haven't,' she returned, 'not a bit of it.  Don't you mind about
+me.  I like sitting up, and I've often had a sleep, bless you, in one
+of them chairs.  But if you could have seen how you tried to jump out
+o' winder, and if you could have heard how you used to keep on singing
+and making speeches, you wouldn't have believed it--I'm so glad you're
+better, Mr Liverer.'
+
+'Liverer indeed!' said Dick thoughtfully.  'It's well I am a liverer.
+I strongly suspect I should have died, Marchioness, but for you.'
+
+At this point, Mr Swiveller took the small servant's hand in his again,
+and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling to express
+his thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that she quickly
+changed the theme by making him lie down, and urging him to keep very
+quiet.
+
+'The doctor,' she told him, 'said you was to be kept quite still, and
+there was to be no noise nor nothing.  Now, take a rest, and then we'll
+talk again.  I'll sit by you, you know.  If you shut your eyes, perhaps
+you'll go to sleep.  You'll be all the better for it, if you do.'
+
+The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to the
+bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the concoction
+of some cooling drink, with the address of a score of chemists.
+Richard Swiveller being indeed fatigued, fell into a slumber, and
+waking in about half an hour, inquired what time it was.
+
+'Just gone half after six,' replied his small friend, helping him to
+sit up again.
+
+'Marchioness,' said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead and
+turning suddenly round, as though the subject but that moment flashed
+upon him, 'what has become of Kit?'
+
+He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she
+said.
+
+'Has he gone?' asked Dick--'his mother--how is she,--what has become of
+her?'
+
+His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about
+them.  'But, if I thought,' said she, very slowly, 'that you'd keep
+quiet, and not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you--but
+I won't now.'
+
+'Yes, do,' said Dick.  'It will amuse me.'
+
+'Oh! would it though!' rejoined the small servant, with a horrified
+look.  'I know better than that.  Wait till you're better and then I'll
+tell you.'
+
+
+Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes, being
+large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so much, that
+she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think any more about
+it.  What had already fallen from her, however, had not only piqued his
+curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore he urged her to tell
+him the worst at once.
+
+'Oh there's no worst in it,' said the small servant.  'It hasn't
+anything to do with you.'
+
+'Has it anything to do with--is it anything you heard through chinks or
+keyholes--and that you were not intended to hear?' asked Dick, in a
+breathless state.
+
+'Yes,' replied the small servant.
+
+'In--in Bevis Marks?' pursued Dick hastily.  'Conversations between
+Brass and Sally?'
+
+'Yes,' cried the small servant again.
+
+Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her by
+the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and
+freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being wholly
+unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation.  She, seeing
+that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of postponing her
+revelation might be much more injurious than any that were likely to
+ensue from its being made at once, promised compliance, on condition
+that the patient kept himself perfectly quiet, and abstained from
+starting up or tossing about.
+
+'But if you begin to do that,' said the small servant, 'I'll leave off.
+And so I tell you.'
+
+'You can't leave off, till you have gone on,' said Dick.  'And do go
+on, there's a darling.  Speak, sister, speak.  Pretty Polly say.  Oh
+tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you!'
+
+Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller
+poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and
+tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:
+
+'Well!  Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen--where we
+played cards, you know.  Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen
+door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the
+candle and rake out the fire.  When she had done that, she left me to
+go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in
+her pocket again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the
+morning--very early I can tell you--and let me out.  I was terrible
+afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought
+they might forget me and only take care of themselves you know.  So,
+whenever I see an old rusty key anywhere, I picked it up and tried if
+it would fit the door, and at last I found in the dust cellar a key
+that did fit it.'
+
+Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs.  But the
+small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and
+pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to
+proceed.
+
+'They kept me very short,' said the small servant.  'Oh! you can't
+think how short they kept me!  So I used to come out at night after
+they'd gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or
+sangwitches that you'd left in the office, or even pieces of orange
+peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine.  Did you ever
+taste orange peel and water?'
+
+Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and
+once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative.
+
+'If you make believe very much, it's quite nice,' said the small
+servant, 'but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear a
+little more seasoning, certainly.  Well, sometimes I used to come out
+after they'd gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or
+two nights before there was all that precious noise in the office--when
+the young man was took, I mean--I come upstairs while Mr Brass and Miss
+Sally was a-sittin' at the office fire; and I tell you the truth, that
+I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.'
+
+Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the
+bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the
+utmost concern.  But the small servant pausing, and holding up her
+finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not.
+
+'There was him and her,' said the small servant, 'a-sittin' by the
+fire, and talking softly together.  Mr Brass says to Miss Sally, "Upon
+my word," he says "it's a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a
+world of trouble, and I don't half like it." She says--you know her
+way--she says, "You're the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I
+ever see, and I think," she says, "that I ought to have been the
+brother, and you the sister.  Isn't Quilp," she says, "our principal
+support?" "He certainly is," says Mr Brass, "And an't we," she says,
+"constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?" "We
+certainly are," says Mr Brass.  "Then does it signify," she says,
+"about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires it?" "It certainly does not
+signify," says Mr Brass.  Then they whispered and laughed for a long
+time about there being no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass
+pulls out his pocket-book, and says, "Well," he says, "here it
+is--Quilp's own five-pound note.  We'll agree that way, then," he says.
+"Kit's coming to-morrow morning, I know.  While he's up-stairs, you'll
+get out of the way, and I'll clear off Mr Richard.  Having Kit alone,
+I'll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat.  I'll
+manage so, besides," he says, "that Mr Richard shall find it there, and
+be the evidence.  And if that don't get Christopher out of Mr Quilp's
+way, and satisfy Mr Quilp's grudges," he says, "the Devil's in it."
+Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to
+be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went down-stairs
+again.--There!'
+
+The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation
+as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he
+sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to
+anybody.
+
+'How could it be?' replied his nurse.  'I was almost afraid to think
+about it, and hoped the young man would be let off.  When I heard 'em
+say they had found him guilty of what he didn't do, you was gone, and
+so was the lodger--though I think I should have been frightened to tell
+him, even if he'd been there.  Ever since I come here, you've been out
+of your senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then?'
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and
+flinging it to the other end of the room; 'if you'll do me the favour
+to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I'll
+get up.'
+
+'You mustn't think of such a thing,' cried his nurse.
+
+'I must indeed,' said the patient, looking round the room.
+'Whereabouts are my clothes?'
+
+'Oh, I'm so glad--you haven't got any,' replied the Marchioness.
+
+'Ma'am!' said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.
+
+'I've been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was
+ordered for you.  But don't take on about that,' urged the Marchioness,
+as Dick fell back upon his pillow.  'You're too weak to stand, indeed.'
+
+'I am afraid,' said Richard dolefully, 'that you're right.  What ought
+I to do! what is to be done!'
+
+It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the first
+step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr Garlands
+instantly.  It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet left the
+office.  In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant
+had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of
+father and son, which would enable her to recognise either, without
+difficulty; and a special caution to be shy of Mr Chuckster, in
+consequence of that gentleman's known antipathy to Kit.  Armed with
+these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either
+old Mr Garland or Mr Abel, bodily, to that apartment.
+
+'I suppose,' said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into
+the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, 'I suppose
+there's nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat even?'
+
+'No, nothing.'
+
+'It's embarrassing,' said Mr Swiveller, 'in case of fire--even an
+umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear Marchioness.
+I should have died without you!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 65
+
+It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick
+nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very
+neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would
+probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme
+authority over her person.  Not unmindful of the risk she ran, however,
+the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she dived into the first
+dark by-way that presented itself, and, without any present reference
+to the point to which her journey tended, made it her first business to
+put two good miles of brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.
+
+When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course
+for the notary's office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of apple-women
+and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or
+of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice--she easily
+procured a direction.  As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in
+a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting
+off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the
+Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in
+safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was
+bound.
+
+She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some
+old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses
+was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was rather retarded than
+assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew
+off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the
+crowd of passengers.  Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so
+much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress
+in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling,
+pushing, squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she
+reached the street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out
+and exhausted, and could not refrain from tears.
+
+But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as there
+were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore some hope
+that she was not too late.  So the Marchioness dried her eyes with the
+backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the steps, peeped in
+through the glass door.
+
+Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such
+preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down his
+wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck more
+gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers by the aid
+of a little triangular bit of looking glass.  Before the ashes of the
+fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly judged to be the
+notary, and the other (who was buttoning his great-coat and was
+evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel Garland.
+
+Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with
+herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out, as
+there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr Chuckster, and
+less difficulty in delivering her message.  With this purpose she
+slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down upon a door-step
+just opposite.
+
+She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the
+street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns, a
+pony.  This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in it; but
+neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the least, as he
+reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or stood still
+again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the smallest reference to
+them--just as the fancy seized him, and as if he were the freest animal
+in creation.  When they came to the notary's door, the man called out
+in a very respectful manner, 'Woa then'--intimating that if he might
+venture to express a wish, it would be that they stopped there.  The
+pony made a moment's pause; but, as if it occurred to him that to stop
+when he was required might be to establish an inconvenient and
+dangerous precedent, he immediately started off again, rattled at a
+fast trot to the street corner, wheeled round, came back, and then
+stopped of his own accord.
+
+'Oh! you're a precious creatur!' said the man--who didn't venture by
+the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the
+pavement.  'I wish I had the rewarding of you--I do.'
+
+'What has he been doing?' said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his neck as
+he came down the steps.
+
+'He's enough to fret a man's heart out,' replied the hostler.  'He is
+the most wicious rascal--Woa then, will you?'
+
+'He'll never stand still, if you call him names,' said Mr Abel, getting
+in, and taking the reins.  'He's a very good fellow if you know how to
+manage him.  This is the first time he has been out, this long while,
+for he has lost his old driver and wouldn't stir for anybody else, till
+this morning.  The lamps are right, are they?  That's well.  Be here to
+take him to-morrow, if you please.  Good night!'
+
+And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention, the
+pony yielded to Mr Abel's mildness, and trotted gently off.
+
+All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the small
+servant had been afraid to approach.  She had nothing for it now,
+therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel to stop.
+Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was unable to make
+him hear.  The case was desperate; for the pony was quickening his
+pace.  The Marchioness hung on behind for a few moments, and, feeling
+that she could go no farther, and must soon yield, clambered by a
+vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in so doing lost one of the
+shoes for ever.
+
+Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite enough to
+do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without looking round:
+little dreaming of the strange figure that was close behind him, until
+the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered her breath, and the
+loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her position, uttered close into
+his ear, the words--'I say, Sir'--
+
+He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony, cried,
+with some trepidation, 'God bless me, what is this!'
+
+'Don't be frightened, Sir,' replied the still panting messenger.  'Oh
+I've run such a way after you!'
+
+'What do you want with me?' said Mr Abel.  'How did you come here?'
+
+'I got in behind,' replied the Marchioness.  'Oh please drive on,
+sir--don't stop--and go towards the City, will you?  And oh do please
+make haste, because it's of consequence.  There's somebody wants to see
+you there.  He sent me to say would you come directly, and that he
+knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove his innocence.'
+
+'What do you tell me, child?'
+
+'The truth, upon my word and honour I do.  But please to drive on--
+quick, please!  I've been such a time gone, he'll think I'm lost.'
+
+Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward.  The pony, impelled by
+some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great pace, and
+neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric performances, until
+they arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller's lodging, where, marvellous
+to relate, he consented to stop when Mr Abel checked him.
+
+'See!  It's the room up there,' said the Marchioness, pointing to one
+where there was a faint light.  'Come!'
+
+Mr Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in
+existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated; for he had heard of
+people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and murdered,
+under circumstances very like the present, and, for anything he knew to
+the contrary, by guides very like the Marchioness.  His regard for Kit,
+however, overcame every other consideration.  So, entrusting Whisker to
+the charge of a man who was lingering hard by in expectation of the
+job, he suffered his companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the
+dark and narrow stairs.
+
+He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a
+dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in bed.
+
+'An't it nice to see him lying there so quiet?' said his guide, in an
+earnest whisper.  'Oh! you'd say it was, if you had only seen him two
+or three days ago.'
+
+Mr Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from the
+bed and very near the door.  His guide, who appeared to understand his
+reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her hand, approached
+the bed.  As she did so, the sleeper started up, and he recognised in
+the wasted face the features of Richard Swiveller.
+
+'Why, how is this?' said Mr Abel kindly, as he hurried towards him.
+'You have been ill?'
+
+'Very,' replied Dick.  'Nearly dead.  You might have chanced to hear of
+your Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to fetch you.
+Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please.  Sit down, Sir.'
+
+Mr Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his guide,
+and took a chair by the bedside.
+
+'I have sent for you, Sir,' said Dick--'but she told you on what
+account?'
+
+'She did.  I am quite bewildered by all this.  I really don't know what
+to say or think,' replied Mr Abel.
+
+'You'll say that presently,' retorted Dick.  'Marchioness, take a seat
+on the bed, will you?  Now, tell this gentleman all that you told me;
+and be particular.  Don't you speak another word, Sir.'
+
+The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as before,
+without any deviation or omission.  Richard Swiveller kept his eyes
+fixed on his visitor during its narration, and directly it was
+concluded, took the word again.
+
+'You have heard it all, and you'll not forget it.  I'm too giddy and
+too queer to suggest anything; but you and your friends will know what
+to do.  After this long delay, every minute is an age.  If ever you
+went home fast in your life, go home fast to-night.  Don't stop to say
+one word to me, but go.  She will be found here, whenever she's wanted;
+and as to me, you're pretty sure to find me at home, for a week or two.
+There are more reasons than one for that.  Marchioness, a light!  If
+you lose another minute in looking at me, sir, I'll never forgive you!'
+
+Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion.  He was gone in an
+instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him down-stairs,
+reported that the pony, without any preliminary objection whatever, had
+dashed away at full gallop.
+
+'That's right!' said Dick; 'and hearty of him; and I honour him from
+this time.  But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am sure you
+must be tired.  Do have a mug of beer.  It will do me as much good to
+see you take it as if I might drink it myself.'
+
+Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small nurse to
+indulge in such a luxury.  Having eaten and drunk to Mr Swiveller's
+extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put everything in neat
+order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug
+before the fire.
+
+Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, 'Strew then, oh
+strew, a bed of rushes.  Here will we stay, till morning blushes.  Good
+night, Marchioness!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 66
+
+On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by slow
+degrees, of whispering voices in his room.  Looking out between the
+curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary, and the single
+gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and talking to her with
+great earnestness but in very subdued tones--fearing, no doubt, to
+disturb him.  He lost no time in letting them know that this precaution
+was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen directly approached his
+bedside.  Old Mr Garland was the first to stretch out his hand, and
+inquire how he felt.
+
+Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as weak
+as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside and
+pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their interference, set
+his breakfast before him, and insisted on his taking it before he
+underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being spoken to.  Mr Swiveller,
+who was perfectly ravenous, and had had, all night, amazingly distinct
+and consistent dreams of mutton chops, double stout, and similar
+delicacies, felt even the weak tea and dry toast such irresistible
+temptations, that he consented to eat and drink on one condition.
+
+'And that is,' said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland's hand,
+'that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit or drop.
+Is it too late?'
+
+'For completing the work you began so well last night?' returned the
+old gentleman.  'No.  Set your mind at rest on that point.  It is not,
+I assure you.'
+
+Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his food
+with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest in the
+eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat.  The manner
+of this meal was this:--Mr Swiveller, holding the slice of toast or cup
+of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or drink, as the case might
+be, constantly kept, in his right, one palm of the Marchioness tight
+locked; and to shake, or even to kiss this imprisoned hand, he would
+stop every now and then, in the very act of swallowing, with perfect
+seriousness of intention, and the utmost gravity.  As often as he put
+anything into his mouth, whether for eating or drinking, the face of
+the Marchioness lighted up beyond all description; but whenever he gave
+her one or other of these tokens of recognition, her countenance became
+overshadowed, and she began to sob.  Now, whether she was in her
+laughing joy, or in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help
+turning to the visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say,
+'You see this fellow--can I help this?'--and they, being thus made, as
+it were, parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look,
+'No.  Certainly not.'  This dumb-show, taking place during the whole
+time of the invalid's breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and
+emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly
+questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was spoken
+from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in themselves
+so slight and unimportant.
+
+At length--and to say the truth before very long--Mr Swiveller had
+despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his recovery it
+was discreet to let him have.  But the cares of the Marchioness did not
+stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and presently returning
+with a basin of fair water, she laved his face and hands, brushed his
+hair, and in short made him as spruce and smart as anybody under such
+circumstances could be made; and all this, in as brisk and
+business-like a manner, as if he were a very little boy, and she his
+grown-up nurse.  To these various attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in
+a kind of grateful astonishment beyond the reach of language.  When
+they were at last brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn
+into a distant corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by
+that time), he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook
+hands heartily with the air.
+
+'Gentlemen,' said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and turning
+round again, 'you'll excuse me.  Men who have been brought so low as I
+have been, are easily fatigued.  I am fresh again now, and fit for
+talking.  We're short of chairs here, among other trifles, but if
+you'll do me the favour to sit upon the bed--'
+
+'What can we do for you?' said Mr Garland, kindly.
+
+'If you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real,
+sober earnest,' returned Dick, 'I'd thank you to get it done off-hand.
+But as you can't, and as the question is not what you will do for me,
+but what you will do for somebody else who has a better claim upon you,
+pray sir let me know what you intend doing.'
+
+'It's chiefly on that account that we have come just now,' said the
+single gentleman, 'for you will have another visitor presently.  We
+feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what steps
+we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we stirred in the
+matter.'
+
+'Gentlemen,' returned Dick, 'I thank you.  Anybody in the helpless
+state that you see me in, is naturally anxious.  Don't let me interrupt
+you, sir.'
+
+'Then, you see, my good fellow,' said the single gentleman, 'that while
+we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure, which has so
+providentially come to light--'
+
+'Meaning hers?' said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.
+
+'--Meaning hers, of course.  While we have no doubt of that, or that a
+proper use of it would procure the poor lad's immediate pardon and
+liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable
+us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany.  I should tell you
+that this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly
+approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in
+this short space of time, to take upon the subject.  You'll agree with
+us, that to give him even the most distant chance of escape, if we
+could help it, would be monstrous.  You say with us, no doubt, if
+somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.'
+
+'Yes,' returned Dick, 'certainly.  That is if somebody must--but upon
+my word, I'm unwilling that anybody should.  Since laws were made for
+every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me--and so forth
+you know--doesn't it strike you in that light?'
+
+The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller had
+put the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to
+explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem in the first
+instance; and that their design was to endeavour to extort a confession
+from the gentle Sarah.
+
+'When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,' he said, 'and
+that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without strong
+hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the other two
+effectually.  If we could do that, she might go scot-free for aught I
+cared.'
+
+Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner,
+representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing,
+that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to
+manage than Quilp himself--that, for any tampering, terrifying, or
+cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject--that she
+was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape--in
+short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally defeated.
+But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other course.  The single
+gentleman has been described as explaining their joint intentions, but
+it should have been written that they all spoke together; that if any
+one of them by chance held his peace for a moment, he stood gasping and
+panting for an opportunity to strike in again: in a word, that they had
+reached that pitch of impatience and anxiety where men can neither be
+persuaded nor reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to
+turn the most impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to
+reconsider their determination.  So, after telling Mr Swiveller how
+they had not lost sight of Kit's mother and the children; how they had
+never once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in
+their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they had
+been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his guilt, and
+their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller,
+might keep his mind at rest, for everything should be happily adjusted
+between that time and night;--after telling him all this, and adding a
+great many kind and cordial expressions, personal to himself, which it
+is unnecessary to recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single
+gentleman, took their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard
+Swiveller must assuredly have been driven into another fever, whereof
+the results might have been fatal.
+
+Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the
+room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the
+setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a
+porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made
+the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again.  Directly
+this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the
+door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a
+mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently
+unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and coffee, and wine, and
+rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls ready trussed for boiling,
+and calves'-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and sago, and other delicate
+restoratives, that the small servant, who had never thought it possible
+that such things could be, except in shops, stood rooted to the spot in
+her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power
+of speech quite gone.  But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man who
+emptied the hamper, big as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the nice
+old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the
+hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about on
+tiptoe and without noise--now here, now there, now everywhere at
+once--began to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken
+broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to
+cut them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses
+of wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat could
+be prepared for her refreshment.  The whole of which appearances were
+so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller, when he had taken two
+oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the strong man walk off with
+the empty basket, plainly leaving all that abundance for his use and
+benefit, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer
+inability to entertain such wonders in his mind.
+
+Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland, repaired
+to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and sent a
+letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious and
+brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to consult her, with her
+company there, as speedily as possible.  The communication performed
+its errand so well, that within ten minutes of the messenger's return
+and report of its delivery, Miss Brass herself was announced.
+
+'Pray ma'am,' said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the
+room, 'take a chair.'
+
+Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and
+seemed--as indeed she was--not a little astonished to find that the
+lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person.
+
+'You did not expect to see me?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'I didn't think much about it,' returned the beauty.  'I supposed it
+was business of some kind or other.  If it's about the apartments, of
+course you'll give my brother regular notice, you know--or money.
+That's very easily settled.  You're a responsible party, and in such a
+case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty much the same.'
+
+'I am obliged to you for your good opinion,' retorted the single
+gentleman, 'and quite concur in these sentiments.  But that is not the
+subject on which I wish to speak with you.'
+
+'Oh!' said Sally.  'Then just state the particulars, will you?  I
+suppose it's professional business?'
+
+'Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.'
+
+'Very well,' returned Miss Brass.  'My brother and I are just the same.
+I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.'
+
+'As there are other parties interested besides myself,' said the single
+gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, 'we had better
+confer together.  Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.'
+
+Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and, drawing up
+two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of
+fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into a corner.  Her brother
+Sampson under such circumstances would certainly have evinced some
+confusion or anxiety, but she--all composure--pulled out the tin box,
+and calmly took a pinch of snuff.
+
+'Miss Brass,' said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, 'we
+professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can say
+what we have to say, in very few words.  You advertised a runaway
+servant, the other day?'
+
+'Well,' returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her
+features, 'what of that?'
+
+'She is found, ma'am,' said the Notary, pulling out his
+pocket-handkerchief with a flourish.  'She is found.'
+
+'Who found her?' demanded Sarah hastily.
+
+'We did, ma'am--we three.  Only last night, or you would have heard
+from us before.'
+
+'And now I have heard from you,' said Miss Brass, folding her arms as
+though she were about to deny something to the death, 'what have you
+got to say?  Something you have got into your heads about her, of
+course.  Prove it, will you--that's all.  Prove it.  You have found
+her, you say.  I can tell you (if you don't know it) that you have
+found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was
+ever born.--Have you got her here?' she added, looking sharply round.
+
+'No, she is not here at present,' returned the Notary.  'But she is
+quite safe.'
+
+'Ha!' cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as
+spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the small
+servant's nose; 'she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant
+you.'
+
+'I hope so,' replied the Notary.  'Did it occur to you for the first
+time, when you found she had run away, that there were two keys to your
+kitchen door?'
+
+Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side, looked
+at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but
+with a cunning aspect of immense expression.
+
+'Two keys,' repeated the Notary; 'one of which gave her the
+opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you supposed
+her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential
+consultations--among others, that particular conference, to be
+described to-day before a justice, which you will have an opportunity
+of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr Brass held
+together, on the night before that most unfortunate and innocent young
+man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of which I will only
+say that it may be characterised by the epithets which you have applied
+to this wretched little witness, and by a few stronger ones besides.'
+
+Sally took another pinch.  Although her face was wonderfully composed,
+it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise, and that what
+she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with her small
+servant, was something very different from this.
+
+'Come, come, Miss Brass,' said the Notary, 'you have great command of
+feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never entered your
+imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of its plotters must
+be brought to justice.  Now, you know the pains and penalties you are
+liable to, and so I need not dilate upon them, but I have a proposal to
+make to you.  You have the honour of being sister to one of the
+greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I may venture to say so to a lady,
+you are in every respect quite worthy of him.  But connected with you
+two is a third party, a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover
+of the whole diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either.
+For his sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history
+of this affair.  Let me remind you that your doing so, at our instance,
+will place you in a safe and comfortable position--your present one is
+not desirable--and cannot injure your brother; for against him and you
+we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear) already.  I will not
+say to you that we suggest this course in mercy (for, to tell you the
+truth, we do not entertain any regard for you), but it is a necessity
+to which we are reduced, and I recommend it to you as a matter of the
+very best policy.  Time,' said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, 'in
+a business like this, is exceedingly precious.  Favour us with your
+decision as speedily as possible, ma'am.'
+
+With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by turns,
+Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and having by this
+time very little left, travelled round and round the box with her
+forefinger and thumb, scraping up another.  Having disposed of this
+likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket, she said,--
+
+'I am to accept or reject at once, am I?'
+
+'Yes,' said Mr Witherden.
+
+The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the
+door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust
+into the room.
+
+'Excuse me,' said the gentleman hastily.  'Wait a bit!'
+
+So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence
+occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as
+servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.
+
+'Sarah,' said Brass, 'hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak.
+Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to see three
+such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of sentiment, I think
+you would hardly believe me.  But though I am unfortunate--nay,
+gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh expressions in a company
+like this--still, I have my feelings like other men.  I have heard of a
+poet, who remarked that feelings were the common lot of all.  If he
+could have been a pig, gentlemen, and have uttered that sentiment, he
+would still have been immortal.'
+
+'If you're not an idiot,' said Miss Brass harshly, 'hold your peace.'
+
+'Sarah, my dear,' returned her brother, 'thank you.  But I know what I
+am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing myself
+accordingly.  Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is hanging out of
+your pocket--would you allow me to--,
+
+As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk from
+him with an air of disgust.  Brass, who over and above his usual
+prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade over one
+eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and looked round with
+a pitiful smile.
+
+'He shuns me,' said Sampson, 'even when I would, as I may say, heap
+coals of fire upon his head.  Well!  Ah! But I am a falling house, and
+the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a
+gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me!
+Gentlemen--regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see my
+sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going to, and
+being--may I venture to say?--naturally of a suspicious turn, followed
+her.  Since then, I have been listening.'
+
+'If you're not mad,' interposed Miss Sally, 'stop there, and say no
+more.'
+
+'Sarah, my dear,' rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, 'I thank
+you kindly, but will still proceed.  Mr Witherden, sir, as we have the
+honour to be members of the same profession--to say nothing of that
+other gentleman having been my lodger, and having partaken, as one may
+say, of the hospitality of my roof--I think you might have given me the
+refusal of this offer in the first instance.  I do indeed.  Now, my
+dear Sir,' cried Brass, seeing that the Notary was about to interrupt
+him, 'suffer me to speak, I beg.'
+
+Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.
+
+'If you will do me the favour,' he said, holding up the green shade,
+and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, 'to look at this, you
+will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get it.  If you
+look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could have been the
+cause of all these scratches.  And if from them to my hat, how it came
+into the state in which you see it.  Gentlemen,' said Brass, striking
+the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, 'to all these questions I
+answer--Quilp!'
+
+The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.
+
+'I say,' pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he were
+talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling malignity, in
+violent contrast to his usual smoothness, 'that I answer to all these
+questions,--Quilp--Quilp, who deludes me into his infernal den, and
+takes a delight in looking on and chuckling while I scorch, and burn,
+and bruise, and maim myself--Quilp, who never once, no never once, in
+all our communications together, has treated me otherwise than as a
+dog--Quilp, whom I have always hated with my whole heart, but never so
+much as lately.  He gives me the cold shoulder on this very matter as
+if he had had nothing to do with it, instead of being the first to
+propose it.  I can't trust him.  In one of his howling, raving, blazing
+humours, I believe he'd let it out, if it was murder, and never think
+of himself so long as he could terrify me.  Now,' said Brass, picking
+up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually
+crouching down, in the excess of his servility, 'what does all this
+lead to?--what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?--could you guess
+at all near the mark?'
+
+Nobody spoke.  Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he had
+propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:
+
+'To be short with you, then, it leads me to this.  If the truth has
+come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there's no standing up
+against--and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen, in its
+way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as thunder-storms
+and that, we're not always over and above glad to see it--I had better
+turn upon this man than let this man turn upon me.  It's clear to me
+that I am done for.  Therefore, if anybody is to split, I had better be
+the person and have the advantage of it.  Sarah, my dear, comparatively
+speaking you're safe.  I relate these circumstances for my own profit.'
+
+With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story;
+bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making
+himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though
+subject--he acknowledged--to human weaknesses.  He concluded thus:
+
+'Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves.  Being in
+for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound.  You
+must do with me what you please, and take me where you please.  If you
+wish to have this in writing, we'll reduce it into manuscript
+immediately.  You will be tender with me, I am sure.  I am quite
+confident you will be tender with me.  You are men of honour, and have
+feeling hearts.  I yielded from necessity to Quilp, for though
+necessity has no law, she has her lawyers.  I yield to you from
+necessity too; from policy besides; and because of feelings that have
+been a pretty long time working within me.  Punish Quilp, gentlemen.
+Weigh heavily upon him.  Grind him down.  Tread him under foot.  He has
+done as much by me, for many and many a day.'
+
+Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson checked
+the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and smiled as only
+parasites and cowards can.
+
+'And this,' said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had
+hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to foot
+with a bitter sneer, 'this is my brother, is it!  This is my brother,
+that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have had something
+of the man in him!'
+
+'Sarah, my dear,' returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; 'you
+disturb our friends.  Besides you--you're disappointed, Sarah, and, not
+knowing what you say, expose yourself.'
+
+'Yes, you pitiful dastard,' retorted the lovely damsel, 'I understand
+you.  You feared that I should be beforehand with you.  But do you
+think that I would have been enticed to say a word!  I'd have scorned
+it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty years.'
+
+'He he!' simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to
+have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any
+spark of manliness he might have possessed.  'You think so, Sarah, you
+think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good
+fellow.  You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with
+Foxey--our revered father, gentlemen--"Always suspect everybody."
+That's the maxim to go through life with!  If you were not actually
+about to purchase your own safety when I showed myself, I suspect you'd
+have done it by this time.  And therefore I've done it myself, and
+spared you the trouble as well as the shame.  The shame, gentlemen,'
+added Brass, allowing himself to be slightly overcome, 'if there is
+any, is mine.  It's better that a female should be spared it.'
+
+With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more particularly
+to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted, with
+humility, whether the elevating principle laid down by the latter
+gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is always a prudent one,
+or attended in practice with the desired results.  This is, beyond
+question, a bold and presumptuous doubt, inasmuch as many distinguished
+characters, called men of the world, long-headed customers, knowing
+dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands at business, and the like, have
+made, and do daily make, this axiom their polar star and compass.
+Still, the doubt may be gently insinuated.  And in illustration it may
+be observed, that if Mr Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without
+prying and listening, left his sister to manage the conference on their
+joint behalf, or prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty
+hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his
+distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much
+better off in the end.  Thus, it will always happen that these men of
+the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from quite as
+much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and absurdity of
+mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of wearing a coat of
+mail on the most innocent occasions.
+
+The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments.  At the
+end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary pointed to
+the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr Brass that if he
+wished to make any statement in writing, he had the opportunity of
+doing so.  At the same time he felt bound to tell him that they would
+require his attendance, presently, before a justice of the peace, and
+that in what he did or said, he was guided entirely by his own
+discretion.
+
+'Gentlemen,' said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in spirit
+upon the ground before them, 'I will justify the tenderness with which
+I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness, I should, now
+that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst position of the
+three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean breast.  Mr
+Witherden, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits--if you would
+do me the favour to ring the bell and order up a glass of something
+warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what has passed, have a
+melancholy pleasure in drinking your good health.  I had hoped,' said
+Brass, looking round with a mournful smile, 'to have seen you three
+gentlemen, one day or another, with your legs under the mahogany in my
+humble parlour in the Marks.  But hopes are fleeting.  Dear me!'
+
+Mr Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that he
+could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived.  Having
+partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state, he sat
+down to write.
+
+The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands
+clasped behind her, paced the room with manly strides while her brother
+was thus employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her snuff-box and
+bite the lid.  She continued to pace up and down until she was quite
+tired, and then fell asleep on a chair near the door.
+
+It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was a
+sham or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the dusk of
+the afternoon.  Whether this was an intentional and waking departure,
+or a somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her sleep, may remain a
+subject of contention; but, on one point (and indeed the main one) all
+parties are agreed.  In whatever state she walked away, she certainly
+did not walk back again.
+
+Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be
+inferred that Mr Brass's task occupied some time in the completion.  It
+was not finished until evening; but, being done at last, that worthy
+person and the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to the
+private office of a justice, who, giving Mr Brass a warm reception and
+detaining him in a secure place that he might insure to himself the
+pleasure of seeing him on the morrow, dismissed the others with the
+cheering assurance that a warrant could not fail to be granted next day
+for the apprehension of Mr Quilp, and that a proper application and
+statement of all the circumstances to the secretary of state (who was
+fortunately in town), would no doubt procure Kit's free pardon and
+liberation without delay.
+
+And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp's malignant career was drawing to
+a close, and that retribution, which often travels slowly--especially
+when heaviest--had tracked his footsteps with a sure and certain scent
+and was gaining on him fast.  Unmindful of her stealthy tread, her
+victim holds his course in fancied triumph.  Still at his heels she
+comes, and once afoot, is never turned aside!
+
+Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the lodgings
+of Mr Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favourably in his
+recovery as to have been able to sit up for half an hour, and to have
+conversed with cheerfulness.  Mrs Garland had gone home some time
+since, but Mr Abel was still sitting with him.  After telling him all
+they had done, the two Mr Garlands and the single gentleman, as if by
+some previous understanding, took their leaves for the night, leaving
+the invalid alone with the Notary and the small servant.
+
+'As you are so much better,' said Mr Witherden, sitting down at the
+bedside, 'I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which has
+come to me professionally.'
+
+The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman connected
+with legal matters, appeared to afford Richard any-thing but a pleasing
+anticipation.  Perhaps he connected it in his own mind with one or two
+outstanding accounts, in reference to which he had already received
+divers threatening letters.  His countenance fell as he replied,
+
+'Certainly, sir.  I hope it's not anything of a very disagreeable
+nature, though?'
+
+'If I thought it so, I should choose some better time for communicating
+it,' replied the Notary.  'Let me tell you, first, that my friends who
+have been here to-day, know nothing of it, and that their kindness to
+you has been quite spontaneous and with no hope of return.  It may do a
+thoughtless, careless man, good, to know that.'
+
+Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would.
+
+'I have been making some inquiries about you,' said Mr Witherden,
+'little thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as
+those which have brought us together.  You are the nephew of Rebecca
+Swiveller, spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire.'
+
+'Deceased!' cried Dick.
+
+'Deceased.  If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have come
+into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to doubt it) of
+five-and-twenty thousand pounds.  As it is, you have fallen into an
+annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but I think I may
+congratulate you even upon that.'
+
+'Sir,' said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, 'you may.  For, please
+God, we'll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet!  And she shall
+walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I never rise from
+this bed again!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 67
+
+Unconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last chapter,
+and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung beneath him (for,
+to the end that he should have no warning of the business a-foot, the
+profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole transaction), Mr Quilp
+remained shut up in his hermitage, undisturbed by any suspicion, and
+extremely well satisfied with the result of his machinations.  Being
+engaged in the adjustment of some accounts--an occupation to which the
+silence and solitude of his retreat were very favourable--he had not
+strayed from his den for two whole days.  The third day of his devotion
+to this pursuit found him still hard at work, and little disposed to
+stir abroad.
+
+It was the day next after Mr Brass's confession, and consequently, that
+which threatened the restriction of Mr Quilp's liberty, and the abrupt
+communication to him of some very unpleasant and unwelcome facts.
+Having no intuitive perception of the cloud which lowered upon his
+house, the dwarf was in his ordinary state of cheerfulness; and, when
+he found he was becoming too much engrossed by business with a due
+regard to his health and spirits, he varied its monotonous routine with
+a little screeching, or howling, or some other innocent relaxation of
+that nature.
+
+He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the
+fire after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his
+master's back was turned, imitating his grimaces with a fearful
+exactness.  The figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained in
+its old place.  The face, horribly seared by the frequent application
+of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the insertion, in the
+tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled blandly in its less
+lacerated parts, and seemed, like a sturdy martyr, to provoke its
+tormentor to the commission of new outrages and insults.
+
+The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of the town, was damp,
+dark, cold and gloomy.  In that low and marshy spot, the fog filled
+every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud.  Every object was
+obscure at one or two yards' distance.  The warning lights and fires
+upon the river were powerless beneath this pall, and, but for a raw and
+piercing chillness in the air, and now and then the cry of some
+bewildered boatman as he rested on his oars and tried to make out where
+he was, the river itself might have been miles away.
+
+The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly searching
+kind.  No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out.  It seemed to
+penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking wayfarers, and to rack
+them with cold and pains.  Everything was wet and clammy to the touch.
+The warm blaze alone defied it, and leaped and sparkled merrily.  It
+was a day to be at home, crowding about the fire, telling stories of
+travellers who had lost their way in such weather on heaths and moors;
+and to love a warm hearth more than ever.
+
+The dwarf's humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself; and
+when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone.  By no
+means insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he ordered Tom
+Scott to pile the little stove with coals, and, dismissing his work for
+that day, determined to be jovial.
+
+To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on the
+fire; and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself in
+somewhat of a savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great bowl of
+hot punch, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the evening.
+
+At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his
+attention.  When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly opened
+the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who was there.
+
+'Only me, Quilp,' replied a woman's voice.
+
+'Only you!' cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better
+view of his visitor.  'And what brings you here, you jade?  How dare
+you approach the ogre's castle, eh?'
+
+'I have come with some news,' rejoined his spouse.  'Don't be angry
+with me.'
+
+'Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap his
+fingers?' said the dwarf.  'Is the dear old lady dead?'
+
+'I don't know what news it is, or whether it's good or bad,' rejoined
+his wife.
+
+'Then she's alive,' said Quilp, 'and there's nothing the matter with
+her.  Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home!'
+
+'I have brought a letter,' cried the meek little woman.
+
+'Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,' said Quilp,
+interrupting her, 'or I'll come out and scratch you.'
+
+'No, but please, Quilp--do hear me speak,' urged his submissive wife,
+in tears.  'Please do!'
+
+'Speak then,' growled the dwarf with a malicious grin.  'Be quick and
+short about it.  Speak, will you?'
+
+'It was left at our house this afternoon,' said Mrs Quilp, trembling,
+'by a boy who said he didn't know from whom it came, but that it was
+given to him to leave, and that he was told to say it must be brought
+on to you directly, for it was of the very greatest consequence.--But
+please,' she added, as her husband stretched out his hand for it,
+'please let me in.  You don't know how wet and cold I am, or how many
+times I have lost my way in coming here through this thick fog.  Let me
+dry myself at the fire for five minutes.  I'll go away directly you
+tell me to, Quilp.  Upon my word I will.'
+
+Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments; but, bethinking
+himself that the letter might require some answer, of which she could
+be the bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade her enter.
+Mrs Quilp obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down before the fire to
+warm her hands, delivered into his a little packet.
+
+'I'm glad you're wet,' said Quilp, snatching it, and squinting at her.
+'I'm glad you're cold.  I'm glad you lost your way.  I'm glad your eyes
+are red with crying.  It does my heart good to see your little nose so
+pinched and frosty.'
+
+'Oh Quilp!' sobbed his wife.  'How cruel it is of you!'
+
+'Did she think I was dead?' said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a most
+extraordinary series of grimaces.  'Did she think she was going to have
+all the money, and to marry somebody she liked?  Ha ha ha!  Did she?'
+
+These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who remained
+on her knees, warming her hands, and sobbing, to Mr Quilp's great
+delight.  But, just as he was contemplating her, and chuckling
+excessively, he happened to observe that Tom Scott was delighted too;
+wherefore, that he might have no presumptuous partner in his glee, the
+dwarf instantly collared him, dragged him to the door, and after a
+short scuffle, kicked him into the yard.  In return for this mark of
+attention, Tom immediately walked upon his hands to the window, and--if
+the expression be allowable--looked in with his shoes: besides
+rattling his feet upon the glass like a Banshee upside down.  As a
+matter of course, Mr Quilp lost no time in resorting to the infallible
+poker, with which, after some dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his
+young friend one or two such unequivocal compliments that he vanished
+precipitately, and left him in quiet possession of the field.
+
+'So!  That little job being disposed of,' said the dwarf, coolly, 'I'll
+read my letter.  Humph!' he muttered, looking at the direction.  'I
+ought to know this writing.  Beautiful Sally!'
+
+Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows:
+
+'Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence.  It has all
+come out.  You had better not be in the way, for strangers are going to
+call upon you.  They have been very quiet as yet, because they mean to
+surprise you.  Don't lose time.  I didn't.  I am not to be found
+anywhere.  If I was you, I wouldn't either.  S. B., late of B. M.'
+
+To describe the changes that passed over Quilp's face, as he read this
+letter half-a-dozen times, would require some new language: such, for
+power of expression, as was never written, read, or spoken.  For a long
+time he did not utter one word; but, after a considerable interval,
+during which Mrs Quilp was almost paralysed with the alarm his looks
+engendered, he contrived to gasp out,
+
+'If I had him here.  If I only had him here--'
+
+'Oh Quilp!' said his wife, 'what's the matter?  Who are you angry with?'
+
+'--I should drown him,' said the dwarf, not heeding her.  'Too easy a
+death, too short, too quick--but the river runs close at hand.  Oh! if
+I had him here! just to take him to the brink coaxingly and
+pleasantly,--holding him by the button-hole--joking with him,--and,
+with a sudden push, to send him splashing down!  Drowning men come to
+the surface three times they say.  Ah!  To see him those three times,
+and mock him as his face came bobbing up,--oh, what a rich treat that
+would be!'
+
+'Quilp!' stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch him on
+the shoulder: 'what has gone wrong?'
+
+She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this pleasure
+to himself that she could scarcely make herself intelligible.
+
+'Such a bloodless cur!' said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly, and
+pressing them tight together.  'I thought his cowardice and servility
+were the best guarantee for his keeping silence.  Oh Brass, Brass--my
+dear, good, affectionate, faithful, complimentary, charming friend--if
+I only had you here!'
+
+His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these
+mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak,
+when he hurried to the door, and called Tom Scott, who, remembering his
+late gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear immediately.
+
+'There!' said the dwarf, pulling him in.  'Take her home.  Don't come
+here to-morrow, for this place will be shut up.  Come back no more till
+you hear from me or see me.  Do you mind?'
+
+Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs Quilp to lead the way.
+
+'As for you,' said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, 'ask no
+questions about me, make no search for me, say nothing concerning me.
+I shall not be dead, mistress, and that'll comfort you.  He'll take
+care of you.'
+
+'But, Quilp?  What is the matter?  Where are you going?  Do say
+something more?'
+
+'I'll say that,' said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, 'and do that
+too, which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you go
+directly.'
+
+'Has anything happened?' cried his wife.  'Oh!  Do tell me that?'
+
+'Yes,' snarled the dwarf.  'No.  What matter which?  I have told you
+what to do.  Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me by a
+hair's breadth.  Will you go!'
+
+'I am going, I'll go directly; but,' faltered his wife, 'answer me one
+question first.  Has this letter any connexion with dear little Nell?
+I must ask you that--I must indeed, Quilp.  You cannot think what days
+and nights of sorrow I have had through having once deceived that
+child.  I don't know what harm I may have brought about, but, great or
+little, I did it for you, Quilp.  My conscience misgave me when I did
+it.  Do answer me this question, if you please?'
+
+The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and caught
+up his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott dragged his
+charge away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could.  It was well he
+did so, for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage, pursued them to the
+neighbouring lane, and might have prolonged the chase but for the dense
+mist which obscured them from his view and appeared to thicken every
+moment.
+
+'It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,' he said, as he
+returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run.  'Stay.  We
+may look better here.  This is too hospitable and free.'
+
+By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which
+were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam.  That
+done, he shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried
+them.--Strong and fast.
+
+'The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,' said the
+dwarf, when he had taken these precautions.  'There's a back lane, too,
+from there.  That shall be my way out.  A man need know his road well,
+to find it in this lovely place to-night.  I need fear no unwelcome
+visitors while this lasts, I think.'
+
+Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands (it
+had grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he returned to
+his lair; and, after musing for some time over the fire, busied himself
+in preparations for a speedy departure.
+
+While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into his
+pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low voice, or
+unclenched his teeth, which he had ground together on finishing Miss
+Brass's note.
+
+'Oh Sampson!' he muttered, 'good worthy creature--if I could but hug
+you!  If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your ribs, as I
+COULD squeeze them if I once had you tight--what a meeting there would
+be between us!  If we ever do cross each other again, Sampson, we'll
+have a greeting not easily to be forgotten, trust me.  This time,
+Sampson, this moment when all had gone on so well, was so nicely
+chosen!  It was so thoughtful of you, so penitent, so good.  Oh, if we
+were face to face in this room again, my white-livered man of law, how
+well contented one of us would be!'
+
+There he stopped; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank a
+long deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his parched
+mouth.  Setting it down abruptly, and resuming his preparations, he
+went on with his soliloquy.
+
+'There's Sally,' he said, with flashing eyes; 'the woman has spirit,
+determination, purpose--was she asleep, or petrified?  She could have
+stabbed him--poisoned him safely.  She might have seen this coming on.
+Why does she give me notice when it's too late?  When he sat
+there,--yonder there, over there,--with his white face, and red head,
+and sickly smile, why didn't I know what was passing in his heart?  It
+should have stopped beating, that night, if I had been in his secret,
+or there are no drugs to lull a man to sleep, or no fire to burn him!'
+
+Another draught from the bowl; and, cowering over the fire with a
+ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again.
+
+'And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late
+times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child--two wretched
+feeble wanderers!  I'll be their evil genius yet.  And you, sweet Kit,
+honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to yourself.  Where I hate, I
+bite.  I hate you, my darling fellow, with good cause, and proud as you
+are to-night, I'll have my turn.----What's that?'
+
+A knocking at the gate he had closed.  A loud and violent knocking.
+Then, a pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen.  Then,
+the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before.
+
+'So soon!' said the dwarf.  'And so eager!  I am afraid I shall disappoint
+you.  It's well I'm quite prepared.  Sally, I thank you!'
+
+As he spoke, he extinguished the candle.  In his impetuous attempts to
+subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which came
+tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning embers it had
+shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy darkness.  The
+noise at the gate still continuing, he felt his way to the door, and
+stepped into the open air.
+
+At that moment the knocking ceased.  It was about eight o'clock; but
+the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in comparison
+with the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth, and shrouded
+everything from view.  He darted forward for a few paces, as if into
+the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern; then, thinking he had gone
+wrong, changed the direction of his steps; then stood still, not
+knowing where to turn.
+
+'If they would knock again,' said Quilp, trying to peer into the gloom
+by which he was surrounded, 'the sound might guide me!  Come!  Batter
+the gate once more!'
+
+He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed.  Nothing
+was to be heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals, the distant
+barkings of dogs.  The sound was far away--now in one quarter, now
+answered in another--nor was it any guide, for it often came from
+shipboard, as he knew.
+
+'If I could find a wall or fence,' said the dwarf, stretching out his
+arms, and walking slowly on, 'I should know which way to turn.  A good,
+black, devil's night this, to have my dear friend here!  If I had but
+that wish, it might, for anything I cared, never be day again.'
+
+As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell--and next moment was
+fighting with the cold dark water!
+
+For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the
+knocking at the gate again--could hear a shout that followed it--could
+recognise the voice.  For all his struggling and plashing, he could
+understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered back to the
+point from which they started; that they were all but looking on, while
+he was drowned; that they were close at hand, but could not make an
+effort to save him; that he himself had shut and barred them out.  He
+answered the shout--with a yell, which seemed to make the hundred fires
+that danced before his eyes tremble and flicker, as if a gust of wind
+had stirred them.  It was of no avail.  The strong tide filled his
+throat, and bore him on, upon its rapid current.
+
+Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water with
+his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that showed him
+some black object he was drifting close upon.  The hull of a ship!  He
+could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand.  One loud
+cry, now--but the resistless water bore him down before he could give
+it utterance, and, driving him under it, carried away a corpse.
+
+It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against
+the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging
+it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to
+its own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of
+the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp--a dismal place where
+pirates had swung in chains through many a wintry night--and left it
+there to bleach.
+
+And there it lay alone.  The sky was red with flame, and the water that
+bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it flowed along.
+The place the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was
+now a blazing ruin.  There was something of the glare upon its face.
+The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of
+death--such a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted in
+when alive--about its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night
+wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 68
+
+Lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad voices,
+words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of happiness--what a
+change is this!  But it is to such delights that Kit is hastening.
+They are awaiting him, he knows.  He fears he will die of joy, before
+he gets among them.
+
+They have prepared him for this, all day.  He is not to be carried off
+to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first.  By degrees they let him
+know that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be made, and
+perhaps he may be pardoned after all.  At last, the evening being come,
+they bring him to a room where some gentlemen are assembled.  Foremost
+among them is his good old master, who comes and takes him by the hand.
+He hears that his innocence is established, and that he is pardoned.
+He cannot see the speaker, but he turns towards the voice, and in
+trying to answer, falls down insensible.
+
+They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear this
+like a man.  Somebody says he must think of his poor mother.  It is
+because he does think of her so much, that the happy news had
+overpowered him.  They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth has
+gone abroad, and that all the town and country ring with sympathy for
+his misfortunes.  He has no ears for this.  His thoughts, as yet, have
+no wider range than home.  Does she know it?  what did she say? who
+told her?  He can speak of nothing else.
+
+They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a while,
+until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them.  He is free
+to go.  Mr Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is time they went
+away.  The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake hands with him.  He
+feels very grateful to them for the interest they have in him, and for
+the kind promises they make; but the power of speech is gone again, and
+he has much ado to keep his feet, even though leaning on his master's
+arm.
+
+As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail who
+are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on his
+release.  The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is not quite
+hearty--there is something of surliness in his compliments.  He looks
+upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has obtained admission to that
+place on false pretences, who has enjoyed a privilege without being
+duly qualified.  He may be a very good sort of young man, he thinks,
+but he has no business there, and the sooner he is gone, the better.
+
+The last door shuts behind them.  They have passed the outer wall, and
+stand in the open air--in the street he has so often pictured to
+himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been in all
+his dreams.  It seems wider and more busy than it used to be.  The
+night is bad, and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes!  One of the
+gentlemen, in taking leave of him, pressed some money into his hand.
+He has not counted it; but when they have gone a few paces beyond the
+box for poor Prisoners, he hastily returns and drops it in.
+
+Mr Garland has a coach waiting in a neighbouring street, and, taking
+Kit inside with him, bids the man drive home.  At first, they can only
+travel at a foot pace, and then with torches going on before, because
+of the heavy fog.  But, as they get farther from the river, and leave
+the closer portions of the town behind, they are able to dispense with
+this precaution and to proceed at a brisker rate.  On the road, hard
+galloping would be too slow for Kit; but, when they are drawing near
+their journey's end, he begs they may go more slowly, and, when the
+house appears in sight, that they may stop--only for a minute or two,
+to give him time to breathe.
+
+But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly to
+him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the
+garden-gate.  Next minute, they are at the door.  There is a noise of
+tongues, and tread of feet, inside.  It opens.  Kit rushes in, and
+finds his mother clinging round his neck.
+
+And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara's mother, still holding
+the baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day when they
+little hoped to have such joy as this--there she is, Heaven bless her,
+crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman sobbed before; and
+there is little Barbara--poor little Barbara, so much thinner and so
+much paler, and yet so very pretty--trembling like a leaf and
+supporting herself against the wall; and there is Mrs Garland, neater
+and nicer than ever, fainting away stone dead with nobody to help her;
+and there is Mr Abel, violently blowing his nose, and wanting to
+embrace everybody; and there is the single gentleman hovering round
+them all, and constant to nothing for an instant; and there is that
+good, dear, thoughtful little Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on
+the bottom stair, with his hands on his knees like an old man, roaring
+fearfully without giving any trouble to anybody; and each and all of
+them are for the time clean out of their wits, and do jointly and
+severally commit all manner of follies.
+
+And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves again,
+and can find words and smiles, Barbara--that soft-hearted, gentle,
+foolish little Barbara--is suddenly missed, and found to be in a swoon
+by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she falls into
+hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again, and is, indeed,
+so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar and cold water she is
+hardly a bit better at last than she was at first.  Then, Kit's mother
+comes in and says, will he come and speak to her; and Kit says 'Yes,'
+and goes; and he says in a kind voice 'Barbara!' and Barbara's mother
+tells her that 'it's only Kit;' and Barbara says (with her eyes closed
+all the time) 'Oh! but is it him indeed?' and Barbara's mother says 'To
+be sure it is, my dear; there's nothing the matter now.'  And in
+further assurance that he's safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again;
+and then Barbara goes off into another fit of laughter, and then into
+another fit of crying; and then Barbara's mother and Kit's mother nod
+to each other and pretend to scold her--but only to bring her to
+herself the faster, bless you!--and being experienced matrons, and
+acute at perceiving the first dawning symptoms of recovery, they
+comfort Kit with the assurance that 'she'll do now,' and so dismiss him
+to the place from whence he came.
+
+Well!  In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters of
+wine, and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and his
+friends were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob, walking, as
+the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum-cake, at a most surprising
+pace, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges which are to follow,
+and making the best use of his time, you may believe.  Kit no sooner
+comes in, than that single gentleman (never was such a busy gentleman)
+charges all the glasses--bumpers--and drinks his health, and tells him
+he shall never want a friend while he lives; and so does Mr Garland,
+and so does Mrs Garland, and so does Mr Abel.  But even this honour and
+distinction is not all, for the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of
+his pocket a massive silver watch--going hard, and right to half a
+second--and upon the back of this watch is engraved Kit's name, with
+flourishes all over; and in short it is Kit's watch, bought expressly
+for him, and presented to him on the spot.  You may rest assured that
+Mr and Mrs Garland can't help hinting about their present, in store,
+and that Mr Abel tells outright that he has his; and that Kit is the
+happiest of the happy.
+
+There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be
+conveniently introduced into the family circle, by reason of his being
+an iron-shod quadruped, Kit takes the first opportunity of slipping
+away and hurrying to the stable.  The moment he lays his hand upon the
+latch, the pony neighs the loudest pony's greeting; before he has
+crossed the threshold, the pony is capering about his loose box (for he
+brooks not the indignity of a halter), mad to give him welcome; and
+when Kit goes up to caress and pat him, the pony rubs his nose against
+his coat, and fondles him more lovingly than ever pony fondled man.  It
+is the crowning circumstance of his earnest, heartfelt reception; and
+Kit fairly puts his arm round Whisker's neck and hugs him.
+
+But how comes Barbara to trip in there? and how smart she is again!
+she has been at her glass since she recovered.  How comes Barbara in
+the stable, of all places in the world?  Why, since Kit has been away,
+the pony would take his food from nobody but her, and Barbara, you see,
+not dreaming that Christopher was there, and just looking in, to see
+that everything was right, has come upon him unawares.  Blushing little
+Barbara!
+
+It may be that Kit has caressed the pony enough; it may be that there
+are even better things to caress than ponies.  He leaves him for
+Barbara at any rate, and hopes she is better.  Yes.  Barbara is a great
+deal better.  She is afraid--and here Barbara looks down and blushes
+more--that he must have thought her very foolish.  'Not at all,' says
+Kit.  Barbara is glad of that, and coughs--Hem!--just the slightest
+cough possible--not more than that.
+
+What a discreet pony when he chooses!  He is as quiet now as if he were
+of marble.  He has a very knowing look, but that he always has.  'We
+have hardly had time to shake hands, Barbara,' says Kit.  Barbara gives
+him hers.  Why, she is trembling now!  Foolish, fluttering Barbara!
+
+Arm's length?  The length of an arm is not much.  Barbara's was not a
+long arm, by any means, and besides, she didn't hold it out straight,
+but bent a little.  Kit was so near her when they shook hands, that he
+could see a small tiny tear, yet trembling on an eyelash.  It was
+natural that he should look at it, unknown to Barbara.  It was natural
+that Barbara should raise her eyes unconsciously, and find him out.
+Was it natural that at that instant, without any previous impulse or
+design, Kit should kiss Barbara?  He did it, whether or no.  Barbara
+said 'for shame,' but let him do it too--twice.  He might have done it
+thrice, but the pony kicked up his heels and shook his head, as if he
+were suddenly taken with convulsions of delight, and Barbara being
+frightened, ran away--not straight to where her mother and Kit's mother
+were, though, lest they should see how red her cheeks were, and should
+ask her why.  Sly little Barbara!
+
+When the first transports of the whole party had subsided, and Kit and
+his mother, and Barbara and her mother, with little Jacob and the baby
+to boot, had had their suppers together--which there was no hurrying
+over, for they were going to stop there all night--Mr Garland called
+Kit to him, and taking him into a room where they could be alone, told
+him that he had something yet to say, which would surprise him greatly.
+Kit looked so anxious and turned so pale on hearing this, that the old
+gentleman hastened to add, he would be agreeably surprised; and asked
+him if he would be ready next morning for a journey.
+
+'For a journey, sir!' cried Kit.
+
+'In company with me and my friend in the next room.  Can you guess its
+purpose?'
+
+Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head.
+
+'Oh yes.  I think you do already,' said his master.  'Try.'
+
+Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he
+plainly pronounced the words 'Miss Nell,' three or four times--shaking
+his head while he did so, as if he would add that there was no hope of
+that.
+
+But Mr Garland, instead of saying 'Try again,' as Kit had made sure he
+would, told him very seriously, that he had guessed right.
+
+'The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,' he said, 'at last.
+And that is our journey's end.'
+
+Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it been
+found, and how long since, and was she well and happy?
+
+'Happy she is, beyond all doubt,' said Mr Garland.  'And well, I--I
+trust she will be soon.  She has been weak and ailing, as I learn, but
+she was better when I heard this morning, and they were full of hope.
+Sit you down, and you shall hear the rest.'
+
+Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told.  Mr
+Garland then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would
+remember to have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when he was
+a young man, hung in the best room), and how this brother lived a long
+way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who had been his
+early friend.  How, although they loved each other as brothers should,
+they had not met for many years, but had communicated by letter from
+time to time, always looking forward to some period when they would
+take each other by the hand once more, and still letting the Present
+time steal on, as it was the habit for men to do, and suffering the
+Future to melt into the Past.  How this brother, whose temper was very
+mild and quiet and retiring--such as Mr Abel's--was greatly beloved by
+the simple people among whom he dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor
+(for so they called him), and had every one experienced his charity and
+benevolence.  How even those slight circumstances had come to his
+knowledge, very slowly and in course of years, for the Bachelor was one
+of those whose goodness shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in
+discovering and extolling the good deeds of others, than in trumpeting
+their own, be they never so commendable.  How, for that reason, he
+seldom told them of his village friends; but how, for all that, his
+mind had become so full of two among them--a child and an old man, to
+whom he had been very kind--that, in a letter received a few days
+before, he had dwelt upon them from first to last, and had told such a
+tale of their wandering, and mutual love, that few could read it
+without being moved to tears.  How he, the recipient of that letter,
+was directly led to the belief that these must be the very wanderers
+for whom so much search had been made, and whom Heaven had directed to
+his brother's care.  How he had written for such further information as
+would put the fact beyond all doubt; how it had that morning arrived;
+had confirmed his first impression into a certainty; and was the
+immediate cause of that journey being planned, which they were to take
+to-morrow.
+
+'In the meantime,' said the old gentleman rising, and laying his hand
+on Kit's shoulder, 'you have a great need of rest; for such a day as
+this would wear out the strongest man.  Good night, and Heaven send our
+journey may have a prosperous ending!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 69
+
+Kit was no sluggard next morning, but, springing from his bed some time
+before day, began to prepare for his welcome expedition.  The hurry of
+spirits consequent upon the events of yesterday, and the unexpected
+intelligence he had heard at night, had troubled his sleep through the
+long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams about his pillow that
+it was best to rise.
+
+But, had it been the beginning of some great labour with the same end
+in view--had it been the commencement of a long journey, to be
+performed on foot in that inclement season of the year, to be pursued
+under very privation and difficulty, and to be achieved only with great
+distress, fatigue, and suffering--had it been the dawn of some painful
+enterprise, certain to task his utmost powers of resolution and
+endurance, and to need his utmost fortitude, but only likely to end, if
+happily achieved, in good fortune and delight to Nell--Kit's cheerful
+zeal would have been as highly roused: Kit's ardour and impatience
+would have been, at least, the same.
+
+Nor was he alone excited and eager.  Before he had been up a quarter of
+an hour the whole house were astir and busy.  Everybody hurried to do
+something towards facilitating the preparations.  The single gentleman,
+it is true, could do nothing himself, but he overlooked everybody else
+and was more locomotive than anybody.  The work of packing and making
+ready went briskly on, and by daybreak every preparation for the
+journey was completed.  Then Kit began to wish they had not been quite
+so nimble; for the travelling-carriage which had been hired for the
+occasion was not to arrive until nine o'clock, and there was nothing
+but breakfast to fill up the intervening blank of one hour and a half.
+Yes there was, though.  There was Barbara.  Barbara was busy, to be
+sure, but so much the better--Kit could help her, and that would pass
+away the time better than any means that could be devised.  Barbara had
+no objection to this arrangement, and Kit, tracking out the idea which
+had come upon him so suddenly overnight, began to think that surely
+Barbara was fond of him, and surely he was fond of Barbara.
+
+Now, Barbara, if the truth must be told--as it must and ought to
+be--Barbara seemed, of all the little household, to take least pleasure
+in the bustle of the occasion; and when Kit, in the openness of his
+heart, told her how glad and overjoyed it made him, Barbara became more
+downcast still, and seemed to have even less pleasure in it than before!
+
+'You have not been home so long, Christopher,' said Barbara--and it is
+impossible to tell how carelessly she said it--'You have not been home
+so long, that you need to be glad to go away again, I should think.'
+
+'But for such a purpose,' returned Kit.  'To bring back Miss Nell!  To
+see her again!  Only think of that!  I am so pleased too, to think that
+you will see her, Barbara, at last.'
+
+Barbara did not absolutely say that she felt no gratification on this
+point, but she expressed the sentiment so plainly by one little toss of
+her head, that Kit was quite disconcerted, and wondered, in his
+simplicity, why she was so cool about it.
+
+'You'll say she has the sweetest and beautifullest face you ever saw, I
+know,' said Kit, rubbing his hands.  'I'm sure you'll say that.'
+
+Barbara tossed her head again.
+
+'What's the matter, Barbara?' said Kit.
+
+'Nothing,' cried Barbara.  And Barbara pouted--not sulkily, or in an
+ugly manner, but just enough to make her look more cherry-lipped than
+ever.
+
+There is no school in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in which
+Kit became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss.  He saw what
+Barbara meant now--he had his lesson by heart all at once--she was the
+book--there it was before him, as plain as print.
+
+'Barbara,' said Kit, 'you're not cross with me?'
+
+Oh dear no!  Why should Barbara be cross?  And what right had she to be
+cross?  And what did it matter whether she was cross or not?  Who
+minded her!
+
+'Why, I do,' said Kit.  'Of course I do.'
+
+Barbara didn't see why it was of course, at all.
+
+Kit was sure she must.  Would she think again?
+
+Certainly, Barbara would think again.  No, she didn't see why it was of
+course.  She didn't understand what Christopher meant.  And besides she
+was sure they wanted her up stairs by this time, and she must go,
+indeed--
+
+'No, but Barbara,' said Kit, detaining her gently, 'let us part
+friends.  I was always thinking of you, in my troubles.  I should have
+been a great deal more miserable than I was, if it hadn't been for you.'
+
+Goodness gracious, how pretty Barbara was when she coloured--and when
+she trembled, like a little shrinking bird!
+
+'I am telling you the truth, Barbara, upon my word, but not half so
+strong as I could wish,' said Kit.  'When I want you to be pleased to
+see Miss Nell, it's only because I like you to be pleased with what
+pleases me--that's all.  As to her, Barbara, I think I could almost die
+to do her service, but you would think so too, if you knew her as I do.
+I am sure you would.'
+
+Barbara was touched, and sorry to have appeared indifferent.
+
+'I have been used, you see,' said Kit, 'to talk and think of her,
+almost as if she was an angel.  When I look forward to meeting her
+again, I think of her smiling as she used to do, and being glad to see
+me, and putting out her hand and saying, "It's my own old Kit," or some
+such words as those--like what she used to say.  I think of seeing her
+happy, and with friends about her, and brought up as she deserves, and
+as she ought to be.  When I think of myself, it's as her old servant,
+and one that loved her dearly, as his kind, good, gentle mistress; and
+who would have gone--yes, and still would go--through any harm to serve
+her.  Once, I couldn't help being afraid that if she came back with
+friends about her she might forget, or be ashamed of having known, a
+humble lad like me, and so might speak coldly, which would have cut me,
+Barbara, deeper than I can tell.  But when I came to think again, I
+felt sure that I was doing her wrong in this; and so I went on, as I
+did at first, hoping to see her once more, just as she used to be.
+Hoping this, and remembering what she was, has made me feel as if I
+would always try to please her, and always be what I should like to
+seem to her if I was still her servant.  If I'm the better for
+that--and I don't think I'm the worse--I am grateful to her for it, and
+love and honour her the more.  That's the plain honest truth, dear
+Barbara, upon my word it is!'
+
+Little Barbara was not of a wayward or capricious nature, and, being
+full of remorse, melted into tears.  To what more conversation this
+might have led, we need not stop to inquire; for the wheels of the
+carriage were heard at that moment, and, being followed by a smart ring
+at the garden gate, caused the bustle in the house, which had laid
+dormant for a short time, to burst again into tenfold life and vigour.
+
+Simultaneously with the travelling equipage, arrived Mr Chuckster in a
+hackney cab, with certain papers and supplies of money for the single
+gentleman, into whose hands he delivered them.  This duty discharged,
+he subsided into the bosom of the family; and, entertaining himself
+with a strolling or peripatetic breakfast, watched, with genteel
+indifference, the process of loading the carriage.
+
+'Snobby's in this, I see, Sir?' he said to Mr Abel Garland.  'I thought
+he wasn't in the last trip because it was expected that his presence
+wouldn't be acceptable to the ancient buffalo.'
+
+'To whom, Sir?' demanded Mr Abel.
+
+'To the old gentleman,' returned Mr Chuckster, slightly abashed.
+
+'Our client prefers to take him now,' said Mr Abel, drily.  'There is
+no longer any need for that precaution, as my father's relationship to
+a gentleman in whom the objects of his search have full confidence,
+will be a sufficient guarantee for the friendly nature of their errand.'
+
+'Ah!' thought Mr Chuckster, looking out of window, 'anybody but me!
+Snobby before me, of course.  He didn't happen to take that particular
+five-pound note, but I have not the smallest doubt that he's always up
+to something of that sort.  I always said it, long before this came
+out.  Devilish pretty girl that!  'Pon my soul, an amazing little
+creature!'
+
+Barbara was the subject of Mr Chuckster's commendations; and as she was
+lingering near the carriage (all being now ready for its departure),
+that gentleman was suddenly seized with a strong interest in the
+proceedings, which impelled him to swagger down the garden, and take up
+his position at a convenient ogling distance.  Having had great
+experience of the sex, and being perfectly acquainted with all those
+little artifices which find the readiest road to their hearts, Mr
+Chuckster, on taking his ground, planted one hand on his hip, and with
+the other adjusted his flowing hair.  This is a favourite attitude in
+the polite circles, and, accompanied with a graceful whistling, has
+been known to do immense execution.
+
+Such, however, is the difference between town and country, that nobody
+took the smallest notice of this insinuating figure; the wretches being
+wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell, in kissing hands to
+each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like tame and vulgar
+practices.  For now the single gentleman and Mr Garland were in the
+carriage, and the post-boy was in the saddle, and Kit, well wrapped and
+muffled up, was in the rumble behind; and Mrs Garland was there, and Mr
+Abel was there, and Kit's mother was there, and little Jacob was there,
+and Barbara's mother was visible in remote perspective, nursing the
+ever-wakeful baby; and all were nodding, beckoning, curtseying, or
+crying out, 'Good bye!' with all the energy they could express.  In
+another minute, the carriage was out of sight; and Mr Chuckster
+remained alone on the spot where it had lately been, with a vision of
+Kit standing up in the rumble waving his hand to Barbara, and of
+Barbara in the full light and lustre of his eyes--his
+eyes--Chuckster's--Chuckster the successful--on whom ladies of quality
+had looked with favour from phaetons in the parks on Sundays--waving
+hers to Kit!
+
+How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some time
+rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was the Prince
+of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul of Snobs, and
+how he clearly traced this revolting circumstance back to that old
+villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose; which is
+to track the rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their
+cold, bleak journey.
+
+It was a bitter day.  A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them
+fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the
+trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust.  But little cared Kit
+for weather.  There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came
+howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome.  As it swept
+on with its cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and
+withered leaves, and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though
+some general sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry,
+like themselves.  The harder the gusts, the better progress they
+appeared to make.  It was a good thing to go struggling and fighting
+forward, vanquishing them one by one; to watch them driving up,
+gathering strength and fury as they came along; to bend for a moment,
+as they whistled past; and then to look back and see them speed away,
+their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering
+down before them.
+
+All day long, it blew without cessation.  The night was clear and
+starlit, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing.
+Sometimes--towards the end of a long stage--Kit could not help wishing
+it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses, and he
+had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying the
+old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again
+until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and
+smarted in his fingers' ends--then, he felt as if to have it one
+degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the
+journey: and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry
+music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople
+in their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road.
+
+Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to sleep,
+beguiled the time with conversation.  As both were anxious and
+expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on
+the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and
+fears they entertained respecting it.  Of the former they had many, of
+the latter few--none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which
+is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation.
+
+In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night had
+worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more
+silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly:
+
+'Are you a good listener?'
+
+'Like most other men, I suppose,' returned Mr Garland, smiling.  'I can
+be, if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still try to
+appear so.  Why do you ask?'
+
+'I have a short narrative on my lips,' rejoined his friend, 'and will
+try you with it.  It is very brief.'
+
+Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman's sleeve,
+and proceeded thus:
+
+'There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly.  There was
+a disparity in their ages--some twelve years.  I am not sure but they
+may insensibly have loved each other the better for that reason.  Wide
+as the interval between them was, however, they became rivals too soon.
+The deepest and strongest affection of both their hearts settled upon
+one object.
+
+'The youngest--there were reasons for his being sensitive and
+watchful--was the first to find this out.  I will not tell you what
+misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his mental
+struggle was.  He had been a sickly child.  His brother, patient and
+considerate in the midst of his own high health and strength, had many
+and many a day denied himself the sports he loved, to sit beside his
+couch, telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up with an
+unwonted glow; to carry him in his arms to some green spot, where he
+could tend the poor pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer
+day, and saw all nature healthy but himself; to be, in any way, his
+fond and faithful nurse.  I may not dwell on all he did, to make the
+poor, weak creature love him, or my tale would have no end.  But when
+the time of trial came, the younger brother's heart was full of those
+old days.  Heaven strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of
+inconsiderate youth by one of thoughtful manhood.  He left his brother
+to be happy.  The truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the
+country, hoping to die abroad.
+
+'The elder brother married her.  She was in Heaven before long, and
+left him with an infant daughter.
+
+'If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will
+remember how the same face and figure--often the fairest and slightest
+of them all--come upon you in different generations; and how you trace
+the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits--never growing
+old or changing--the Good Angel of the race--abiding by them in all
+reverses--redeeming all their sins--
+
+'In this daughter the mother lived again.  You may judge with what
+devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this
+girl, her breathing image.  She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart
+to one who could not know its worth.  Well!  Her fond father could not
+see her pine and droop.  He might be more deserving than he thought
+him.  He surely might become so, with a wife like her.  He joined their
+hands, and they were married.
+
+'Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the cold
+neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he brought
+upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and
+pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, in the deep
+devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can.
+Her means and substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her
+husband's hand, and the hourly witness (for they lived now under one
+roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,--she never, but for him,
+bewailed her fate.  Patient, and upheld by strong affection to the
+last, she died a widow of some three weeks' date, leaving to her
+father's care two orphans; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the
+other a girl--such another infant child--the same in helplessness, in
+age, in form, in feature--as she had been herself when her young mother
+died.
+
+'The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken
+man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the
+heavy hand of sorrow.  With the wreck of his possessions, he began to
+trade--in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things.  He had
+entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he
+had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and precarious
+subsistence.
+
+'The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her
+mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her
+mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his
+daughter were a little child again.  The wayward boy soon spurned the
+shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste.
+The old man and the child dwelt alone together.
+
+'It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and
+dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature; when
+her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of
+the too early change he had seen in such another--of all the
+sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone;
+when the young man's profligate and hardened course drained him of
+money as his father's had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary
+privation and distress; it was then that there began to beset him, and
+to be ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want.  He had no
+thought for himself in this.  His fear was for the child.  It was a
+spectre in his house, and haunted him night and day.
+
+'The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and had
+made his pilgrimage through life alone.  His voluntary banishment had
+been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and
+slight for doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful
+shadow on his path.  Apart from this, communication between him and the
+elder was difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not
+so wholly broken off but that he learnt--with long blanks and gaps
+between each interval of information--all that I have told you now.
+
+'Then, dreams of their young, happy life--happy to him though laden
+with pain and early care--visited his pillow yet oftener than before;
+and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother's side.  With the
+utmost speed he could exert, he settled his affairs; converted into
+money all the goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for
+both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore
+him on, with emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one
+evening at his brother's door!'
+
+The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.
+
+'The rest,' said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, 'I know.'
+
+'Yes,' rejoined his friend, 'we may spare ourselves the sequel.  You
+know the poor result of all my search.  Even when by dint of such
+inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we
+found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen--and in time
+discovered the men themselves--and in time, the actual place of their
+retreat; even then, we were too late.  Pray God, we are not too late
+again!'
+
+'We cannot be,' said Mr Garland.  'This time we must succeed.'
+
+'I have believed and hoped so,' returned the other.  'I try to believe
+and hope so still.  But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my
+good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to
+neither hope nor reason.'
+
+'That does not surprise me,' said Mr Garland; 'it is a natural
+consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time and
+place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night.  A dismal night,
+indeed!  Hark! how the wind is howling!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 70
+
+Day broke, and found them still upon their way.  Since leaving home,
+they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had
+frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for
+fresh horses.  They had made no other stoppages, but the weather
+continued rough, and the roads were often steep and heavy.  It would be
+night again before they reached their place of destination.
+
+Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and,
+having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to
+himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about
+him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for thinking of
+discomforts.  Though his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers,
+rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours did not stand still.  The
+short daylight of winter soon faded away, and it was dark again when
+they had yet many miles to travel.
+
+As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low and
+mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling covertly
+among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some great
+phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled as it
+stalked along.  By degrees it lulled and died away, and then it came on
+to snow.
+
+The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some inches
+deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness.  The rolling wheels were
+noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the horses' hoofs, became
+a dull, muffled tramp.  The life of their progress seemed to be slowly
+hushed, and something death-like to usurp its place.
+
+Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes
+and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse
+of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to some not distant town.
+He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly.  Now,
+a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a
+barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps.
+Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before,
+or meeting them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them,
+turned to shadows too.  A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise
+up in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be
+the road itself.  Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of water,
+appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful and
+uncertain; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these things,
+like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim illusions.
+
+He descended slowly from his seat--for his limbs were numbed--when
+they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far they had to
+go to reach their journey's end.  It was a late hour in such by-places,
+and the people were abed; but a voice answered from an upper window,
+Ten miles.  The ten minutes that ensued appeared an hour; but at the
+end of that time, a shivering figure led out the horses they required,
+and after another brief delay they were again in motion.
+
+It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four miles,
+of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow, were so many
+pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to keep a footpace.
+As it was next to impossible for men so much agitated as they were by
+this time, to sit still and move so slowly, all three got out and
+plodded on behind the carriage.  The distance seemed interminable, and
+the walk was most laborious.  As each was thinking within himself that
+the driver must have lost his way, a church bell, close at hand, struck
+the hour of midnight, and the carriage stopped.  It had moved softly
+enough, but when it ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as
+startling as if some great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness.
+
+'This is the place, gentlemen,' said the driver, dismounting from his
+horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn.  'Halloa!  Past twelve
+o'clock is the dead of night here.'
+
+The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy
+inmates.  All continued dark and silent as before.  They fell back a
+little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black patches in
+the whitened house front.  No light appeared.  The house might have
+been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life it had about
+it.
+
+They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers;
+unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now raised.
+
+'Let us go on,' said the younger brother, 'and leave this good fellow
+to wake them, if he can.  I cannot rest until I know that we are not
+too late.  Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!'
+
+They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as the
+house afforded, and to renew his knocking.  Kit accompanied them with a
+little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home,
+and had not forgotten since--the bird in his old cage--just as she had
+left him.  She would be glad to see her bird, he knew.
+
+The road wound gently downward.  As they proceeded, they lost sight of
+the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village
+clustering round it.  The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in
+that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them.  They wished the
+man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence
+until they returned.
+
+The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again
+rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it.  A
+venerable building--grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape.  An
+ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the
+snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was.  Time itself
+seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace
+the melancholy night.
+
+A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path
+across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take,
+they came to a stand again.
+
+The village street--if street that could be called which was an
+irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with
+their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards
+the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the
+path--was close at hand.  There was a faint light in a chamber window
+not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way.
+
+His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently
+appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a
+protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that
+unseasonable hour, wanting him.
+
+''Tis hard weather this,' he grumbled, 'and not a night to call me up
+in.  My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed.  The
+business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this
+season.  What do you want?'
+
+'I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,'
+said Kit.
+
+'Old!' repeated the other peevishly.  'How do you know I am old?  Not
+so old as you think, friend, perhaps.  As to being ill, you will find
+many young people in worse case than I am.  More's the pity that it
+should be so--not that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I
+mean, but that they should be weak and tender.  I ask your pardon
+though,' said the old man, 'if I spoke rather rough at first.  My eyes
+are not good at night--that's neither age nor illness; they never
+were--and I didn't see you were a stranger.'
+
+'I am sorry to call you from your bed,' said Kit, 'but those gentlemen
+you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just
+arrived from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house.  You can
+direct us?'
+
+'I should be able to,' answered the old man, in a trembling voice,
+'for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years.  The
+right hand path, friend, is the road.--There is no ill news for our
+good gentleman, I hope?'
+
+Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was
+turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child.
+Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window.
+
+'What is that?' cried the child, earnestly.  'Has my dream come true?
+Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.'
+
+'Poor boy!' said the sexton, before Kit could answer, 'how goes it,
+darling?'
+
+'Has my dream come true?' exclaimed the child again, in a
+voice so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any
+listener.  'But no, that can never be!  How could it be--Oh! how could
+it!'
+
+'I guess his meaning,' said the sexton.  'To bed again, poor boy!'
+
+'Ay!' cried the child, in a burst of despair.  'I knew it could never
+be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked!  But, all to-night, and
+last night too, it was the same.  I never fall asleep, but that cruel
+dream comes back.'
+
+'Try to sleep again,' said the old man, soothingly.  'It will go in
+time.'
+
+'No no, I would rather that it staid--cruel as it is, I would rather
+that it staid,' rejoined the child.  'I am not afraid to have it in my
+sleep, but I am so sad--so very, very sad.'
+
+The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit
+was again alone.
+
+He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child's
+manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from
+him.  They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived
+before the parsonage wall.  Turning round to look about them when they
+had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance,
+one single solitary light.
+
+It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being
+surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like a
+star.  Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads, lonely and
+motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with the eternal
+lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them.
+
+'What light is that!' said the younger brother.
+
+'It is surely,' said Mr Garland, 'in the ruin where they live.  I see
+no other ruin hereabouts.'
+
+'They cannot,' returned the brother hastily, 'be waking at this late
+hour--'
+
+Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and waited at
+the gate, they would let him make his way to where this light was
+shining, and try to ascertain if any people were about.  Obtaining the
+permission he desired, he darted off with breathless eagerness, and,
+still carrying the birdcage in his hand, made straight towards the spot.
+
+It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another time
+he might have gone more slowly, or round by the path.  Unmindful of all
+obstacles, however, he pressed forward without slackening his speed,
+and soon arrived within a few yards of the window.  He approached as
+softly as he could, and advancing so near the wall as to brush the
+whitened ivy with his dress, listened.  There was no sound inside.  The
+church itself was not more quiet.  Touching the glass with his cheek,
+he listened again.  No.  And yet there was such a silence all around,
+that he felt sure he could have heard even the breathing of a sleeper,
+if there had been one there.
+
+A strange circumstance, a light in such a place at that time of night,
+with no one near it.
+
+A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he
+could not see into the room.  But there was no shadow thrown upon it
+from within.  To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to look in
+from above, would have been attended with some danger--certainly with
+some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child, if that really were
+her habitation.  Again and again he listened; again and again the same
+wearisome blank.
+
+Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the ruin
+for a few paces, he came at length to a door.  He knocked.  No answer.
+But there was a curious noise inside.  It was difficult to determine
+what it was.  It bore a resemblance to the low moaning of one in pain,
+but it was not that, being far too regular and constant.  Now it seemed
+a kind of song, now a wail--seemed, that is, to his changing fancy, for
+the sound itself was never changed or checked.  It was unlike anything
+he had ever heard; and in its tone there was something fearful,
+chilling, and unearthly.
+
+The listener's blood ran colder now than ever it had done in frost and
+snow, but he knocked again.  There was no answer, and the sound went on
+without any interruption.  He laid his hand softly upon the latch, and
+put his knee against the door.  It was secured on the inside, but
+yielded to the pressure, and turned upon its hinges.  He saw the
+glimmering of a fire upon the old walls, and entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 71
+
+The dull, red glow of a wood fire--for no lamp or candle burnt within
+the room--showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with its back
+towards him, bending over the fitful light.  The attitude was that of
+one who sought the heat.  It was, and yet was not.  The stooping
+posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands were stretched
+out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver compared its luxury
+with the piercing cold outside.  With limbs huddled together, head
+bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast, and fingers tightly clenched,
+it rocked to and fro upon its seat without a moment's pause,
+accompanying the action with the mournful sound he had heard.
+
+The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash that
+made him start.  The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look, nor gave
+in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the noise.  The form
+was that of an old man, his white head akin in colour to the mouldering
+embers upon which he gazed.  He, and the failing light and dying fire,
+the time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all
+in fellowship.  Ashes, and dust, and ruin!
+
+Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they were
+he scarcely knew.  Still the same terrible low cry went on--still the
+same rocking in the chair--the same stricken figure was there,
+unchanged and heedless of his presence.
+
+He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form--distinctly
+seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed up--arrested
+it.  He returned to where he had stood before--advanced a
+pace--another--another still.  Another, and he saw the face.  Yes!
+Changed as it was, he knew it well.
+
+'Master!' he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand.
+'Dear master.  Speak to me!'
+
+The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow voice,
+
+'This is another!--How many of these spirits there have been to-night!'
+
+'No spirit, master.  No one but your old servant.  You know me now, I
+am sure?  Miss Nell--where is she--where is she?'
+
+'They all say that!' cried the old man.  'They all ask the same
+question.  A spirit!'
+
+'Where is she?' demanded Kit.  'Oh tell me but that,--but that, dear
+master!'
+
+'She is asleep--yonder--in there.'
+
+'Thank God!'
+
+'Aye!  Thank God!' returned the old man.  'I have prayed to Him, many,
+and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been asleep, He
+knows.  Hark!  Did she call?'
+
+'I heard no voice.'
+
+'You did.  You hear her now.  Do you tell me that you don't hear THAT?'
+
+He started up, and listened again.
+
+'Nor that?' he cried, with a triumphant smile, 'Can any body know that
+voice so well as I?  Hush!  Hush!'
+
+Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber.
+After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in a
+softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp.
+
+'She is still asleep,' he whispered.  'You were right.  She did not
+call--unless she did so in her slumber.  She has called to me in her
+sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen her lips
+move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that she spoke of
+me.  I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I
+brought it here.'
+
+He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put the
+lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some momentary
+recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face.  Then, as if
+forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned away and put it
+down again.
+
+'She is sleeping soundly,' he said; 'but no wonder.  Angel hands have
+strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be
+lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her.
+She used to feed them, Sir.  Though never so cold and hungry, the timid
+things would fly from us.  They never flew from her!'
+
+Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a
+long, long time.  That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out
+some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to
+smooth and brush them with his hand.
+
+'Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,' he murmured, 'when there
+are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them!
+Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping
+to the door, crying "where is Nell--sweet Nell?"--and sob, and weep,
+because they do not see thee.  She was always gentle with children.
+The wildest would do her bidding--she had a tender way with them,
+indeed she had!'
+
+Kit had no power to speak.  His eyes were filled with tears.
+
+'Her little homely dress,--her favourite!' cried the old man, pressing
+it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand.  'She will
+miss it when she wakes.  They have hid it here in sport, but she shall
+have it--she shall have it.  I would not vex my darling, for the wide
+world's riches.  See here--these shoes--how worn they are--she kept
+them to remind her of our last long journey.  You see where the little
+feet went bare upon the ground.  They told me, afterwards, that the
+stones had cut and bruised them.  She never told me that.  No, no, God
+bless her! and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir,
+that I might not see how lame she was--but yet she had my hand in hers,
+and seemed to lead me still.'
+
+He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back again,
+went on communing with himself--looking wistfully from time to time
+towards the chamber he had lately visited.
+
+'She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then.  We must
+have patience.  When she is well again, she will rise early, as she
+used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time.  I often
+tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no
+print upon the dewy ground, to guide me.  Who is that?  Shut the door.
+Quick!--Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble cold, and
+keep her warm!'
+
+The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his
+friend, accompanied by two other persons.  These were the schoolmaster,
+and the bachelor.  The former held a light in his hand.  He had, it
+seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish the exhausted lamp, at
+the moment when Kit came up and found the old man alone.
+
+He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside the
+angry manner--if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can be
+applied--in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed his
+former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old action,
+and the old, dull, wandering sound.
+
+Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever.  He had seen them, but
+appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity.  The younger brother
+stood apart.  The bachelor drew a chair towards the old man, and sat
+down close beside him.  After a long silence, he ventured to speak.
+
+'Another night, and not in bed!' he said softly; 'I hoped you would be
+more mindful of your promise to me.  Why do you not take some rest?'
+
+'Sleep has left me,' returned the old man.  'It is all with her!'
+
+'It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,' said
+the bachelor.  'You would not give her pain?'
+
+'I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her.  She has slept
+so very long.  And yet I am rash to say so.  It is a good and happy
+sleep--eh?'
+
+'Indeed it is,' returned the bachelor.  'Indeed, indeed, it is!'
+
+'That's well!--and the waking--' faltered the old man.
+
+'Happy too.  Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man conceive.'
+
+They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other chamber
+where the lamp had been replaced.  They listened as he spoke again
+within its silent walls.  They looked into the faces of each other, and
+no man's cheek was free from tears.  He came back, whispering that she
+was still asleep, but that he thought she had moved.  It was her hand,
+he said--a little--a very, very little--but he was pretty sure she had
+moved it--perhaps in seeking his.  He had known her do that, before
+now, though in the deepest sleep the while.  And when he had said this,
+he dropped into his chair again, and clasping his hands above his head,
+uttered a cry never to be forgotten.
+
+The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come on
+the other side, and speak to him.  They gently unlocked his fingers,
+which he had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in their own.
+
+'He will hear me,' said the schoolmaster, 'I am sure.  He will hear
+either me or you if we beseech him.  She would, at all times.'
+
+'I will hear any voice she liked to hear,' cried the old man.  'I love
+all she loved!'
+
+'I know you do,' returned the schoolmaster.  'I am certain of it.
+Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have shared
+together; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures, you have
+jointly known.'
+
+'I do.  I do.  I think of nothing else.'
+
+'I would have you think of nothing else to-night--of nothing but those
+things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it to old
+affections and old times.  It is so that she would speak to you
+herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.'
+
+'You do well to speak softly,' said the old man.  'We will not wake
+her.  I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile.
+There is a smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and
+changeless.  I would have it come and go.  That shall be in Heaven's
+good time.  We will not wake her.'
+
+'Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when you
+were journeying together, far away--as she was at home, in the old
+house from which you fled together--as she was, in the old cheerful
+time,' said the schoolmaster.
+
+'She was always cheerful--very cheerful,' cried the old man, looking
+steadfastly at him.  'There was ever something mild and quiet about
+her, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy nature.'
+
+'We have heard you say,' pursued the schoolmaster, 'that in this and in
+all goodness, she was like her mother.  You can think of, and remember
+her?'
+
+He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer.
+
+'Or even one before her,' said the bachelor.  'It is many years ago,
+and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not forgotten her
+whose death contributed to make this child so dear to you, even before
+you knew her worth or could read her heart?  Say, that you could carry
+back your thoughts to very distant days--to the time of your early
+life--when, unlike this fair flower, you did not pass your youth alone.
+Say, that you could remember, long ago, another child who loved you
+dearly, you being but a child yourself.  Say, that you had a brother,
+long forgotten, long unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last,
+in your utmost need came back to comfort and console you--'
+
+'To be to you what you were once to him,' cried the younger, falling on
+his knee before him; 'to repay your old affection, brother dear, by
+constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at your right hand, what he
+has never ceased to be when oceans rolled between us; to call to
+witness his unchanging truth and mindfulness of bygone days, whole
+years of desolation.  Give me but one word of recognition, brother--and
+never--no never, in the brightest moment of our youngest days, when,
+poor silly boys, we thought to pass our lives together--have we been
+half as dear and precious to each other as we shall be from this time
+hence!'
+
+The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no sound
+came from them in reply.
+
+'If we were knit together then,' pursued the younger brother, 'what
+will be the bond between us now!  Our love and fellowship began in
+childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we
+have proved it, and are but children at the last.  As many restless
+spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the world,
+retire in their decline to where they first drew breath, vainly seeking
+to be children once again before they die, so we, less fortunate than
+they in early life, but happier in its closing scenes, will set up our
+rest again among our boyish haunts, and going home with no hope
+realised, that had its growth in manhood--carrying back nothing that
+we brought away, but our old yearnings to each other--saving no
+fragment from the wreck of life, but that which first endeared it--may
+be, indeed, but children as at first.  And even,' he added in an
+altered voice, 'even if what I dread to name has come to pass--even if
+that be so, or is to be (which Heaven forbid and spare us!)--still,
+dear brother, we are not apart, and have that comfort in our great
+affliction.'
+
+By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner
+chamber, while these words were spoken.  He pointed there, as he
+replied, with trembling lips.
+
+'You plot among you to wean my heart from her.  You never will do
+that--never while I have life.  I have no relative or friend but her--I
+never had--I never will have.  She is all in all to me.  It is too late
+to part us now.'
+
+Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he
+stole into the room.  They who were left behind, drew close together,
+and after a few whispered words--not unbroken by emotion, or easily
+uttered--followed him.  They moved so gently, that their footsteps made
+no noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief
+and mourning.
+
+For she was dead.  There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest.  The
+solemn stillness was no marvel now.
+
+She was dead.  No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of
+pain, so fair to look upon.  She seemed a creature fresh from the hand
+of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and
+suffered death.
+
+Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green
+leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour.  'When I die,
+put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above
+it always.'  Those were her words.
+
+She was dead.  Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead.  Her little
+bird--a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have
+crushed--was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its
+child mistress was mute and motionless for ever.
+
+Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues?
+All gone.  Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect
+happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.
+
+And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change.  Yes.
+The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed,
+like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the
+poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon
+the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had
+been the same mild lovely look.  So shall we know the angels in their
+majesty, after death.
+
+The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight
+folded to his breast, for warmth.  It was the hand she had stretched
+out to him with her last smile--the hand that had led him on, through
+all their wanderings.  Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then
+hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and,
+as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if
+imploring them to help her.
+
+She was dead, and past all help, or need of it.  The ancient rooms she
+had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast--the
+garden she had tended--the eyes she had gladdened--the noiseless haunts
+of many a thoughtful hour--the paths she had trodden as it were but
+yesterday--could know her never more.
+
+'It is not,' said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the
+cheek, and gave his tears free vent, 'it is not on earth that Heaven's
+justice ends.  Think what earth is, compared with the World to which
+her young spirit has winged its early flight; and say, if one
+deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her
+back to life, which of us would utter it!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 72
+
+When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of
+their grief, they heard how her life had closed.
+
+She had been dead two days.  They were all about her at the time,
+knowing that the end was drawing on.  She died soon after daybreak.
+They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night,
+but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep.  They could tell, by what
+she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings
+with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had
+helped and used them kindly, for she often said 'God bless you!' with
+great fervour.  Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and
+that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air.  God knows.
+It may have been.
+
+Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they
+would kiss her once again.  That done, she turned to the old man with a
+lovely smile upon her face--such, they said, as they had never seen,
+and never could forget--and clung with both her arms about his neck.
+They did not know that she was dead, at first.
+
+She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were like
+dear friends to her.  She wished they could be told how much she
+thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked
+together, by the river side at night.  She would like to see poor Kit,
+she had often said of late.  She wished there was somebody to take her
+love to Kit.  And, even then, she never thought or spoke about him, but
+with something of her old, clear, merry laugh.
+
+For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a quiet
+mind, and manner quite unaltered--save that she every day became more
+earnest and more grateful to them--faded like the light upon a summer's
+evening.
+
+The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon as
+it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged them to
+lay upon her breast.  It was he who had come to the window overnight
+and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces of small
+feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which she lay,
+before he went to bed.  He had a fancy, it seemed, that they had left
+her there alone; and could not bear the thought.
+
+He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being restored
+to them, just as she used to be.  He begged hard to see her, saying
+that he would be very quiet, and that they need not fear his being
+alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother all day long when he
+was dead, and had felt glad to be so near him.  They let him have his
+wish; and indeed he kept his word, and was, in his childish way, a
+lesson to them all.
+
+Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once--except to her--or
+stirred from the bedside.  But, when he saw her little favourite, he
+was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as though he would
+have him come nearer.  Then, pointing to the bed, he burst into tears
+for the first time, and they who stood by, knowing that the sight of
+this child had done him good, left them alone together.
+
+Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuaded him to
+take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him.  And
+when the day came on, which must remove her in her earthly shape from
+earthly eyes for ever, he led him away, that he might not know when she
+was taken from him.
+
+They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed.  It was
+Sunday--a bright, clear, wintry afternoon--and as they traversed the
+village street, those who were walking in their path drew back to make
+way for them, and gave them a softened greeting.  Some shook the old
+man kindly by the hand, some stood uncovered while he tottered by, and
+many cried 'God help him!' as he passed along.
+
+'Neighbour!' said the old man, stopping at the cottage where his young
+guide's mother dwelt, 'how is it that the folks are nearly all in black
+to-day?  I have seen a mourning ribbon or a piece of crape on almost
+every one.'
+
+She could not tell, the woman said.
+
+'Why, you yourself--you wear the colour too?' he said.  'Windows are
+closed that never used to be by day.  What does this mean?'
+
+Again the woman said she could not tell.
+
+'We must go back,' said the old man, hurriedly.  'We must see what this
+is.'
+
+'No, no,' cried the child, detaining him.  'Remember what you promised.
+Our way is to the old green lane, where she and I so often were, and
+where you found us, more than once, making those garlands for her
+garden.  Do not turn back!'
+
+'Where is she now?' said the old man.  'Tell me that.'
+
+'Do you not know?' returned the child.  'Did we not leave her, but just
+now?'
+
+'True.  True.  It was her we left--was it?'
+
+He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if
+impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the
+sexton's house.  He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the
+fire.  Both rose up, on seeing who it was.
+
+The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand.  It was the action
+of an instant, but that, and the old man's look, were quite enough.
+
+'Do you--do you bury any one to-day?' he said, eagerly.
+
+'No, no!  Who should we bury, Sir?' returned the sexton.
+
+'Aye, who indeed!  I say with you, who indeed!'
+
+'It is a holiday with us, good Sir,' returned the sexton mildly.  'We
+have no work to do to-day.'
+
+'Why then, I'll go where you will,' said the old man, turning to the
+child.  'You're sure of what you tell me?  You would not deceive me?  I
+am changed, even in the little time since you last saw me.'
+
+'Go thy ways with him, Sir,' cried the sexton, 'and Heaven be with ye
+both!'
+
+'I am quite ready,' said the old man, meekly.  'Come, boy, come--' and
+so submitted to be led away.
+
+And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by night and day,
+and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice--rung
+its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good.
+Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless
+infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride of strength and
+health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life--to
+gather round her tomb.  Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and
+senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and
+still been old--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living
+dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave.
+What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl
+and creep above it!
+
+Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen snow
+that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting.  Under the
+porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that
+peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its
+quiet shade.
+
+They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a time
+sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement.  The light
+streamed on it through the coloured window--a window, where the boughs
+of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang
+sweetly all day long.  With every breath of air that stirred among
+those branches in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light, would
+fall upon her grave.
+
+Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!  Many a young hand
+dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard.  Some--and
+they were not a few--knelt down.  All were sincere and truthful in
+their sorrow.
+
+The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed
+round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be
+replaced.  One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very
+spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a
+pensive face upon the sky.  Another told, how he had wondered much that
+one so delicate as she, should be so bold; how she had never feared to
+enter the church alone at night, but had loved to linger there when all
+was quiet, and even to climb the tower stair, with no more light than
+that of the moon rays stealing through the loopholes in the thick old
+wall.  A whisper went about among the oldest, that she had seen and
+talked with angels; and when they called to mind how she had looked,
+and spoken, and her early death, some thought it might be so, indeed.
+Thus, coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and
+giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three
+or four, the church was cleared in time, of all but the sexton and the
+mourning friends.
+
+They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down.  Then, when the
+dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred
+stillness of the place--when the bright moon poured in her light on
+tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it
+seemed to them) upon her quiet grave--in that calm time, when outward
+things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and
+worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them--then, with
+tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child
+with God.
+
+Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach,
+but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a
+mighty, universal Truth.  When Death strikes down the innocent and
+young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit
+free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to
+walk the world, and bless it.  Of every tear that sorrowing mortals
+shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature
+comes.  In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that
+defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven.
+
+It was late when the old man came home.  The boy had led him to his own
+dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back; and, rendered drowsy
+by his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into a deep sleep
+by the fireside.  He was perfectly exhausted, and they were careful not
+to rouse him.  The slumber held him a long time, and when he at length
+awoke the moon was shining.
+
+The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching at
+the door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with his
+little guide.  He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging the old
+man to lean upon his arm, conducted him with slow and trembling steps
+towards the house.
+
+He repaired to her chamber, straight.  Not finding what he had left
+there, he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they were
+assembled.  From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster's cottage,
+calling her name.  They followed close upon him, and when he had vainly
+searched it, brought him home.
+
+With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest, they
+prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should tell
+him.  Then endeavouring by every little artifice to prepare his mind
+for what must come, and dwelling with many fervent words upon the happy
+lot to which she had been removed, they told him, at last, the truth.
+The moment it had passed their lips, he fell down among them like a
+murdered man.
+
+For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is
+strong, and he recovered.
+
+If there be any who have never known the blank that follows death--the
+weary void--the sense of desolation that will come upon the strongest
+minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at every turn--the
+connection between inanimate and senseless things, and the object of
+recollection, when every household god becomes a monument and every
+room a grave--if there be any who have not known this, and proved it by
+their own experience, they can never faintly guess how, for many days,
+the old man pined and moped away the time, and wandered here and there
+as seeking something, and had no comfort.
+
+Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up in
+her.  He never understood, or seemed to care to understand, about his
+brother.  To every endearment and attention he continued listless.  If
+they spoke to him on this, or any other theme--save one--he would hear
+them patiently for awhile, then turn away, and go on seeking as before.
+
+On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, it was
+impossible to touch.  Dead!  He could not hear or bear the word.  The
+slightest hint of it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that he had
+had when it was first spoken.  In what hope he lived, no man could
+tell; but that he had some hope of finding her again--some faint and
+shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him from day to day
+more sick and sore at heart--was plain to all.
+
+They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last sorrow; of
+trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him.  His brother
+sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful in such matters,
+and they came and saw him.  Some of the number staid upon the spot,
+conversed with him when he would converse, and watched him as he
+wandered up and down, alone and silent.  Move him where they might,
+they said, he would ever seek to get back there.  His mind would run
+upon that spot.  If they confined him closely, and kept a strict guard
+upon him, they might hold him prisoner, but if he could by any means
+escape, he would surely wander back to that place, or die upon the road.
+
+The boy, to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any influence
+with him.  At times he would suffer the child to walk by his side, or
+would even take such notice of his presence as giving him his hand, or
+would stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the head.  At other times,
+he would entreat him--not unkindly--to be gone, and would not brook him
+near.  But, whether alone, or with this pliant friend, or with those
+who would have given him, at any cost or sacrifice, some consolation or
+some peace of mind, if happily the means could have been devised; he
+was at all times the same--with no love or care for anything in life--a
+broken-hearted man.
+
+At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with his
+knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and little
+basket full of such things as she had been used to carry, was gone.  As
+they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a frightened
+schoolboy came who had seen him, but a moment before, sitting in the
+church--upon her grave, he said.
+
+They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in the
+attitude of one who waited patiently.  They did not disturb him then,
+but kept a watch upon him all that day.  When it grew quite dark, he
+rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to himself, 'She
+will come to-morrow!'
+
+Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and still
+at night he laid him down to rest, and murmured, 'She will come
+to-morrow!'
+
+And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her grave,
+for her.  How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of
+resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and
+woods, and paths not often trodden--how many tones of that one
+well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering
+dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind--how many visions of
+what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be--rose up before him, in
+the old, dull, silent church!  He never told them what he thought, or
+where he went.  He would sit with them at night, pondering with a
+secret satisfaction, they could see, upon the flight that he and she
+would take before night came again; and still they would hear him
+whisper in his prayers, 'Lord!  Let her come to-morrow!'
+
+The last time was on a genial day in spring.  He did not return at the
+usual hour, and they went to seek him.  He was lying dead upon the
+stone.
+
+They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in the
+church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered hand in
+hand, the child and the old man slept together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 73
+
+The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler thus
+far, now slackens in its pace, and stops.  It lies before the goal; the
+pursuit is at an end.
+
+It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have
+borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey.
+
+Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm, claim
+our polite attention.
+
+Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the
+justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to protract
+his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under his
+protection for a considerable time, during which the great attention of
+his entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he was quite lost to
+society, and never even went abroad for exercise saving into a small
+paved yard.  So well, indeed, was his modest and retiring temper
+understood by those with whom he had to deal, and so jealous were they
+of his absence, that they required a kind of friendly bond to be
+entered into by two substantial housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen
+hundred pounds a-piece, before they would suffer him to quit their
+hospitable roof--doubting, it appeared, that he would return, if once
+let loose, on any other terms.  Mr Brass, struck with the humour of
+this jest, and carrying out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his
+wide connection a pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some
+halfpence short of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail--for that
+was the merry word agreed upon both sides.  These gentlemen being
+rejected after twenty-four hours' pleasantry, Mr Brass consented to
+remain, and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand
+jury (who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve other
+wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty with a
+most facetious joy,--nay, the very populace entered into the whim, and
+when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the building where
+these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs and carcases of
+kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into shreds, which greatly
+increased the comicality of the thing, and made him relish it the more,
+no doubt.
+
+To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his counsel,
+moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to criminate himself,
+by assurances of safety and promises of pardon, and claimed the
+leniency which the law extends to such confiding natures as are thus
+deluded.  After solemn argument, this point (with others of a technical
+nature, whose humorous extravagance it would be difficult to
+exaggerate) was referred to the judges for their decision, Sampson
+being meantime removed to his former quarters.  Finally, some of the
+points were given in Sampson's favour, and some against him; and the
+upshot was, that, instead of being desired to travel for a time in
+foreign parts, he was permitted to grace the mother country under
+certain insignificant restrictions.
+
+These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a spacious
+mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and boarded at the
+public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of grey turned up with
+yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and chiefly lived on gruel
+and light soup.  It was also required of him that he should partake of
+their exercise of constantly ascending an endless flight of stairs;
+and, lest his legs, unused to such exertion, should be weakened by it,
+that he should wear upon one ankle an amulet or charm of iron.  These
+conditions being arranged, he was removed one evening to his new abode,
+and enjoyed, in common with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the
+privilege of being taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty's
+own carriages.
+
+Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and
+blotted out from the roll of attorneys; which erasure has been always
+held in these latter times to be a great degradation and reproach, and
+to imply the commission of some amazing villany--as indeed it would
+seem to be the case, when so many worthless names remain among its
+better records, unmolested.
+
+Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumours went abroad.  Some said with
+confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and had
+become a female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had enlisted
+as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and had been seen
+in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her musket and looking out
+of a sentry-box in St James's Park, one evening.  There were many such
+whispers as these in circulation; but the truth appears to be that,
+after the lapse of some five years (during which there is no direct
+evidence of her having been seen at all), two wretched people were more
+than once observed to crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of St
+Giles's, and to take their way along the streets, with shuffling steps
+and cowering shivering forms, looking into the roads and kennels as
+they went in search of refuse food or disregarded offal.  These forms
+were never beheld but in those nights of cold and gloom, when the
+terrible spectres, who lie at all other times in the obscene
+hiding-places of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars, venture
+to creep into the streets; the embodied spirits of Disease, and Vice,
+and Famine.  It was whispered by those who should have known, that
+these were Sampson and his sister Sally; and to this day, it is said,
+they sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome guise, close
+at the elbow of the shrinking passenger.
+
+The body of Quilp being found--though not until some days had
+elapsed--an inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been
+washed ashore.  The general supposition was that he had committed
+suicide, and, this appearing to be favoured by all the circumstances of
+his death, the verdict was to that effect.  He was left to be buried
+with a stake through his heart in the centre of four lonely roads.
+
+It was rumoured afterwards that this horrible and barbarous ceremony
+had been dispensed with, and that the remains had been secretly given
+up to Tom Scott.  But even here, opinion was divided; for some said Tom
+dug them up at midnight, and carried them to a place indicated to him
+by the widow.  It is probable that both these stories may have had
+their origin in the simple fact of Tom's shedding tears upon the
+inquest--which he certainly did, extraordinary as it may appear.  He
+manifested, besides, a strong desire to assault the jury; and being
+restrained and conducted out of court, darkened its only window by
+standing on his head upon the sill, until he was dexterously tilted
+upon his feet again by a cautious beadle.
+
+Being cast upon the world by his master's death, he determined to go
+through it upon his head and hands, and accordingly began to tumble for
+his bread.  Finding, however, his English birth an insurmountable
+obstacle to his advancement in this pursuit (notwithstanding that his
+art was in high repute and favour), he assumed the name of an Italian
+image lad, with whom he had become acquainted; and afterwards tumbled
+with extraordinary success, and to overflowing audiences.
+
+Little Mrs Quilp never quite forgave herself the one deceit that lay so
+heavy on her conscience, and never spoke or thought of it but with
+bitter tears. Her husband had no relations, and she was rich.  He had
+made no will, or she would probably have been poor.  Having married the
+first time at her mother's instigation, she consulted in her second
+choice nobody but herself.  It fell upon a smart young fellow enough;
+and as he made it a preliminary condition that Mrs Jiniwin should be
+thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together after marriage with no
+more than the average amount of quarrelling, and led a merry life upon
+the dead dwarf's money.
+
+Mr and Mrs Garland, and Mr Abel, went out as usual (except that there
+was a change in their household, as will be seen presently), and in due
+time the latter went into partnership with his friend the notary, on
+which occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and great extent of
+dissipation.  Unto this ball there happened to be invited the most
+bashful young lady that was ever seen, with whom Mr Abel happened to
+fall in love.  HOW it happened, or how they found it out, or which of
+them first communicated the discovery to the other, nobody knows.  But
+certain it is that in course of time they were married; and equally
+certain it is that they were the happiest of the happy; and no less
+certain it is that they deserved to be so.  And it is pleasant to write
+down that they reared a family; because any propagation of goodness and
+benevolence is no small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no
+small subject of rejoicing for mankind at large.
+
+The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to
+the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and
+caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies.
+He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr Garland's
+and his son's, and, as the old people and the young were frequently
+together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which
+he would walk of himself with surprising dignity.  He condescended to
+play with the children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his
+friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like
+a dog; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such small
+freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his
+tail, he never permitted any one among them to mount his back or drive
+him; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and
+that there were points between them far too serious for trifling.
+
+He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for
+when the good bachelor came to live with Mr Garland upon the
+clergyman's decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and
+amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least
+resistance.  He did no work for two or three years before he died, but
+lived in clover; and his last act (like a choleric old gentleman) was
+to kick his doctor.
+
+Mr Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering
+into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Marchioness a handsome
+stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in redemption of the
+vow he had made upon his fevered bed.  After casting about for some
+time for a name which should be worthy of her, he decided in favour of
+Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious and genteel, and furthermore
+indicative of mystery.  Under this title the Marchioness repaired, in
+tears, to the school of his selection, from which, as she soon
+distanced all competitors, she was removed before the lapse of many
+quarters to one of a higher grade.  It is but bare justice to Mr
+Swiveller to say, that, although the expenses of her education kept him
+in straitened circumstances for half a dozen years, he never slackened
+in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the
+accounts he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement, on his
+monthly visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary
+gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in
+quotation.
+
+In a word, Mr Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment
+until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age--
+good-looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider
+seriously what was to be done next.  On one of his periodical visits,
+while he was revolving this question in his mind, the Marchioness came
+down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more fresh than ever.
+Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first time, that if she would
+marry him, how comfortable they might be!  So Richard asked her;
+whatever she said, it wasn't No; and they were married in good earnest
+that day week.  Which gave Mr Swiveller frequent occasion to remark at
+divers subsequent periods that there had been a young lady saving up
+for him after all.
+
+A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden a
+smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to become its
+tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon its
+occupation.  To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly every
+Sunday to spend the day--usually beginning with breakfast--and here he
+was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable intelligence.
+For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit, protesting that he had
+a better opinion of him when he was supposed to have stolen the
+five-pound note, than when he was shown to be perfectly free of the
+crime; inasmuch as his guilt would have had in it something daring and
+bold, whereas his innocence was but another proof of a sneaking and
+crafty disposition.  By slow degrees, however, he was reconciled to him
+in the end; and even went so far as to honour him with his patronage,
+as one who had in some measure reformed, and was therefore to be
+forgiven.  But he never forgot or pardoned that circumstance of the
+shilling; holding that if he had come back to get another he would have
+done well enough, but that his returning to work out the former gift
+was a stain upon his moral character which no penitence or contrition
+could ever wash away.
+
+Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic and
+reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the
+smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his own
+mind the mysterious question of Sophronia's parentage.  Sophronia
+herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller, putting various
+slight circumstances together, often thought Miss Brass must know
+better than that; and, having heard from his wife of her strange
+interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings whether that
+person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able to solve the
+riddle, had he chosen.  These speculations, however, gave him no
+uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful, affectionate, and
+provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for an occasional outbreak
+with Mr Chuckster, which she had the good sense rather to encourage
+than oppose) was to her an attached and domesticated husband.  And they
+played many hundred thousand games of cribbage together.  And let it be
+added, to Dick's honour, that, though we have called her Sophronia, he
+called her the Marchioness from first to last; and that upon every
+anniversary of the day on which he found her in his sick room, Mr
+Chuckster came to dinner, and there was great glorification.
+
+The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr
+James Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with varying
+success, until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the way of their
+profession, dispersed them in various directions, and caused their
+career to receive a sudden check from the long and strong arm of the
+law.  This defeat had its origin in the untoward detection of a new
+associate--young Frederick Trent--who thus became the unconscious
+instrument of their punishment and his own.
+
+For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by
+his wits--which means by the abuse of every faculty that worthily
+employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far
+below them.  It was not long before his body was recognised by a
+stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital in Paris where the drowned
+are laid out to be owned; despite the bruises and disfigurements which
+were said to have been occasioned by some previous scuffle.  But the
+stranger kept his own counsel until he returned home, and it was never
+claimed or cared for.
+
+The younger brother, or the single gentleman, for that designation is
+more familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his lone
+retreat, and made him his companion and friend.  But the humble village
+teacher was timid of venturing into the noisy world, and had become
+fond of his dwelling in the old churchyard.  Calmly happy in his
+school, and in the spot, and in the attachment of Her little mourner,
+he pursued his quiet course in peace; and was, through the righteous
+gratitude of his friend--let this brief mention suffice for that--a
+POOR school-master no more.
+
+That friend--single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will--had
+at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no misanthropy or
+monastic gloom.  He went forth into the world, a lover of his kind.
+For a long, long time, it was his chief delight to travel in the steps
+of the old man and the child (so far as he could trace them from her
+last narrative), to halt where they had halted, sympathise where they
+had suffered, and rejoice where they had been made glad.  Those who had
+been kind to them, did not escape his search.  The sisters at the
+school--they who were her friends, because themselves so
+friendless--Mrs Jarley of the wax-work, Codlin, Short--he found them
+all; and trust me, the man who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten.
+
+Kit's story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and
+many offers of provision for his future life.  He had no idea at first
+of ever quitting Mr Garland's service; but, after serious remonstrance
+and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate the possibility of
+such a change being brought about in time.  A good post was procured
+for him, with a rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the
+gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the offence laid to his
+charge, and who had acted upon that belief.  Through the same kind
+agency, his mother was secured from want, and made quite happy.  Thus,
+as Kit often said, his great misfortune turned out to be the source of
+all his subsequent prosperity.
+
+Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry?  Of course he
+married, and who should be his wife but Barbara?  And the best of it
+was, he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle, before the
+calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history, had ever been
+encased in broadcloth pantaloons,--though that was not quite the best
+either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle too.  The delight of
+Kit's mother and of Barbara's mother upon the great occasion is past
+all telling; finding they agreed so well on that, and on all other
+subjects, they took up their abode together, and were a most harmonious
+pair of friends from that time forth.  And hadn't Astley's cause to
+bless itself for their all going together once a quarter--to the
+pit--and didn't Kit's mother always say, when they painted the outside,
+that Kit's last treat had helped to that, and wonder what the manager
+would feel if he but knew it as they passed his house!
+
+When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara
+among them, and a pretty Barbara she was.  Nor was there wanting an
+exact facsimile and copy of little Jacob, as he appeared in those
+remote times when they taught him what oysters meant.  Of course there
+was an Abel, own godson to the Mr Garland of that name; and there was a
+Dick, whom Mr Swiveller did especially favour.  The little group would
+often gather round him of a night and beg him to tell again that story
+of good Miss Nell who died.  This, Kit would do; and when they cried to
+hear it, wishing it longer too, he would teach them how she had gone to
+Heaven, as all good people did; and how, if they were good, like her,
+they might hope to be there too, one day, and to see and know her as he
+had done when he was quite a boy.  Then, he would relate to them how
+needy he used to be, and how she had taught him what he was otherwise
+too poor to learn, and how the old man had been used to say 'she always
+laughs at Kit;' at which they would brush away their tears, and laugh
+themselves to think that she had done so, and be again quite merry.
+
+He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived; but new
+improvements had altered it so much, it was not like the same.  The old
+house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its
+place.  At first he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground
+to show them where it used to stand.  But he soon became uncertain of
+the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he thought, and these
+alterations were confusing.
+
+Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things
+pass away, like a tale that is told!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens
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+*****The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Old Curiosity Shop*****
+#12 in our series by Charles Dickens
+
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+The Old Curiosity Shop
+
+by Charles Dickens
+
+October, 1996  [Etext #700]
+
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+
+
+
+The Old Curiosity Shop
+
+By Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+Night is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave
+home early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day,
+or even escape for days or weeks together; but, saving in the
+country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven be
+thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the
+earth, as much as any creature living.
+
+I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my
+infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating
+on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The
+glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like
+mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp
+or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full
+revelation in the daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is kinder
+in this respect than day, which too often destroys an air-built castle
+at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse.
+
+That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that
+incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy--is it
+not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear
+it! Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin's Court,
+listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness
+obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform)
+to detect the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from
+the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel
+of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant
+pleasure-seeker--think of the hum and noise always being present to his
+sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on,
+through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie,
+dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest
+for centuries to come.
+
+Then, the crowds for ever passing and repassing on the bridges (on
+those which are free of toil at last), where many stop on fine
+evenings looking listlessly down upon the water with some vague
+idea that by and by it runs between green banks which grow wider
+and wider until at last it joins the broad vast sea--where some halt to
+rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to
+smoke and lounge away one's life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a
+hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness
+unalloyed--and where some, and a very different class, pause with
+heaver loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old
+time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all means of suicide
+the easiest and best.
+
+Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when
+the fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the
+unwholesome streams of last night's debauchery, and driving the
+dusky thrust, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night
+long, half mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all
+akin to the other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the
+hot hands of drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already,
+while others, soddened by close contact, await the time when they
+shall be watered and freshened up to please more sober company,
+and make old clerks who pass them on their road to business,
+wonder what has filled their breasts with visions of the country.
+
+But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story
+I am about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals,  arose
+out of one of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of
+them by way of preface.
+
+One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in
+my usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was
+arrested by an inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but
+which seemed to be addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft
+sweet voice that struck me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round
+and found at my elbow a pretty little girl, who begged to be directed
+to a certain street at a considerable distance, and indeed in quite
+another quarter of the town.
+
+It is a very long way from here,' said I, 'my child.'
+
+'I know that, sir,' she replied timidly. 'I am afraid it is a very long
+way, for I came from there to-night.'
+
+'Alone?' said I, in some surprise.
+
+'Oh, yes, I don't mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I
+had lost my road.'
+
+'And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?'
+
+'I am sure you will not do that,' said the little creature,' you are such
+a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.'
+
+I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the
+energy with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child's
+clear eye, and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into
+my face.
+
+'Come,' said I, 'I'll take you there.'
+
+She put her hand in mind as confidingly as if she had known me
+from her cradle, and we trudged away together; the little creature
+accommodating her pace to mine, and rather seeming to lead and
+take care of me than I to be protecting her. I observed that every
+now and then she stole a curious look at my face, as if to make quite
+sure that I was not deceiving her, and that these glances (very sharp
+and keen they were too) seemed to increase her confidence at every
+repetition.
+
+For my part, my curiosity and interest were at least equal to the
+child's, for child she certainly was, although I thought it probably
+from what I could make out, that her very small and delicate frame
+imparted a peculiar youthfulness to her appearance. Though more
+scantily attired than she might have been she was dressed with
+perfect neatness, and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect.
+
+'Who has sent you so far by yourself?' said I.
+
+'Someone who is very kind to me, sir.'
+
+'And what have you been doing?'
+
+'That, I must not tell,' said the child firmly.
+
+There was something in the manner of this reply which caused me to
+look at the little creature with an involuntary expression of surprise;
+for I wondered what kind of errand it might be that occasioned her to
+be prepared for questioning. Her quick eye seemed to read my
+thoughts, for as it met mine she added that there was no harm in
+what she had been doing, but it was a great secret--a secret which
+she did not even know herself.
+
+This was said with no appearance of cunning or deceit, but with an
+unsuspicious frankness that bore the impress of truth. She walked on
+as before, growing more familiar with me as we proceeded and
+talking cheerfully by the way, but she said no more about her home,
+beyond remarking that we were going quite a new road and asking if
+it were a short one.
+
+While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my mind a hundred
+different explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I
+really felt ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful
+feeling of the child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love
+these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so
+fresh from God, love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her
+confidence I determined to deserve it, and to do credit to the nature
+which had prompted her to repose it in me.
+
+There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the
+person who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by
+night and alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found
+herself near home she might take farewell of me and deprive me of
+the opportunity, I avoided the most frequented ways and took the
+most intricate, and thus it was not until we arrived in the street itself
+that she knew where we were. Clapping her hands with pleasure and
+running on before me for a short distance, my little acquaintance
+stopped at a door and remaining on the step till I came up knocked at
+it when I joined her.
+
+A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I
+did not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and I
+was anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our
+summons. When she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise
+as if some person were moving inside, and at length a faint light
+appeared through the glass which, as it approached very slowly, the
+bearer having to make his way through a great many scattered
+articles, enabled me to see both what kind of person it was who
+advanced and what kind of place it was through which he came.
+
+It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he
+held the light above his head and looked before him as he
+approached, I could plainly see. Though much altered by age, I
+fancied I could recognize in his spare and slender form something of
+that delicate mould which I had noticed in a child. Their bright blue
+eyes were certainly alike, but his face was so deeply furrowed and so
+very full of care, that here all resemblance ceased.
+
+The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those
+receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd
+corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public
+eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like
+ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from
+monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures
+in china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture
+that might have been designed in dreams. The haggard aspect of the
+little old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have
+groped among old churches and tombs and deserted houses and
+gathered all the spoils with his own hands. There was nothing in the
+whole collection but was in keeping with himself nothing that looked
+older or more worn than he.
+
+As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed me with some
+astonishment which was not diminished when he looked from me to
+my companion. The door being opened, the child addressed him as
+grandfather, and told him the little story of our companionship.
+
+'Why, bless thee, child,' said the old man, patting her on the head,
+'how couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!'
+
+'I would have found my way back to YOU, grandfather,' said the
+child boldly; 'never fear.'
+
+The old man kissed her, then turning to me and begging me to walk
+in, I did so. The door was closed and locked. Preceding me with the
+light, he led me through the place I had already seen from without,
+into a small sitting-room behind, in which was another door opening
+into a kind of closet, where I saw a little bed that a fairy might have
+slept in, it looked so very small and was so prettily arranged. The
+child took a candle and tripped into this little room, leaving the old
+man and me together.
+
+'You must be tired, sir,' said he as he placed a chair near the fire,
+'how can I thank you?'
+
+'By taking more care of your grandchild another time, my good
+friend,' I replied.
+
+'More care!' said the old man in a shrill voice, 'more care of Nelly!
+Why, who ever loved a child as I love Nell?'
+
+He said this with such evident surprise that I was perplexed what
+answer to make, and the more so because coupled with something
+feeble and wandering in his manner, there were in his face marks of
+deep and anxious thought which convinced me that he could not be,
+as I had been at first inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or
+imbecility.
+
+'I don't think you consider--' I began.
+
+'I don't consider!' cried the old man interrupting me, 'I don't consider
+her! Ah, how little you know of the truth! Little Nelly, little Nelly!'
+
+It would be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of
+speech might be, to express more affection than the dealer in
+curiosities did, in these four words. I waited for him to speak again,
+but he rested his chin upon his hand and shaking his head twice or
+thrice fixed his eyes upon the fire.
+
+While we were sitting thus in silence, the door of the closet opened,
+and the child returned, her light brown hair hanging loose about her
+neck, and her face flushed with the haste she had made to rejoin us.
+She busied herself immediately in preparing supper, and while she
+was thus engaged I remarked that the old man took an opportunity of
+observing me more closely than he had done yet. I was surprised to
+see that all this time everything was done by the child, and that there
+appeared to be no other persons but ourselves in the house. I took
+advantage of a moment when she was absent to venture a hint on this
+point, to which the old man replied that there were few grown
+persons as trustworthy or as careful as she.
+
+'It always grieves me, ' I observed, roused by what I took to be his
+selfishness, 'it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of
+children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than
+infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity--two of the best
+qualities that Heaven gives them--and demands that they share our
+sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.'
+
+'It will never check hers,' said the old man looking steadily at me,
+'the springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but
+few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought
+and paid for.
+
+'But--forgive me for saying this--you are surely not so very poor'--said I.
+
+'She is not my child, sir,' returned the old man. 'Her mother was,
+and she was poor. I save nothing--not a penny--though I live as you
+see, but'--he laid his hand upon my arm and leant forward to
+whisper--'she shall be rich one of these days, and a fine lady. Don't
+you think ill of me because I use her help. She gives it cheerfully as
+you see, and it would break her heart if she knew that I suffered
+anybody else to do for me what her little hands could undertake. I
+don't consider!'--he cried with sudden querulousness, 'why, God
+knows that this one child is there thought and object of my life, and
+yet he never prospers me--no, never!'
+
+At this juncture, the subject of our conversation again returned, and
+the old men motioning to me to approach the table, broke off, and
+said no more.
+
+We had scarcely begun our repast when there was a knock at the
+door by which I had entered, and Nell bursting into a hearty laugh,
+which I was rejoiced to hear, for it was childlike and full of hilarity,
+said it was no doubt dear old Kit coming back at last.
+
+'Foolish Nell!' said the old man fondling with her hair. 'She always
+laughs at poor Kit.'
+
+The child laughed again more heartily than before, I could not help
+smiling from pure sympathy. The little old man took up a candle and
+went to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels.
+
+Kit was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad with an
+uncommonly wide mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and
+certainly the most comical expression of face I ever saw. He stopped
+short at the door on seeing a stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly
+round old hat without any vestige of a brim, and resting himself now
+on one leg and now on the other and changing them constantly, stood
+in the doorway, looking into the parlour with the most extraordinary
+leer I ever beheld. I entertained a grateful feeling towards the boy
+from that minute, for I felt that he was the comedy of the child's life.
+
+'A long way, wasn't it, Kit?' said the little old man.
+
+'Why, then, it was a goodish stretch, master,' returned Kit.
+
+'Of course you have come back hungry?'
+
+'Why, then, I do consider myself rather so, master,' was the answer.
+
+The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways as he spoke,
+and thrusting his head forward over his shoulder, as if he could not
+get at his voice without that accompanying action. I think he would
+have amused one anywhere, but the child's exquisite enjoyment of
+his oddity, and the relief it was to find that there was something she
+associated with merriment in a place that appeared so unsuited to
+her, were quite irresistible. It was a great point too that Kit himself
+was flattered by the sensation he created, and after several efforts to
+preserve his gravity, burst into a loud roar, and so stood with his
+mouth wide open and his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently.
+
+The old man had again relapsed into his former abstraction and took
+no notice of what passed, but I remarked that when her laugh was
+over, the child's bright eyes were dimmed with tears, called forth by
+the fullness of heart with which she welcomed her uncouth favourite
+after the little anxiety of the night. As for Kit himself (whose laugh
+had been all the time one of that sort which very little would change
+into a cry) he carried a large slice of bread and meat and a mug of
+beer into a corner, and applied himself to disposing of them with
+great voracity.
+
+'Ah!' said the old man turning to me with a sigh, as if I had spoken
+to him but that moment, 'you don't know what you say when you tell
+me that I don't consider her.'
+
+'You must not attach too great weight to a remark founded on first
+appearances, my friend,' said I.
+
+'No,' returned the old man thoughtfully, 'no. Come hither, Nell.'
+
+The little girl hastened from her seat, and put her arm about his
+neck.
+
+'Do I love thee, Nell?' said he. 'Say--do I love thee, Nell, or no?'
+
+The child only answered by her caresses, and laid her head upon his
+breast.
+
+'Why dost thou sob?' said the grandfather, pressing her closer to him
+and glancing towards me. 'Is it because thou know'st I love thee, and
+dost not like that I should seem to doubt it by my question? Well,
+well--then let us say I love thee dearly.'
+
+'Indeed, indeed you do,' replied the child with great earnestness,
+'Kit knows you do.'
+
+Kit, who in despatching his bread and meat had been swallowing
+two-thirds of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a
+juggler, stopped short in his operations on being thus appealed to,
+and bawled 'Nobody isn't such a fool as to say he doosn't,' after
+which he incapacitated himself for further conversation by taking a
+most prodigious sandwich at one bite.
+
+'She is poor now'--said the old men, patting the child's cheek, 'but I
+say again that the time is coming when she shall be rich. It has been
+a long time coming, but it must come at last; a very long time, but it
+surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing but
+waste and riot. When WILL it come to me!'
+
+'I am very happy as I am, grandfather,' said the child.
+
+'Tush, tush!' returned the old man, 'thou dost not know--how
+should'st thou!' then he muttered again between his teeth, 'The time
+must come, I am very sure it must. It will be all the better for
+coming late'; and then he sighed and fell into his former musing
+state, and still holding the child between his knees appeared to be
+insensible to everything around him. By this time it wanted but a few
+minutes of midnight and I rose to go, which recalled him to himself.
+
+'One moment, sir,' he said, 'Now, Kit--near midnight, boy, and you
+still here! Get home, get home, and be true to your time in the
+morning, for there's work to do. Good night! There, bid him good
+night, Nell, and let him be gone!'
+
+'Good night, Kit,' said the child, her eyes lighting up with
+merriment and kindness.'
+
+'Good night, Miss Nell,' returned the boy.
+
+'And thank this gentleman,' interposed the old man, 'but for whose
+care I might have lost my little girl to-night.'
+
+'No, no, master,' said Kit, 'that won't do, that won't.'
+
+'What do you mean?' cried the old man.
+
+'I'd have found her, master,' said Kit, 'I'd have found her. I'll bet
+that I'd find her if she was above ground, I would, as quick as
+anybody, master. Ha, ha, ha!'
+
+Once more opening his mouth and shutting his eyes, and laughing
+like a stentor, Kit gradually backed to the door, and roared himself
+out.
+
+Free of the room, the boy was not slow in taking his departure; when
+he had gone, and the child was occupied in clearing the table, the old
+man said:
+
+'I haven't seemed to thank you, sir, for what you have done to-night,
+but I do thank you humbly and heartily, and so does she, and her
+thanks are better worth than mine. I should be sorry that you went
+away, and thought I was unmindful of your goodness, or careless of
+her--I am not indeed.'
+
+I was sure of that, I said, from what I had seen. 'But,' I added, 'may
+I ask you a question?'
+
+'Ay, sir,' replied the old man, 'What is it?'
+
+'This delicate child,' said I, 'with so much beauty and intelligence--has
+she nobody to care for
+her but you? Has she no other companion
+or advisor?'
+
+'No,' he returned, looking anxiously in my face, 'no, and she wants
+no other.'
+
+'But are you not fearful,' said I, 'that you may misunderstand a
+charge so tender? I am sure you mean well, but are you quite certain
+that you know how to execute such a trust as this? I am an old man,
+like you, and I am actuated by an old man's concern in all that is
+young and promising. Do you not think that what I have seen of you
+and this little creature to-night must have an interest not wholly free
+from pain?'
+
+'Sir,' rejoined the old man after a moment's silence.' I have no right
+to feel hurt at what you say. It is true that in many respects I am the
+child, and she the grown person--that you have seen already. But
+waking or sleeping, by night or day, in sickness or health, she is the
+one object of my care, and if you knew of how much care, you
+would look on me with different eyes, you would indeed. Ah! It's a
+weary life for an old man--a weary, weary life--but there is a great
+end to gain and that I keep before me.'
+
+Seeing that he was in a state of excitement and impatience, I turned
+to put on an outer coat which I had thrown off on entering the room,
+purposing to say no more. I was surprised to see the child standing
+patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, and in her hand a hat, and
+stick.
+
+'Those are not mine, my dear,' said I.
+
+'No,' returned the child, 'they are grandfather's.'
+
+'But he is not going out to-night.'
+
+'Oh, yes, he is,' said the child, with a smile.
+
+'And what becomes of you, my pretty one?'
+
+'Me! I stay here of course. I always do.'
+
+I looked in astonishment towards the old man, but he was, or feigned
+to be, busied in the arrangement of his dress. From him I looked
+back to the slight gentle figure of the child. Alone! In that gloomy
+place all the long, dreary night.
+
+She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, but cheerfully helped
+the old man with his cloak, and when he was ready took a candle to
+light us out. Finding that we did not follow as she expected, she
+looked back with a smile and waited for us.  The old man showed by
+his face that he plainly understood the cause of my hesitation, but he
+merely signed to me with an inclination of the head to pass out of the
+room before him, and remained silent. I had no resource but to comply.
+
+When we reached the door, the child setting down the candle, turned
+to say good night and raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the
+old man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.
+
+'Sleep soundly, Nell,' he said in a low voice, 'and angels guard thy
+bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.'
+
+'No, indeed,' answered the child fervently, 'they make me feel so
+happy!'
+
+'That's well; I know they do; they should,' said the old man. 'Bless
+thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.'
+
+'You'll not ring twice,' returned the child. 'The bell wakes me, even
+in the middle of a dream.'
+
+With this, they separated. The child opened the door (now guarded
+by a shutter which I had heard the boy put up before he left the
+house) and with another farewell whose clear and tender note I have
+recalled a thousand times, held it until we had passed out. The old
+man paused a moment while it was gently closed and fastened on the
+inside, and satisfied that this was done, walked on at a slow pace. At
+the street-corner he stopped, and regarding me with a troubled
+countenance said that our ways were widely different and that he
+must take his leave. I would have spoken, but summoning up more
+alacrity than might have been expected in one of his appearance, he
+hurried away. I could see that twice or thrice he looked back as if to
+ascertain if I were still watching him, or perhaps to assure himself
+that I was not following at a distance. The obscurity of the night
+favoured his disappearance, and his figure was soon beyond my
+sight.
+
+I remained standing on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to
+depart, and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked
+wistfully into the street we had lately quitted, and after a time
+directed my steps that way. I passed and repassed the house, and
+stopped and listened at the door; all was dark, and silent as the
+grave.
+
+Yet I lingered about, and could not tear myself away, thinking of all
+possible harm that might happen to the child--of fires and robberies
+and even murder--and feeling as if some evil must ensure if I turned
+my back upon the place. The closing of a door or window in the
+street brought me before the curiosity-dealer's once more; I crossed
+the road and looked up at the house to assure myself that the noise
+had not come from there. No, it was black, cold, and lifeless as
+before.
+
+There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and
+pretty well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by,
+and now and then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he
+reeled homewards, but these interruptions were not frequent and
+soon ceased. The clocks struck one. Still I paced up and down,
+promising myself that every time should be the last, and breaking
+faith with myself on some new plea as often as I did so.
+
+The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks
+and bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I
+had a strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good
+purpose. I had only come to know the fact through the innocence of
+the child, and though the old man was by at the time, and saw my
+undisguised surprise, he had preserved a strange mystery upon the
+subject and offered no word of explanation. These reflections
+naturally recalled again more strongly than before his haggard face,
+his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks. His affection for
+the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the worst kind;
+even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary contradiction,
+or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of
+him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not admit
+the thought, remembering what had passed between us, and the tone
+of voice in which he had called her by her name.
+
+'Stay here of course,' the child had said in answer to my question, 'I
+always do!' What could take him from home by night, and every
+night! I called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and
+secret deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a
+long series of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not
+find one adapted to this mystery, which only became the more
+impenetrable, in proportion as I sought to solve it.
+
+Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all
+tending to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long
+hours; at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered
+by fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first,
+I engaged the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was
+blazing on the hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me
+with its old familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and
+cheering, and in happy contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted.
+
+But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred
+and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever
+before me the old dark murky rooms--the gaunt suits of mail with
+their ghostly silent air--the faces all awry, grinning from wood and
+stone--the dust and rust and worm that lives in wood--and alone in
+the midst of all this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful
+child in her gentle slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+
+After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to
+revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already
+detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I
+would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early
+in the morning.
+
+I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with
+that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious
+that the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very
+acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not
+appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I
+continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered
+this irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer's
+warehouse.
+
+The old man and another person were together in the back part, and
+there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices
+which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my
+entering, and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a
+tremulous tone that he was very glad I had come.
+
+'You interrupted us at a critical moment,' said he, pointing to the
+man whom I had found in company with him; 'this fellow will
+murder me one of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if
+he had dared.'
+
+'Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,' returned the
+other, after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; 'we all know that!'
+
+'I almost think I could,' cried the old man, turning feebly upon him.
+'If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I
+would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.'
+
+'I know it,' returned the other. 'I said so, didn't I? But neither oaths,
+or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and mean
+to live.'
+
+'And his mother died!' cried the old man, passionately clasping his
+hands and looking upward; 'and this is Heaven's justice!'
+
+The other stood lunging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him
+with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty
+or thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the
+expression of his face was far from prepossessing, having in
+common with his manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent
+air which repelled one.
+
+'Justice or no justice,' said the young fellow, 'here I am and here I
+shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for
+assistance to put me out--which you won't do, I know. I tell you
+again that I want to see my sister.'
+
+'YOUR sister!' said the old man bitterly.
+
+'Ah! You can't change the relationship,' returned the other. 'If you
+could, you'd have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you
+keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and
+pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and
+add a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly
+count. I want to see her; and I will.'
+
+'Here's a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here's a generous spirit
+to scorn scraped-up shillings!' cried the old man, turning from him
+to me. 'A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only
+upon those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon
+society which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,' he
+added, in a lower voice as he drew closer to me, 'who knows how
+dear she is to me, and seeks to wound me even there, because there
+is a stranger nearby.'
+
+'Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,' said the young fellow
+catching at the word, 'nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is
+to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mind. There's a
+friend of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to
+wait some time, I'll call him in, with your leave.'
+
+Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street
+beckoned several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from
+the air of impatience with which these signals were accompanied,
+required a great quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At
+length there sauntered up, on the opposite side of the way--with a
+bad pretense of passing by accident--a figure conspicuous for its dirty
+smartness, which after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in
+resistence of the invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was
+brought into the shop.
+
+'There. It's Dick Swiveller,' said the young fellow, pushing him in.
+'Sit down, Swiveller.'
+
+'But is the old min agreeable?' said Mr Swiveller in an undertone.
+
+Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propritiatory
+smile, observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and
+this week was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst
+standing by the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with
+a straw in his mouth issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which
+appearance he augured that another fine week for the ducks was
+approaching, and that rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore
+took occasion to apologize for any negligence that might be
+perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last night he had had 'the
+sun very strong in his eyes'; by which expression he was understood
+to convey to his hearers in the most delicate manner possible, the
+information that he had been extremely drunk.
+
+'But what,' said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, 'what is the odds so long
+as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the
+wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long
+as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present
+moment is the least happiest of our existence!'
+
+'You needn't act the chairman here,' said his friend, half aside.
+
+'Fred!' cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, 'a word to the wise is
+sufficient for them--we may be good and happy without riches, Fred.
+Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only
+one little whisper, Fred--is the old min friendly?'
+
+'Never you mind,' repled his friend.
+
+'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word,
+and caution is the act.' with that, he winked as if in preservation of
+some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair,
+looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity.
+
+It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had
+already passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the
+effects of the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if
+no such suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair,
+dull eyes, and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses
+against him. His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable
+for the  nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which
+strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of
+a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front and
+only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled
+white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side
+foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was
+ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the
+cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his
+dirty wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously
+folded back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a
+yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a
+ring on its little finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these
+personal advantages (to which may be added a strong savour of
+tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of appearance) Mr
+Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling,
+and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, obliged the
+company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and then, in the
+middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.
+
+The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands,
+looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange
+companion, as if he were utterly powerless and had no resource but
+to leave them to do as they pleased. The young man reclined against
+a table at no great distance from his friend, in apparent indifference
+to everything that had passed; and I--who felt the difficulty of any
+interference, notwithstanding that the old man had appealed to me,
+both by words and looks--made the best feint I could of being
+occupied in examining some of the goods that were disposed for sale,
+and paying very little attention to a person before me.
+
+The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after
+favouring us with several melodious assurances that his heart was in
+the Highlands, and that he wanted but his Arab steed as a
+preliminary to the achievement of great feats of valour and loyalty,
+removed his eyes from the ceiling and subsided into prose again.
+
+'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly
+occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before,
+'is the old min friendly?'
+
+'What does it matter?' returned his friend peevishly.
+
+'No, but IS he?' said Dick.
+
+'Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?'
+
+Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general
+conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our
+attention.
+
+He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the
+abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with
+ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to
+be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of
+expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded
+to observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and
+that the young
+gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after
+eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from
+their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their
+heads possessing this remarkable property; when he concluded that if
+the Royal Society would turn their attention to the circumstance, and
+endeavour to find in the resources of science a means of preventing
+such untoward revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as
+benefactors to mankind. These opinions being equally
+incontrovertible with those he had already pronounced, he went on to
+inform us that Jamaica rum, though unquestionably an agreeable
+spirit of great richness and flavour, had the drawback of remaining
+constantly present to the taste next day; and nobody being venturous
+enough to argue this point either, he increased in confidence and
+became yet more companionable and communicative.
+
+'It's a devil of a thing, gentlemen,' said Mr Swiveller, 'when
+relations fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never
+moult a feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but
+be always expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and
+grandfather peg away at each other with mutual wiolence when all
+might be bliss and concord. Why not jine hands and forgit it?'
+
+'Hold your tongue,' said his friend.
+
+'Sir,' replied Mr Swiveller, 'don't you interrupt the chair.
+Gentlemen, how does the case stand, upon the present occasion?
+Here is a jolly old grandfather--I say it with the utmost respect--and
+here is a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the
+wild young grandson, 'I have brought you up and educated you,
+Fred; I have put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted
+a little out of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never
+have another chance, nor the ghost of half a one.'  The wild young
+grandson makes answer to this and says, 'You're as rich as rich can
+be; you have been at no uncommon expense on my account, you're
+saving up piles of money for my little sister that lives with you in a
+secret, stealthy, hugger-muggering kind of way and with no manner
+of enjoyment--why can't you stand a trifle for your grown-up
+relation?' The jolly old grandfather unto this, retorts, not only that
+he declines to fork out with that cheerful readiness which is always
+so agreeable and pleasant in a gentleman of his time of life, but that
+he will bow up, and call names, and make reflections whenever they
+meet. Then the plain question is, an't it a pity that this state of things
+should continue, and how much better would it be for the gentleman
+to hand over a reasonable amount of tin, and make it all right and
+comfortable?'
+
+Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes
+of the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into
+his mouth as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his
+speech by adding one other word.
+
+'Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!' said the old man
+turning to his grandson. 'Why do you bring your prolifigate
+companions here? How often am I to tell you that my life is one of
+care and self-denial, and that I am poor?'
+
+'How often am I to tell you,' returned the other, looking coldly at
+him, 'that I know better?'
+
+'You have chosen your own path,' said the old man. 'Follow it.
+Leave Nell and me to toil and work.'
+
+'Nell will be a woman soon,' returned the other, 'and, bred in your
+faith, she'll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.'
+
+'Take care,' said the old man with sparkling eyes, 'that she does not
+forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that
+the day don't come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she
+rides by in a gay carriage of her own.'
+
+'You mean when she has your money?' retorted the other. 'How like
+a poor man he talks!'
+
+'And yet,' said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one
+who thinks aloud, 'how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause
+is a young child's guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes
+well with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!'
+
+These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the
+young men.  Mr Swiveller appeared to think the they implied some
+mental struggle consequent upon the powerful effect of his address,
+for he poked his friend with his cane and whispered his conviction
+that he had administered 'a clincher,' and that he expected a
+commission on the profits. Discovering his mistake after a while, he
+appeared to grow rather sleeply and discontented, and had more than
+once suggested the proprieity of an immediate departure, when the
+door opened, and the child herself appeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+
+The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably
+hard features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be
+quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the
+body of a giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his
+mouth and chin, bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and
+his complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or
+wholesome. But what added most to the grotesque expression of his
+face was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of
+habit and to have no connection with any mirthful or complacent
+feeling, constantly revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet
+scattered in his mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. His
+dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair
+of capacious shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief sufficiently limp
+and crumpled to disclose the greater portion of his wiry throat. Such
+hair as he had was of a grizzled black, cut short and straight upon his
+temples, and hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands,
+which were of a rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his fingernails
+were crooked, long, and yellow.
+
+There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they
+were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some
+moments elapsed before any one broke silence. The child advanced
+timidly towards her brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we
+may call him so) glanced keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer,
+who plainly had not
+expected his uncouth visitor, seemed
+disconcerted and embarrassed.
+
+'Ah!' said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes
+had been surveying the young man attentively, 'that should be your
+grandson, neighbour!'
+
+'Say rather that he should not be,' replied the old man. 'But he is.'
+
+'And that?' said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.
+
+'Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,' said the old man.
+
+'And that?' inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight
+at me.
+
+'A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night
+when she lost her way, coming from your house.'
+
+The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his
+wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and
+bent his head to listen.
+
+'Well, Nelly,' said the young fellow aloud. 'Do they teach you to
+hate me, eh?'
+
+'No, no. For shame. Oh, no!' cried the child.
+
+'To love me, perhaps?' pursued her brother with a sneer.
+
+'To do neither,' she returned. 'They never speak to me about you.
+Indeed they never do.'
+
+'I dare be bound for that,' he said, darting a bitter look at the
+grandfather. 'I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!'
+
+'But I love you dearly, Fred,' said the child.
+
+'No doubt!'
+
+'I do indeed, and always will,' the child repeated with great emotion,
+'but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy,
+then I could love you more.'
+
+'I see!' said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child,
+and having kissed her, pushed her from him: 'There--get you away
+now you have said your lesson. You needn't whimper. We part good
+friends enough, if that's the matter.'
+
+He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained
+her little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf,
+said abruptly,
+
+'Harkee, Mr--'
+
+'Meaning me?' returned the dwarf. 'Quilp is my name. You might
+remember. It's not a long one--Daniel Quilp.'
+
+'Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,' pursued the other, 'You have some
+influence with my grandfather there.'
+
+'Some,' said Mr Quilp emphatically.
+
+'And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.'
+
+'A few,' replied Quilp, with equal dryness.
+
+'Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into
+and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell
+here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of
+her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned
+and dreaded as if I brought the plague? He'll tell you that I have no
+natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake,
+than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of
+coming to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see
+her when I please. That's my point. I came here to-day to maintain
+it, and I'll come here again fifty times with the same object and
+always with the same success. I said I would stop till I had gained it.
+I have done so, and now my visit's ended. Come Dick.'
+
+'Stop!' cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the
+door. 'Sir!'
+
+'Sir, I am your humble servant,' said Mr Quilp, to whom the
+monosyllable was addressed.
+
+'Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light,
+sir,' said Mr Swiveller, 'I will with your permission, attempt a slight
+remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old
+min was friendly.'
+
+'Proceed, sir,' said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden
+stop.
+
+'Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling
+as a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the
+sort of thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social
+harmony of the contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a
+course which is THE course to be adopted to the present occasion.
+Will you allow me to whisper half a syllable, sir?'
+
+Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped
+up to the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to
+get at his ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all
+present,
+
+'The watch-word to the old min is--fork.'
+
+'Is what?' demanded Quilp.
+
+'Is fork, sir, fork,' replied Mr Swiveller slapping his picket. 'You
+are awake, sir?'
+
+The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise,
+then drew a little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these
+means he in time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to
+attract the dwarf's attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in
+dumb show, the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy.
+Having performed the serious pantomime that was necessary for the
+due conveyance of these idea, he cast himself upon his friend's track,
+and vanished.
+
+'Humph!' said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his
+shoulders, 'so much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge
+none! Nor need you either,' he added, turning to the old man, 'if you
+were not as weak as a reed, and nearly as senseless.'
+
+'What would you have me do?' he retorted in a kind of helpless
+desperation. 'It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?'
+
+'What would I do if I was in your case?' said the dwarf.
+
+'Something violent, no doubt.'
+
+'You're right there,' returned the little man, highly gratified by the
+compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a
+devil as he rubbed his dirty hands together. 'Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty
+Mrs Quilp, obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me--I have
+left her all alone,
+and she will be anxious and know not a
+moment's peace till I return. I know she's always in that condition
+when I'm away, thought she doesn't dare to say so, unless I lead her
+on and tell her she may speak freely and I won't be angry with her.
+Oh! well-trained Mrs Quilp.
+
+The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and
+little body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and
+round again--with something fantastic even in his manner of
+performing this slight action--and, dropping his shaggy brows and
+cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of
+exultation that an imp might have copied and appropriated to
+himself.
+
+'Here,' he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the
+old man as he spoke; 'I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as,
+being in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in
+her bag. She need be accustomed to such loads betimes thought,
+neighbor, for she will carry weight when you are dead.'
+
+'Heaven send she may! I hope so,' said the old man with something
+like a groan.'
+
+'Hope so!' echoed the dwarf, approaching close to his ear;
+'neighbour, I would I knew in what good investment all these supplies
+are sunk. But you are a deep man, and keep your secret close.'
+
+'My secret!' said the other with a haggard look. 'Yes,
+you're right--I--I--keep it close--very close.'
+
+He said no more, but taking the money turned away with a slow,
+uncertain step, and pressed his hand upon his head like a weary and
+dejected man. the dwarf watched him sharply, while he passed into
+the little sitting-room and locked it in an iron safe above the
+chimney-piece; and after musing for a short space, prepared to take
+his leave, observing that unless he made good haste, Mrs Quilp
+would certainly be in fits on his return.
+
+'And so, neighbour,' he added, 'I'll turn my face homewards,
+leaving my love for Nelly and hoping she may never lose her way
+again, though her doing so HAS procured me an honour I didn't
+expect.' With that he bowed and leered at me, and with a keen
+glance around which seemed to comprehend every object within his
+range of vision, however, small or trivial, went his way.
+
+I had several times essayed to go myself, but the old man had always
+opposed it and entreated me to remain. As he renewed his entreaties
+on our being left along, and adverted with many thanks to the former
+occasion of our being together, I willingly yielded to his persuasions,
+and sat down, pretending to examine some curious miniatures and a
+few old medals which he placed before me. It needed no great
+pressing to induce me to stay, for if my curiosity has been excited on
+the occasion of my first visit, it certainly was not diminished now.
+
+Nell joined us before long, and bringing some needle-work to the
+table, sat by the old man's side. It was pleasant to observe the fresh
+flowers in the room, the pet bird with a green bough shading his
+little cage, the breath of freshness and youth which seemed to rustle
+through the old dull house and hover round the child. It was curious,
+but not so pleasant, to turn from the beauty and grace of the girl, to
+the stooping figure, care-worn face, and jaded aspect of the old man.
+As he grew weaker and more feeble, what would become of this
+lonely litle creature; poor protector as he was, say that he died--what
+we be her fate, then?
+
+The old man almost answered my thoughts, as he laid his hand on
+hers, and spoke aloud.
+
+'I'll be of better cheer, Nell,' he said; 'there must be good fortune in
+store for thee--I do not ask it for myself, but thee. Such miseries
+must fall on thy innocent head without it, that I cannot believe but
+that, being tempted, it will come at last!'
+
+She looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer.
+
+'When I think,' said he, 'of the many years--many in thy short life--
+that thou has lived with me; of my monotonous existence, knowing
+no companions of thy own age nor any childish pleasures; of the
+solitutde in which thou has grown to be what thou art, and in which
+thou hast lived apart from nearly all thy kind but one old man; I
+sometimes fear I have dealt hardly by thee, Nell.'
+
+'Grandfather!' cried the child in unfeigned surprise.
+
+'Not in intention--no no,' said he. 'I have ever looked forward to the
+time that should enable thee to mix among the gayest and prettiest,
+and take thy station with the best. But I still look forward, Nell, I
+still look forward, and if I should be forced to leave thee,
+meanwhile, how have I fitted thee for struggles with the world? The
+poor bird yonder is as well qualified to encounter it, and be turned
+adrift upon its mercies--Hark! I hear Kit outside. Go to him, Nell, go
+to him.'
+
+She rose, and hurrying away, stopped, turned back, and put her arms
+about the old man's neck, then left him and hurried away again--but
+faster this time, to hide her falling tears.
+
+'A word in your ear, sir,' said the old man in a hurried whisper. 'I
+have been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can
+only plead that I have done all for the best--that it is too late to
+retract, if I could (though I cannot)--and that I hope to triumph yet.
+All is for her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would
+spare her the sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare
+her the miseries that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an
+early grave. I would leave her--not with resources which could be
+easily spent or squandered away, but with what would place her
+beyond the reach of want for ever. you mark me sir? She shall have
+no pittance, but a fortune--Hush! I can say no more than that, now or
+at any other time, and she is here again!'
+
+The eagerness with which all this was poured into my ear, the
+trembling of the hand with which he clasped my arm, the strained
+and starting eyes he fixed upon me, the wild vehemence and agitation
+of his manner, filled me with amazement. All that I had heard and
+seen, and a great part of what he had said himself, led me to suppose
+that he was a wealthy man. I could form no comprehension of his
+character, unless he were one of those miserable wretches who,
+having made gain the sole end and object of their lives and having
+succeeded in amassing great riches, are constantly tortured by the
+dread of poverty, and best by fears of loss and ruin. Many things he
+had said which I had been at a loss to understand, were quite
+reconcilable with the idea thus presented to me, and at length I
+concluded that beyond all doubt he was one of this unhappy race.
+
+The opinion was not the result of hasty consideration, for which
+indeed there was no opportunity at that time, as the child came
+directly, and soon occupied herself in preparations for giving Kit a
+writing lesson, of which it seemed he had a couple every week, and
+one regularly on that evening, to the great mirth and enjoyment both
+of himself and his instructress. To relate how it was a long time
+before his modesty could be so far prevailed upon as it admit of his
+sitting down in the parlour, in the presence of an unknown
+gentleman--how, when he did set down, he tucked up his sleeves and
+squared his elbows and put his face close to the copy-book and
+squinted horribly at the lines--how, from the very first moment of
+having the pen in his hand, he began to wallow in blots, and to daub
+himself with ink up to the very roots of his hair--how, if he did by
+accident form a letter properly, he immediately smeared it out again
+with his arm in his preparations to make another -- how, at every
+fresh mistake, there was a fresh burst of merriment from the child
+and louder and not less hearty laugh from poor Kit himself--and how
+there was all the way through, notwithstanding, a gentle wish on her
+part to teach, and an anxious desire on his to learn--to relate all these
+particulars would no doubt occupy more space and time than they
+deserve. It will be sufficient to say that the lesson was given--that
+evening passed and night came on--that the old man again grew
+restless and impatient--that he quitted the house secretly at the same
+hour as before--and that the child was once more left alone within its
+gloomy walls.
+
+And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character
+and introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the
+convenience of the narrative detach myself from its further course,
+and leave those who have prominent and necessary parts in it to
+speak and act for themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+
+Mr and Mrs Quilp resided on Tower Hill; and in her bower on
+Tower Hill. Mrs Quilp was left to pine the absence of her lord, when
+he quitted her on the business which he had already seen to transact.
+
+Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or
+calling, though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations
+numerous. He collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets
+and alleys by the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty
+officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers
+mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very
+nose of the Custom House, and made appointments on 'Change with
+men in glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the
+Surrey side of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called
+'Quilp's Wharf,' in which were a little wooden counting-house
+burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and
+ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several
+large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps
+of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp's
+Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship-breaker, yet to judge from these
+appearances he must either have been a ship-breaker on a very small
+scale, or have broken his ships up very small indeed. Neither did the
+place present any extraordinary aspect of life or activity, as its only
+human occupant was an amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole
+change of occupation was from sitting on the head of a pile and
+throwing stones into the mud when the tide was out, to standing with
+his hands in his pockets gazing listlessly on the motion and on the
+bustle of the river at high-water.
+
+The dwarf's lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful
+accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet
+for that lady's mother, who resided with the couple and waged
+perpetual war with Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in
+no slight dread. Indeed, the ugly creature contrived by some means
+or other--whether by his ugliness or his ferocity or his natural
+cunning is no great matter--to impress with a wholesome fear of his
+anger, most of those with whom he was brought into daily contact
+and communication. Over nobody had he such complete ascendance
+as Mrs Quilp herself--a pretty little, mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman,
+who having allied herself in wedlock to the dwarf in one of those
+strange infatuations of which examples are by no means scarce,
+performed a sound practical penance for her folly, every day of her
+life.
+
+It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her
+bower she was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of
+whom mention has recently been made, there were present some
+half-dozen ladies of the neighborhood who had happened by a
+strange accident (and also by a little understanding among
+themselves) to drop in one after another, just about tea-time. This
+being a season favourable to conversation, and the room being a
+cool, shady, lazy kind of place, with some plants at the open window
+shutting out the dust, and interposing pleasantly enough between the
+tea table within and the old Tower without, it is no wonder that the
+ladies felt an inclination to talk and linger, especially when there are
+taken into account the additional inducements of fresh butter, new
+bread, shrimps, and watercresses.
+
+Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was
+extremely natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity
+of mankind to tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that
+developed upon the weaker sex to resist that tyranny and assert their
+rights and dignity. It was natural for four reasons: firstly, because
+Mrs Quilp being a young woman and notoriously under the dominion
+of her husband ought to be excited to rebel; secondly, because Mrs
+Quilp's parent was known to be laudably shrewish in her disposition
+and inclined to resist male authority; thirdly, because each visitor
+wished to show for herself how superior she was in this respect to
+the generality of her sex; and forthly, because the company being
+accustomed to acandalise each other in pairs, were deprived of their
+usual subject of conversation now that they were all assembled in
+close friendship, and had consequently no better employment than to
+attack the common enemy.
+
+Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings
+by inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr
+Quilp was; whereunto Mr Quilp's wife's mother replied sharply,
+'Oh! He was well enough--nothing much was every the matter with
+him--and ill weeds were sure to thrive.' All the ladies then sighed in
+concert, shook their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr.
+
+'Ah!' said the spokeswoman, 'I wish you'd give her a little of your
+advice, Mrs Jiniwin'--Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should
+be observed--'nobody knows better than you, ma'am, what us
+women owe to ourselves.'
+
+'Owe indeed, ma'am!' replied Mrs Jiniwin. 'When my poor husband,
+her dear father, was alive, if he had ever venture'd a cross
+word to me, I'd have--' The good old lady did not finish the
+sentence, but she twisted off the head of a shrimp with a
+vindictiveness which seemed to imply that the action was in some
+degree a substitute for words. In this light it was clearly understood
+by the other party, who immediately replied with great approbation,
+'You quite enter into my feelings, ma'am, and it's jist what I'd do
+myself.'
+
+'But you have no call to do it,' said Mrs Jiniwin. 'Luckily for you,
+you have no more occasion to do it than I had.'
+
+'No woman need have, if she was true to herself,' rejoined the stout
+lady.
+
+'Do you hear that, Betsy?' said Mrs Jiniwin, in a warning voice.
+'How often have I said the same words to you, and almost gone
+down my knees when I spoke 'em!'
+
+Poor Mrs Quilp, who had looked in a state of helplessness from one
+face of condolence to another, coloured, smiled, and shook her head
+doubtfully. This was the signal for a general clamour, which
+beginning in a low murmur gradually swelled into a great noise in
+which everybody spoke at once, and all said that she being a young
+woman had no right to set up her opinions against the experiences of
+those who knew so much better; that it was very wrong of her not to
+take the advice of people who had nothing at heart but her good; that
+it was next door to being downright ungrateful to conduct herself in
+that manner; that if she had no respect for herself she ought to have
+some for other women, all of whom she compromised by her
+meekness; and that if she had no respect for other women, the time
+would come when other women would have no respect for her; and
+she would be very sorry for that, they could tell her. Having dealt
+out these admonitions, the ladies fell to a more powerful assault than
+they had yet made upon the  mixed tea, new bread, fresh butter,
+shrimps, and watercresses, and said that their vexation was so great
+to see her going on like that, that they could hardly bring themselves
+to eat a single morsel.
+
+It's all very fine to talk,' said Mrs Quilp with much simplicity, 'but I
+know that if I was to die to-morrow, Quilp could marry anybody he
+pleased--now that he could, I know!'
+
+There was quite a scream of indignation at this idea. Marry whom he
+pleased! They would like to see him dare to think of marrying any of
+them; they would like to see the faintest approach to such a thing.
+One lady (a widow) was quite certain she should stab him if he
+hinted at it.
+
+'Very well,' said Mrs Quilp, nodding her head, 'as I said just now,
+it's very easy to talk, but I say again that I know--that I'm sure--Quilp
+has such a way with
+him when he likes, that the best looking
+woman here couldn't refuse him if I was dead, and she was free, and
+he chose to make love to him. Come!'
+
+Everybody bridled up at this remark, as much as to say, 'I know you
+mean me. Let him try--that's all.' and yet for some hidden reason
+they were all angry with the widow, and each lady whispered in her
+neighbour's ear that it was very plain that said widow thought herself
+the person referred to, and what a puss she was!
+
+'Mother knows,' said Mrs Quilp, 'that what I say is quite correct,
+for she often said so before we were married. Didn't you say so,
+mother?'
+
+This inquiry involved the respected lady in rather a delicate position,
+for she certainly had been an active party in making her daughter
+Mrs Quilp, and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to
+encourage the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else
+would have. On the other hand, to exaggerate the captivating
+qualities of her son-in-law would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in
+which all her energies were deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing
+considerations, Mrs Jiniwin admitted the powers of insinuation, but
+denied the right to govern, and with a timely compliment to the stout
+lady brought back the discussion to the point from which it had
+strayed.
+
+'Oh! It's a sensible and proper thing indeed, what Mrs George has
+said,!' exclaimed the old lady. 'If women are only true to
+themselves!--But Betsy isn't, and more's the shame and pity.'
+
+'Before I'd let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,' said Mrs
+George, 'before I'd consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of
+him, I'd--I'd kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it!'
+
+This remark being loudly commended and approved of, another lady
+(from the Minories) put in her word:
+
+'Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,' said this lady, 'and I supposed
+there's no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs
+Jiniwin says he is, and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still
+he is not quite a--what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young
+man neither, which might be a little excuse for him if anything could
+be; whereas his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman--which
+is the greatest
+thing after all.'
+
+This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a
+corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the
+lady went on to remark that if such a husband was cross and
+unreasonable with such a wife, then--
+
+'If he is!' interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and
+brushing the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn
+declaration. 'If he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she
+daren't call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and
+even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn't the spirit
+to give him a word back, no, not a single word.'
+
+Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all
+the tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every
+tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this
+official communication was no sooner made than they all began to
+talk at once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility.
+Mrs George remarked that people would talk, that people had often
+said this to her before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had
+told her so twenty times, that she had always said, 'No, Henrietta
+Simmons, unless I see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own
+ears, I never will believe it.' Mrs Simmons corroborated this
+testimony and added strong evidence of her own. The lady from the
+Minories recounted a successful course of treatment under which she
+had placed her own husband, who, from manifesting one month after
+marriage unequivocal symptoms of the tiger, had by this means
+become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another lady recounted her
+own personal struggle and final triumph, in the course whereof she
+had found it necessary to call in her mother and two aunts, and to
+weep incessantly night and day for six weeks. A third, who in the
+general confusion could secure no other listener, fastened herself
+upon a young woman still unmarried who happened to be amongst
+them, and conjured her, as she valued her own peace of mind and
+happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to take example from the
+weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to direct her whole
+thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of man. The
+noise was at its height, and half the company had elevated their
+voices into a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other
+half, when Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her
+forefinger stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not
+until then, Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this
+clamour, was observed to be in the room, looking on and listening
+with profound attention.
+
+'Go on, ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies
+to stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light
+and palatable.'
+
+'I--I--didn't ask them to tea, Quilp,' stammered his wife. It's quite an
+accident.'
+
+'So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always
+the pleasantest,' said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he
+seemed to be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they
+were encrusted, little charges for popguns. 'What! Not going, ladies,
+you are not going, surely!'
+
+His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their
+respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs
+Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a
+faint struggle to sustain the character.
+
+'And why not stop to supper, Quilp,' said the old lady, 'if my
+daughter had a mind?'
+
+'To be sure,' rejoined Daniel. 'Why not?'
+
+'There's nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?' said Mrs
+Jiniwin.
+
+'Surely not,' returned the dwarf. 'Why should there be? Nor
+anything unwholesome, either, unless there's lobster-salad or
+prawns, which I'm told are not good for digestion.'
+
+'And you wouldn't like your wife to be attacked with that, or
+anything else that would make her uneasy would you?' said Mrs
+Jiniwin.
+
+'Not for a score of worlds,' replied the dwarf with a grin. 'Not even
+to have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time--and what a
+blessing that would be!'
+
+'My daughter's your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,' said the old lady
+with a giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be
+reminded of the fact; 'your wedded wife.'
+
+'So she is, certainly. So she is,' observed the dwarf.
+
+'And she has has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,' said the
+old lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of
+her impish son-in-law.
+
+'Hope she has!' he replied. 'Oh! Don't you know she has? Don't you
+know she has, Mrs Jiniwin?
+
+'I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my
+way of thiniking.'
+
+'Why an't you of your mother's way of thinking, my dear?' said the
+dwarf, turing round and addressing his wife, 'why don't you always
+imitate your mother, my dear? She's the ornament of her sex--your
+father said so every day of his life. I am sure he did.'
+
+'Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty
+thousand of some people,' said Mrs Jiniwin; 'twenty hundred million
+thousand.'
+
+'I should like to have known him,' remarked the dwarf. 'I dare say
+he was a blessed creature then; but I'm sure he is now. It was a
+happy release. I believe he had suffered a long time?'
+
+The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed,
+with the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on
+his tongue.
+
+'You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself
+too much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go
+to bed.'
+
+'I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.'
+
+'But please to do now. Do please to go now,' said the dwarf.
+
+The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced,
+and falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her
+and bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding
+downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a
+corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted
+himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a
+long time without speaking.
+
+'Mrs Quilp,' he said at last.
+
+'Yes, Quilp,' she replead meekly.
+
+Instead of pursing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his
+arms again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she
+averted her eyes and kept them on the ground.
+
+'Mrs Quilp.'
+
+'Yes, Quilp.'
+
+'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'
+
+With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave
+him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade
+her clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set
+before him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of
+some ship's locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large
+head and face squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted
+on the table.
+
+'Now, Mrs Quilp,' he said; 'I feel in a smoking humour, and shall
+probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please,
+in case I want you.'
+
+His wife returned no other reply than the necessary 'Yes, Quilp,' and
+the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first
+glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the
+Tower turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to
+black, the room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a
+deep fiery red, but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in
+the same position, and staring listlessly out of window with the
+doglike smile always on his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some
+involuntary movement of restlessness or fatigue; and then it
+expanded into a grin of delight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+
+Whether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a
+time, or whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long,
+certain it is that he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one
+from the ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring
+the assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour
+after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any
+natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness,
+which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the
+night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his
+shoulders, like one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and
+by stealth.
+
+At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of
+early morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was
+discovered sitting patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals
+in mute appeal to the compassion and clemency of her lord, and
+gently reminding him by an occasion cough that she was still
+unpardoned and that her penance had been of long duration. But her
+dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank his rum without
+heeding her; and it was not until the sun had some time risen, and
+the activity and noise of city day were rife in the street, that he
+deigned to recognize her presence by any word or sign. He might not
+have done so even then, but for certain impatient tapping at the door
+he seemed to denote that some pretty hard knuckles were actively
+engaged upon the other side.
+
+'Why dear me!' he said looking round with a malicious grin, 'it's
+day. Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!'
+
+His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.
+
+Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity;
+for, supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to
+relieve her feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general
+conduct and character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that
+the room appeared to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on
+the previous evening, she stopped short, in some embarrassment.
+
+Nothing escaped the hawk's eye of the ugly little man, who,
+perfectly understanding what passed in the old lady's mind, turned
+uglier still in the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good
+morning, with a leer or triumph.
+
+'Why, Betsy,' said the old woman, 'you haven't been--you don't
+mean to say you've been a--'
+
+'Sitting up all night?' said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the
+sentence. 'Yes she has!'
+
+'All night?' cried Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?' said Quilp, with a smile of
+which a frown was part. 'Who says man and wife are bad company?
+Ha ha! The time has flown.'
+
+'You're a brute!' exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'Come come,' said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course,
+'you mustn't call her names. She's married now, you know. And
+though she did beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must
+not be so tenderly careful of me as to be out of humour with her.
+Bless you for a dear old lady. Here's to your health!'
+
+'I am much obliged to you,' returned the old woman, testifying by a
+certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her
+matronly fist at her son-in-law. 'Oh! I'm very much obliged to you!'
+
+'Grateful soul!' cried the dwarf. 'Mrs Quilp.'
+
+'Yes, Quilp,' said the timid sufferer.
+
+'Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the
+wharf this morning--the earlier the better, so be quick.'
+
+Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down
+in a chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute
+determination to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her
+daughter, and a kind inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt
+faint, with a hint that there was abundance of cold water in the next
+apartment, routed these symptoms effectually, and she applied
+herself to the prescribed preparations with sullen diligence.
+
+While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining
+room, and, turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his
+countenance with a damp towel of very unwholesome appearance,
+which made his complexion rather more cloudy than it was before.
+But, while he was thus engaged, his caution and inquisitiveness did
+not forsake him, for with a face as sharp and cunning as ever, he
+often stopped, even in this short process, and stood listening for any
+conversation in the next room, of which he might be the theme.
+
+'Ah!' he said after a short effort of attention, 'it was not the towel
+over my ears, I thought it wasn't. I'm a little hunchy villain and a
+monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!'
+
+The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full
+force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very
+doglike manner, and rejoined the ladies.
+
+Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was
+standing there putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin
+happening to be behind him, could not resist the inclination she felt
+to shake her fist at her tyrant son-in-law. It was the gesture of an
+instant, but as she did so and accompanied the action with a
+menacing look, she met his eye in the glass, catching her in the very
+act. The same glance at the mirror conveyed to her the reflection of a
+horribly grotesque and distorted face with the tongue lolling out; and
+the next instant the dwarf, turning about with a perfectly bland and
+placid look, inquired in a tone of great affection.
+
+'How are you now, my dear old darling?'
+
+Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a
+little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old
+woman felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and
+suffered herself to be led with extraordinary politeness to the
+breakfast-table. Here he by no means diminished the impression he
+had just produced, for he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured
+gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and
+water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness,
+drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they
+bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and
+uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their
+wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature. At last,
+having gone through these proceedings and many others which were
+equally a part of his system, Mr Quilp left them, reduced to a very
+obedient and humbled state, and betook himself to the river-side,
+where he took boat for the wharf on which he had bestowed his
+name.
+
+It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to
+cross to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on,
+some sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a wrong-headed,
+dogged, obstinate
+way, bumping up against the larger craft,
+running under the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of
+nook and corner where they had no business, and being crunched on
+all sides like so many walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long
+sweeps struggling and splashing in the water looked like some
+lumbering fish in pain. In some of the vessels at anchor all hands
+were busily engaged in coiling ropes, spreading out sails to dry,
+taking in or discharging their cargoes; in others no life was visible
+but two or three tarry boys, and perhaps a barking dog running to
+and fro upon the deck or scrambling up to look over the side and
+bark the louder for the view. Coming slowly on through the forests
+of masts was a great steamship, beating the water in short impatient
+strokes with her heavy paddles as though she wanted room to
+breathe, and advancing in her huge bulk like a sea monster among
+the minnows of the Thames. On either hand were long black tiers of
+colliers; between them vessels slowly working out of harbour with
+sails glistening in the sun, and creaking noise on board, re-echoed
+from a hundred quarters. The water and all upon it was in active
+motion, dancing and buoyant and bubbling up; while the old grey
+Tower and piles of building on the shore, with many a church-spire
+shooting up between, looked coldly on, and seemed to disdain their
+chafing, restless neighbour.
+
+Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save
+in so far as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused
+himself to be put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither
+through a narrow lane which, partaking of the amphibious character
+of its frequenters, had as much water as mud in its composition, and
+a very liberal supply of both. Arrived at his destination, the first
+object that presented itself to his view was a pair of very imperfectly
+shod feet elevated in the air with the soles upwards, which
+remarkable appearance was referable to the boy, who being of an
+eccentric spirit and having a natural taste for tumbling, was now
+standing on his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under
+these uncommon circumstances. He was speedily brought on his
+heels by the sound of his master's voice, and as soon as his head was
+in its right position, Mr Quilp, to speak expresively in the absence of
+a better verb, 'punched it' for him.
+
+'Come, you let me alone,' said the boy, parrying Quilp's hand with
+both his elbows alternatively. 'You'll get something you won't like if
+you don't and so I tell you.'
+
+'You dog,' snarled Quilp, 'I'll beat you with an iron rod, I'll scratch
+you with a rusty nail, I'll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me--I will.'
+
+With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously
+diving in betwen the elbows and catching the boy's head as it dodged
+from side to side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having
+now carried his point and insisted on it, he left off.
+
+'You won't do it agin,' said the boy, nodding his head and drawing
+back, with the elbows ready in case of the worst; 'now--'
+
+'Stand still, you dog,' said Quilp. 'I won't do it again, because I've
+done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.'
+
+'Why don't you hit one of your size?' said the boy approaching very
+slowly.
+
+'Where is there one of my size, you dog?' returned Quilp. 'Take the
+key, or I'll brain you with it'--indeed he gave him a smart tap with
+the handle as he spoke. 'Now, open the counting-house.'
+
+The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he
+looked round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady
+look. And here it may be remarked, that between this boy and the
+dwarf that existed a strange kind of mutual liking. How born or
+bred, and or nourished upon blows and threats on one side, and
+retorts and defiances on the other, is not to the purpose. Quilp would
+certainly suffer nobody to contract him but the boy, and the boy
+would assuredly not have submitted to be so knocked about by
+anybody but Quilp, when he had the power to run away at any time
+he chose.
+
+'Now,' said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, 'you
+mind the wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I'll cut one of your
+feet off.'
+
+The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in,
+stood on his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the
+back and stood on his head there, and then to the opposite side and
+repeated the performance. There were indeed four sides to the
+counting-house, but he avoided that one where the window was,
+deeming it probable that Quilp would be looking out of it. This was
+prudent, for in point of fact, the dwarf, knowing his disposition, was
+lying in wait at a little distance from the sash armed with a large
+piece of wood, which, being rough and jagged and studded in many
+parts with broken nails, might possibly have hurt him.
+
+It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but an
+old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an
+inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day
+clock which hadn't gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the
+minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp
+pulled his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a
+flat top) and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with
+ease of an old pactitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate
+himself for the deprivation of last night's rest, by a long and sound
+nap.
+
+Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been
+asleep a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust
+in his head, which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp
+was a light sleeper and started up directly.
+
+'Here's somebody for you,' said the boy.
+
+'Who?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'Ask!' said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and
+throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy
+disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. 'Ask,
+you dog.'
+
+Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy
+discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who
+now presented herself at the door.
+
+'What, Nelly!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Yes,' said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the
+dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him
+and a yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to
+behold; it's only me, sir.'
+
+'Come in,' said Quilp, without getting off the desk. 'Come in. Stay.
+Just look out into the yard, and see whether there's a boy standing on
+his head.'
+
+'No, sir,' replied Nell. 'He's on his feet.'
+
+'You're sure he is?' said Quilp. 'Well. Now, come in and shut the
+door. What's your message, Nelly?'
+
+The child handed him a letter. Mr Quilp, without changing his
+position further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his
+chin on his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its
+contents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+
+Little Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance
+of Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that
+while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she
+was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque
+attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful
+anxiety for his reply, and consciousness of his power to render it
+disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this
+impulse and restrained it more effectually than she could possibly
+have done by any efforts of her own.
+
+That Mr Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree,
+by the contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had
+got through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes
+very wide and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused
+him to scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when
+he came to the conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of
+surprise and dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he
+bit the nails of all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and
+taking it up sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all
+appearance as unsatisfactory as the first, and plunged him into a
+profound reverie from which he awakened to another assault upon
+his nails and a long stare at the child, who with her eyes turned
+towards the ground awaited his further pleasure.
+
+'Halloa here!' he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness,
+which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her
+ear. 'Nelly!'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Do you know what's inside this letter, Nell?'
+
+'No, sir!'
+
+'Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?'
+
+'Quite sure, sir.'
+
+'Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?' said the dwarf.
+
+'Indeed I don't know,' returned the child.
+
+'Well!' muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. 'I believe
+you. Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What
+the devil has he done with it, that's the mystery!'
+
+This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once
+more. While he was thus employed his features gradually relaxed
+into what was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man
+would have been a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked
+up again she found that he was regarding her with extraordinary
+favour and complacency.
+
+'You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you
+tired, Nelly?'
+
+'No, sir. I'm in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I
+am away.'
+
+'There's no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,' said Quilp. 'How
+should you like to be my number two, Nelly?'
+
+'To be what, sir?'
+
+'My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf.
+
+The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him,
+which Mr Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more
+distinctly.
+
+'To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead,
+sweet Nell,' said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards
+him with his bent forefinger, 'to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked,
+red-lipped wife. Say
+that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only
+four, you'll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl,
+Nelly, a very good girl, and see if one of these days you don't come
+to be Mrs Quilp of Tower Hill.'
+
+So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful
+prospect, the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled
+violently. Mr Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded
+him a constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to
+contemplate the death of Mrs Quilp number one, and the elevation of
+Mrs Quilp number two to her post and title, or because he was
+determined from purposes of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at
+that particular
+time, only laughed and feigned to take no
+heed of her alarm.
+
+'You shall home with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs Quilp that is,
+directly,' said the dwarf. 'She's very fond of you, Nell, though not
+so fond as I am. You shall come home with me.'
+
+'I must go back indeed,' said the child. 'He told me to return directly
+I had the answer.'
+
+'But you haven't it, Nelly,' retorted the dwarf, 'and won't have it,
+and can't have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your
+errand, you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and
+we'll go directly.' With that, Mr Quilp suffered himself to roll
+gradually off the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when
+he got upon them and led the way from the counting-house to the
+wharf outside, when the first objects that presented themselves were
+the boy who had stood on his head and another young gentleman of
+about his own stature, rolling in the mud together, locked in a tight
+embrace, and cuffing each other with mutual heartiness.
+
+'It's Kit!' cried Nelly, clasping her hand, 'poor Kit who came with
+me! Oh, pray stop them, Mr Quilp!'
+
+'I'll stop 'em,' cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and
+returning with a thick stick, 'I'll stop 'em. Now, my boys, fight
+away. I'll fight you both. I'll take bot of you, both together, both
+together!'
+
+With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing
+round the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over
+them, in a kind of frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on
+the other, in a most desperate manner, always aiming at their heads
+and dealing such blows as none but the veriest little savage would
+have inflicted. This being warmer work than they had calculated
+upon, speedily cooled the courage of the belligerents, who scrambled
+to their feet and called for quarter.
+
+'I'll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,' said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to
+get near either of them for a parting blow. 'I'll bruise you until
+you're copper-coloured, I'll break your faces till you haven't a
+profile between you, I will.'
+
+'Come, you drop that stick or it'll be worse for you,' said his boy,
+dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; 'you
+drop that stick.'
+
+'Come a little nearer, and I'll drop it on your skull, you dog,' said
+Quilp, with gleaming eyes; 'a little nearer--nearer yet.'
+
+But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a
+little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to
+wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily
+kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power,
+when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that
+he fell violently upon his head. the success of this manoeuvre tickled
+Mr Quilp beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the
+ground as at a most irresistible jest.
+
+'Never mind,' said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the
+same time; 'you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because
+they say you're an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a
+penny, that's all.'
+
+'Do you mean to say, I'm not, you dog?' returned Quilp.
+
+'No!' retorted the boy.
+
+'Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?' said Quilp.
+
+'Because he said so,' replied to boy, pointing to Kit, 'not because
+you an't.'
+
+'Then why did he say,' bawled Kit, 'that Miss Nelly was ugly, and
+that she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked?
+Why did he say that?'
+
+'He said what he did because he's a fool, and you said what you did
+because you're very wise and clever--almost too clever to live,
+unless you're very careful of yourself, Kit.' said Quilp, with great
+suavity in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes
+and mouth. 'Here's sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth.
+At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog,
+and bring me the key.'
+
+The other boy, to whom this order was addresed, did as he was told,
+and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a
+dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into
+his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat,
+and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on
+the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed
+the river.
+
+There was only Mrs Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the
+return of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing
+slumber when the sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely
+time to seem to be occupied in some needle-work, when he entered,
+accompanied by the child; having left Kit downstairs.
+
+'Here's Nelly Trent, dear Mrs Quilp,' said her husband. 'A glass of
+wine, my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She'll sit
+with you, my soul, while I write a letter.'
+
+Mrs Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse's face to know what this
+unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she
+saw in his gesture, followed him into the next room.
+
+'Mind what I say to you,' whispered Quilp. 'See if you can get out
+of her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they
+live, or what he tells her. I've my reasons for knowing, if I can. You
+women talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you
+have a soft, mild way with you that'll win upon her. Do you hear?'
+
+'Yes, Quilp.'
+
+'Go then. What's the matter now?'
+
+'Dear Quilp,' faltered his wife. 'I love the child--if you could do
+without making me deceive her--'
+
+The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some
+weapon with which to inflict condign punishment upon his
+disobedient wife. the submissive little woman hurriedly entreated
+him not to be angry, and promised to do as he bade her.
+
+'Do you hear me,' whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm;
+'worm yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I'm listening,
+recollect. If you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and woe
+betide you if I have to creak it much. Go!'
+
+Mrs Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband,
+ensconcing himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his
+ear close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and
+attention.
+
+Poor Mrs Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or
+what kind of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door,
+creaking in a very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without
+further consideration, that the sound of her voice was heard.
+
+'How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to
+Mr Quilp, my dear.'
+
+'I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,' returned Nell
+innocently.
+
+'And what has he said to that?'
+
+'Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched
+that if you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you
+could not have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!'
+
+'It often does.' returned Mrs Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards
+it. 'But your grandfather--he used not to be so wretched?'
+
+'Oh, no!' said the child eagerly, 'so different! We were once so
+happy and he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad
+change has fallen on us since.'
+
+'I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!' said
+Mrs Quilp. And she spoke the truth.
+
+'Thank you,' returned the child, kissing her cheek, 'you are always
+kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one
+else about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel
+happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me
+sometimes to see him alter so.'
+
+'He'll alter again, Nelly,' said Mrs Quilp, 'and be what he was
+before.'
+
+'Oh, if God would only let that come about!' said the child with
+streaming eyes; 'but it is a long time now, since he first began to--I
+thought I saw that door moving!'
+
+'It's the wind,' said Mrs Quilp, fainly. 'Began to ---'
+
+'To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way ot
+spending the time in the long evenings,' said the child. 'I used to
+read to him by the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped
+and we began to talk, he told me about my mother, and how she
+once looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then
+he used to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that
+she was not lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country
+beyond the sky where nothing died or ever grew old--we were very
+happy once!'
+
+'Nelly, Nelly!' said the poor woman, 'I can't bear to see one as
+young as you so sorrowful. Pray don't cry.'
+
+'I do so very seldom,' said Nell,' but I have kept this to myself a
+long time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into
+my eyes and I cannot keep them back. I don't mind telling you my
+grief, for I know you will not tell it to any one again.'
+
+Mrs Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.
+
+'Then,' said the child, 'we often walked in the fields and among the
+green trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for
+being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark
+and rather dull, we used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only
+made us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look
+forward to our next one. But now we never have these walks, and
+though it is the same house it is darker and much more gloomy than
+it used to be, indeed!'
+
+She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs
+Quilp said nothing.
+
+'Mind you don't suppose,' said the child earnestly, 'that grandfather
+is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day,
+and is kinder and more afectionate than he was the day before. You
+do not know how fond he is of me!'
+
+'I am sure he loves you dearly,' said Mrs Quilp.
+
+'Indeed, indeed he does!' cried Nell, 'as dearly as I love him. But I
+have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never
+breathe again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he
+takes by day in his easy chair; for every night and neary all night
+long he is away from home.'
+
+'Nelly!'
+
+'Hush!' said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking
+round. 'When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just
+before day, I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite
+light. I saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were
+bloodshot, and that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone
+to bed again, I heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him, and
+heard him say, before he knew that I was there, that he could not
+bear his life much longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish
+to die. What shall I do! Oh! What shall I do!'
+
+The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by
+the weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she
+had ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been
+received, hid her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst
+into a passion of tears.
+
+In a few minutes Mr Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost
+surprise to find her in this condtiion, which he did very naturally and
+with admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered
+familiar to him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it.
+
+'She's tired you see, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf, squinting in a
+hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. 'It's a
+long way from her home to the wharf, and then she was alrmed to
+see a couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the
+water besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor
+Nell!'
+
+Mr Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have
+devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the
+head. Such an application from any other hand might not have
+produced a remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from
+his touch and felt such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach,
+that she rose directly and declared herself ready to return.
+
+'But you'd better wait, and dine with Mrs Quilp and me.' said the
+dwarf.
+
+'I have been away too long, sir, already,' returned Nell, drying her
+eyes.
+
+'Well,' said Mr Quilp, 'if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here's the
+note. It's only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next
+day, and that I couldn't do that little business for him this morning.
+Good-bye, Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d'ye hear?'
+
+Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so
+needless an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening
+manner, as if he doubted whether he might not have been the cause
+of Nelly shedding tears, and felt more than half disposed to revenge
+the fact upon him on the mere suspicion, turned about and followed
+his young mistress, who had by this time taken her leave of Mrs
+Quilp and departed.
+
+'You're a keen questioner, an't you, Mrs Quilp?' said the dwarf,
+turning upon her as soon as they were left alone.
+
+'What more could I do?' returned his wife mildly?
+
+'What more could you do!' sneered Quilp, 'couldn't you have done
+something less? Couldn't you have done what you had to do, without
+appearing in your favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?'
+
+'I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,' said his wife. 'Surely I've
+done enough. I've led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were
+alone; and you were by, God forgive me.'
+
+'You led her on! You did a great deal truly!' said Quilp. 'What did I
+tell you about making me creak the door? It's lucky for you that
+from what she let fall, I've got the clue I want, for if I hadn't, I'd
+have visited the failure upon you, I can tell you.'
+
+Mrs Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband
+added with some exultation,
+
+'But you may thank your fortunate stars--the same stars that made
+you Mrs Quilp--you may thank them that I'm upon the old
+gentleman's track, and have got a new light. So let me hear no more
+about this matter now or at any other time, and don't get anything
+too nice for dinner, for I shan't be home to it.'
+
+So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs
+Quilp, who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the
+part she had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and
+smothering her head in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more
+bitterly than many less tender-hearted persons would have mourned a
+much greater offence; for, in the majority of cases, conscience is an
+elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching
+and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people by
+prudent management and leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel
+waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense with
+it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and
+throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most
+convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+
+'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller, 'remember the once popular melody of
+Begone dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of
+friendship; and pass the rosy wine.'
+
+Mr Richard Swiveller's apartments were in the neighbourhood of
+Drury Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the
+advantage of being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled
+to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out
+upon the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of
+maintaining a snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller
+made use of the expressions above recorded for the consolation and
+encouragement of his desponding friend; and it may not be
+uninteresting or improper to remark that even these brief
+observations partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetical
+character of Mr Swiveller's mind, as the rosy wine was in fact
+represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, which was
+replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon the
+table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers
+which, as Mr Swiveller's was a bachelor's establishment, may be
+acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single
+chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged
+times, the tobacconist had announced it in his window as
+'apartments' for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following up
+the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his
+chambers, conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and
+leaving their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty
+halls, at pleasure.
+
+In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive
+piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase,
+which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to
+defy suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day
+Mr Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a
+bookcase and nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed,
+resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the
+bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its
+nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed
+between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the
+deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of
+Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason,
+observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the
+bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he cherished it.
+
+'Fred!' said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had
+been productive of no effect. 'Pass the rosy.'
+
+Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him,
+and fell again in the the moddy attitude from which he had been
+unwillingly roused.
+
+'I'll give you, Fred,' said his friend, stirring the mixture, 'a little
+sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here's May the ---'
+
+'Pshaw!' interposed the other. 'You worry me to death with your
+chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.'
+
+'Why, Mr Trent,' returned Dick, 'there is a proverb which talks
+about being merry and wise. There are some people who can be
+merry and can't be wise, and some who can be wise (or think they
+can) and can't be merry. I'm one of the first sort. If the proverb's a
+good 'un, I supose it's better to keep to half of it than none; at all
+events, I'd rather be merry and not wise, than like you, neither one
+nor t'other.'
+
+'Bah!' muttered his friend, peevishly.
+
+'With all my heart,' said Mr Swiveller. 'In the polite circles I believe
+this sort of thing isn't usually said to a gentleman in his own
+apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,' adding to
+this retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be
+rather 'cranky' in point of temper, Richards Swiveller finished the
+rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in
+which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an
+imaginary company.
+
+'Gentlemen, I'll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient
+family of the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular--Mr
+Richard, gentlemen,'
+said Dick with great emphasis, 'who spends
+all his money on his friends and is Bah!'d for his pains. Hear, hear!'
+
+'Dick!' said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the
+room twice or thrice, 'will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I
+show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble?'
+
+'You've shown me so many,' returned Dick; 'and nothing has come
+of any one of 'em but empty pockets ---'
+
+'You'll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is
+over,' said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. 'You saw
+my sister Nell?'
+
+'What about her?' returned Dick.
+
+'She has a pretty face, has she not?'
+
+'Why, certainly,' replied Dick. 'I must say for her that there's not
+any very strong family likeness between her and you.'
+
+'Has she a pretty face,' repeated his friend impatiently.
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, 'she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of
+that?'
+
+'I'll tell you,' returned his friend. 'It's very plain that the old man
+and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I
+have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?'
+
+'A bat might see that, with the sun shining,' said Dick.
+
+'It's equally plain that the money which the old flint--rot him--first
+taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all
+be hers, is it not?'
+
+'I should said it was,' replied Dick; 'unless the way in which I put
+the case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was
+powerful, Fred. 'Here is a jolly old grandfather'--that was strong, I
+thought--very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?'
+
+It didn't strike him,' returned the other, 'so we needn't discuss it.
+Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.'
+
+'Fine girl of her age, but small,' observed Richard Swiveller
+parenthetically.
+
+'If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,' returned Trent, fretting at
+the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation.
+'Now I'm coming to the point.'
+
+'That's right,' said Dick.
+
+'The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may,
+at her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand,
+I will be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her
+to my will. Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the
+scheme would take a week to tell) what's to prevent your marrying
+her?'
+
+Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler
+while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with
+great energy and earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words
+than he evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty
+ejaculated the monosyllable:
+
+'What!'
+
+'I say, what's to prevent,' repeated the other with a steadiness of
+manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well
+assured by long experience, 'what's to prevent your marrying her?'
+
+'And she 'nearly fourteen'!' cried Dick.
+
+'I don't mean marrying her now'--returned the brother angrily; 'say
+in two year's time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a
+long-liver?'
+
+'He don't look like it,' said Dick shaking his head, 'but these old
+people--there's no trusting them, Fred. There's an aunt of mind
+down in Dorsetshire that was going to die when I was eight years
+old, and hasn't kept her word yet. They're so aggravating, so
+unprincipled, so spiteful--unless there's apoplexy in the family, Fred,
+you can't calculate upon 'em, and even then they deceive you just as
+often as not.'
+
+'Look at the worst side of the question then,' said Trent as steadily
+as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. 'Suppose he lives.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Dick. 'There's the rub.'
+
+'I say,' resumed his friend, 'suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if
+the word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with
+you. What do you think would come of that?'
+
+'A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep 'em on,' said
+Richard Swiveller after some reflection.
+
+'I tell you,' returned the other with an increased earnestness, which,
+whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his
+companion, 'that he lives for her, that his whole energies and
+thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her
+for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favour
+again for any act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be
+guilty of. He could not do it. You or any other man with eyes in his
+head may see that, if he chooses.'
+
+'It seems improbable certainly,' said Dick, musing.
+
+'It seems improbable because it is improbable,' his friend returned.
+'If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive
+you, let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel,
+between you and me--let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean,
+of course--and he'll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping
+will wear away a stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she
+is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to?
+That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old
+hunks, that you and I spend it together, and that you get into the
+bargain a beautiful young wife.'
+
+'I suppose there's no doubt about his being rich'--said Dick.
+
+'Doubt! Did you hear what he left fall the other day when we were
+there? Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?'
+
+It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful
+windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart
+of Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity,
+interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to
+look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other
+inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his
+disposition stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same
+side. To these impulses must be added the complete ascendancy
+which his friend had long been accustomed to exercise over him--an
+ascendancy exerted in the beginning sorely at the expense of his
+friend's vices, and was in nine cases out of ten looked upon as his
+designing tempter when he was indeed nothing but his thoughtless,
+light-headed tool.
+
+The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which
+Richard Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to
+their own development, require no present elucidation. the
+negotiation was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in
+the act of stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable
+objection to marrying anybody plentifully endowed with money or
+moveables, who could be induced to take him, when he was
+interrupted in his observations by a knock at the door, and the
+consequent necessity of crying 'Come in.'
+
+The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a
+strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop
+downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a servant-girl,
+who being then and
+there engaged in cleaning the stars had just
+drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter she now
+held in her hand, proclaiming aloud with that quick perception of
+surnames peculiar to her class that it was for Mister Snivelling.
+
+Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction,
+and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that
+it was one of the inconveniences of being a lady's man, and that it
+was very easy to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite
+forgotten her.
+
+'Her. Who?' demanded Trent.
+
+'Sophy Wackles,' said Dick.
+
+'Who's she?'
+
+'She's all my fancy painted her, sir, that's what she is,' said Mr
+Swiveller, taking a long pull at 'the rosy' and looking gravely at his
+friend. 'She's lovely, she's divine. You know her.'
+
+'I remember,' said his companion carelessly. 'What of her?'
+
+'Why, sir,' returned Dick, 'between Miss Sophia Wackles and the
+humble individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and
+tender sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most
+honourable and inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls
+aloud for the chase, is not more particular in her behavior than
+Sophia Wackles; I can tell you that.'
+
+'Am I to believe there's anything real in what you say?' demanded
+his friend; 'you don't mean to say that any love-making has been
+going on?'
+
+'Love-making, yes. Promising, no,' said Dick. 'There can be no
+action for breach, that's one comfort. I've never committed myself in
+writing, Fred.'
+
+'And what's in the letter, pray?'
+
+'A reminder, Fred, for to-night--a small party of twenty, making two
+hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and
+gentleman to have the proper complement. It must go, if it's only to
+begin breaking off the affair--I'll do it, don't you be afraid. I should
+like to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of
+any bar to her happiness, it's affecting, Fred.'
+
+To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and
+ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with
+her own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum's
+sake no doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that
+Mr Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she
+was extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr
+Swiveller heard this account with a degree of admiration not
+altogether consistent with the project in which he had just concurred,
+but his friend attached very little importance to his behavior in this
+respect, probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient to
+control Richard Swiveller's proceedings in this or any other matter,
+whenever he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own
+purposes, to exert it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+
+Business disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its
+being nigh dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be
+endangered by longer abstinence, dispached a message to the nearest
+eating-house requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens
+for two. With this demand, however, the eating-house (having
+experience of its customer) declined to comply, churlishly sending
+back for answer that if Mr Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps
+he would be so obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with
+him, as grace before meat, the amount of a certin small account
+which had long been outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this
+rebuff, but rather sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swiveller
+forwarded the same message to another and more distant eating-house,
+adding to it by way of rider that the gentleman was induced to
+send so far, not only by the great fame and popularity its beef had
+acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef
+retailed at the obdurant cook's shop, which rendered it quite unfit not
+merely for gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The
+good effect of this politic course was demonstrated by the speedy
+arrive of a small pewter pyramid, curously constructed of platters
+and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates formed the base, and a
+foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being resolved into its
+component parts afforded all things requisite and necessary for a
+hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his friend applied
+themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.
+
+'May the present moment,' said Dick, sticking his fork into a large
+carbuncular potato, 'be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of
+sending 'em with the peel on; there's a charm in drawing a poato
+from its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and
+powerful are strangers. Ah! 'Man wants but little here below, nor
+wants that little long!' How true that it!--after dinner.'
+
+'I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may
+not want that little long,' returned his companion; but I suspect
+you've no means of paying for this!'
+
+'I shall be passing present, and I'll call,' said Dick, winking his eye
+significantly. 'The waiter's quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred,
+and there's an end of it.'
+
+In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome
+truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was
+informed by Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would
+call and setle when he should be passing presently, he displayed
+some pertubation of spirit and muttered a few remarks about
+'payment on delivery' and 'no trust,' and other unpleasant subjects,
+but was fain to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was
+likely that the gentleman would call, in order that being presently
+responsible for the beef , greens, and sundries, he might take to be in
+the way at the time. Mr Swiveller, after mentally calculating his
+engagements to a nicety, replied that he should look in at from two
+minutes before six and seven minutes past; and the man disappearing
+with this feeble consolation, Richards Swiveller took a greasy
+memorandum-book from his pocket and made an entry therein.
+
+'Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?' said Trent
+with a sneer.
+
+'Not exactly, Fred,' replied the imperturable Richard, continuing to
+write with a businesslike air. 'I enter in this little book the names of
+the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This dinner
+today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen
+Street last week, and made that no throughfare too. There's only one
+avenue to the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that
+to-night with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every
+direction, that in a month's time, unless my aunt sends me a
+remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get
+over the way.'
+
+'There's no fear of failing, in the end?' said Trent.
+
+'Why, I hope not,' returned Mr Swiveller, 'but the average number
+of letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far
+as eight without any effect at all. I'll write another tom-morrow
+morning. I mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it
+out of the pepper-castor to make it look penitent. 'I'm in such a state
+of mind that I hardly know what I write'--blot--' if you could see me
+at this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct'--pepper-castor--
+my hand trembles when I think'--blot again--if that don't produce
+the effect, it's all over.'
+
+By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now
+replaced his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a
+perfectly grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that
+it was time for him to fulfil some other engagement, and Richard
+Swiveller was accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine
+and his own meditations touching Miss Sophy Wackles.
+
+'It's rather sudden,' said Dick shaking his head with a look of
+infinite wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with
+scraps of verse as if they were only prose in a hurry; 'when the heart
+of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss
+Wackles appears; she's a very nice girl. She's like the red red rose
+that's newly sprung in June--there's no denying that--she's also like a
+melody that's sweetly played in tune. It's really very sudden. Not
+that there's any need, on account of Fred's little sister, to turn cool
+directly, but its better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I
+must begin at once, I see that. There's the chance of an action for
+breach, that's another. There's the chance of--no, there's no chance
+of that, but it's as well to be on the safe side.'
+
+This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller
+sought to conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against
+the charms of Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by
+linking his fortunes to hers forever, of putting it out of his own
+power to further their notable scheme to which he had so readily
+become a party. For all these reasons, he decided to pick a quarrel
+with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting about for a pretext
+determined in favour of groundless jealousy.  Having made up his
+mind on this important point, he circulated the glass (from his right
+hand to left, and back again) pretty freely, to enable him to act his
+part with the greater discretion, and then, after making some slight
+improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed
+by the fair object of his meditations.
+
+The spot was at Chesea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with
+her widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she
+maintained a very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate
+dimensions; a circumstance which was made known to the
+neighbourhood by an oval board over the front first-floor windows,
+whereupon appeared in circumbmbient flourishes the words 'Ladies'
+Seminary'; and which was further published and proclaimed at
+intervals between the hours of half-past nine and ten in the morning,
+by a straggling and solitrary young lady of tender years standing on
+the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts to reach
+the knocker with spelling-book. The several duties of instruction in
+this establishment were this discharged. English grammar,
+composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss
+Melissa Wackles; writing, arthmetic, dancing, music, and general
+fascination, by Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work,
+marking, and samplery, by Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment,
+fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by Mrs Wackles. Miss
+Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophy the next, and
+Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five-and-thirty
+summers or thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal; Miss Sophy
+was a fresh, good humoured, busom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane
+numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs Wackles was an excellent
+but rather vemenous old lady of three-score.
+
+To this Ladies' Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs
+obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin
+white, embelished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received
+him on his arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant
+preparations; such as the embellishment of the room with the little
+flower-pots which always stood on the window-sill outside, save in
+windy weather when they blew into the area; the choice attire of the
+day-scholars who were allowed to grace the festival; the unwonted
+curls of Miss Jane Wackles who had kept her head during the whole
+of the preceding day screwed up tight in a yellow play-bill; and the
+solemn gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and her eldest
+daughter, which struck Mr Swiveller as being uncommon but made
+no further impression upon him.
+
+The truth is--and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste so
+strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a
+wilful and malicious invention--the truth is that neither Mrs Wackles
+nor her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the
+pretensions of Mr Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight
+mention of him as 'a gay young man' and to sigh and shake their
+heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr Swiveller's
+conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of that vague and
+dilitory kind which is usuaully looked upon as betokening no fixed
+matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of
+time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue
+one way or other. Hence she had at last consented to play off against
+Richard Swiveller a stricken market-gardner known to be ready with
+his offer on the smallest encouragement, and hence--as this occasion
+had been specially assigned for the purpose--that great anxiety on her
+part for Richard Swiveller's presence which had occasioned her to
+leave the note he has ben seen to receive. 'If he has any expectations
+at all or any means of keeping a wife well,' said Mrs Wackles to her
+eldest daughter, 'he'll state 'em to us now or never.'--'If he really
+cares about me,' thought Miss Sophy, 'he must tell me so, to-night.'
+
+But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr
+Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind
+how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that
+occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own
+sister, which would have served his turn as well, when the company
+came, and among them the market-gardener, whose name was
+Cheggs. But Mr Cheggs came not alone or unsupported, for he
+prudently brought along with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who
+making straight to Miss Sophy and taking her by both hands, and
+kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an audible whisper that they
+had not come too early.
+
+'Too early, no!' replied Miss Sophy.
+
+'Oh, my dear,' rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before,
+'I've been so tormented, so worried, that it's a mercy we were not
+here at four o'clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state
+of impatience to come! You'd hardly believe that he was dressed
+before dinner-time and has been looking at the clock and teasing me
+ever since. It's all your fault, you naughty thing.'
+
+Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr Cheggs (who was bashful
+before ladies) blushed too, and Miss Sophy's mother and sisters, to
+prevent Mr Cheggs from blushing more, lavished civilities and
+attentions upon him, and left Richard Swiveller to take care of
+himself. Here was the very thing he wanted, here was good cause
+reason and foundation for pretending to be angry; but having this
+cause reason and foundation which he had come expressly to seek,
+not expecting to find, Richard Swiveller was angry in sound earnest,
+and wondered what the devil Cheggs meant by his impudence.
+
+However, Mr Swiveller had Miss Sophy's hand for the first quadrille
+(country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an
+advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and
+contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved
+through the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller
+had of the market-gardener, for determining to show the family what
+quality of man they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late
+libations, he performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls
+as filled the company with astonishment, and in particular caused a
+very long gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to
+stand quite transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles
+forgot for the moment to snubb three small young ladies who were
+inclined to be happy, and could not repress a rising thought that to
+have such a dancer as that in the family would be a pride indeed.
+
+At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous
+and useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful
+smiles a contempt for Mr Swiveller's accomplishments, she took
+every opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophy's ear expressions
+of condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a
+ridiculous creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest
+Alick should fall upon, and beat him, in the fulness of his wrath, and
+entreating Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of the said Alick
+gleamed with love and fury; passions, it may be observed, which
+being too much for his eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it
+with a crimson glow.
+
+'You must dance with Miss Chegs,' said Miss Sophy to Dick
+Swiviller, after she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and
+made great show of encouraging his advances. 'She's a nice girl--and
+her brother's quite delightful.'
+
+'Quite delightful, is he?' muttered Dick. 'Quite delighted too, I
+should say, from the manner in which he's looking this way.'
+
+Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her
+many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr
+Cheggs was.
+
+'Jealous! Like his impudence!' said Richard Swiviller.
+
+'His impudence, Mr Swiviller!' said Miss Jane, tossing her head.
+'Take care he don't hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.'
+
+'Oh, pray, Jane --' said Miss Sophy.
+
+'Nonsense!' replied her sister. 'Why shouldn't Mr Cheggs be jealous
+if he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be
+jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right
+soon if he hasn't already. You know best about that, Sophy!'
+
+Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister,
+originating in humane intenions and having for its object the inducing
+Mr Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for
+Miss Jane being one of those young ladies who are premeturely shrill
+and shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr
+Swiviller retired in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs
+and converying a definance into his looks which that gentleman
+indignantly returned.
+
+'Did you speak to me, sir?' said Mr Cheggs, following him into a
+corner. 'Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be
+suspected. Did you speak to me, sir'?
+
+Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg's toes,
+then raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin,
+from that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right
+leg, until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from
+button to button until he reached his chin, and travelling straight up
+the middle of his nose came at last to his eyes, when he said
+abruptly,
+
+'No, sir, I didn't.'
+
+`'Hem!' said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, 'have the
+goodness to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me,
+sir.'
+
+'No, sir, I didn't do that, either.'
+
+'Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,' said Mr
+Cheggs fiercely.
+
+At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr
+Chegg's face, and travelling down the middle of his nose and down
+his waistcoat and down his right leg, reached his toes again, and
+carefully surveyed him; this done, he crossed over, and coming up
+the other legt and thence approaching by the waistcoat as before, said
+when had got to his eyes, 'No sir, I haven't.:'
+
+'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Mr Cheggs. 'I'm glad to hear it. You know
+where I'm to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have
+anything to say to me?'
+
+'I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.'
+
+'There's nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?'
+
+'Nothing more, sir'--With that they closed the tremendous dialog by
+frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss
+Sophy, and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very
+moody state.
+
+Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated,
+looking on at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss
+Cheggs occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his
+share of the figure, and made some remark or other which was gall
+and wormword to Richard Swiviller's soul. Looking into the eyes of
+Mrs and Miss Wackles for encouragement, and sitting very upright
+and uncomfortable on a couple of hard stools, were two of the
+day-scholars; and when Miss Wackles smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled,
+the two little girls on the stools sought to curry favour by smiling
+likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention the old
+lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to be
+guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under
+convoy to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the
+young ladies, she being of a weak and trembling temperament, to
+shed tears, and for this offense they were both filed off immediately,
+with a dreadful promptitude that struck terror into the souls of all the
+pupils.
+
+'I've got such news for you,' said Miss Cheggs approaching once
+more, 'Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word,
+you know, it's quite serious and in earnest, that's clear.'
+
+'What's he been saying, my dear?' demanded Mrs Wackles.
+
+'All manner of things,' replied Miss Cheggs, 'you can't think how
+out he has been speaking!'
+
+Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking
+advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs
+to pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful
+assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the
+way Miss Jane Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was
+holding a flirtation, (as good practice when no better was to be had)
+with a feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door
+sat Miss Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr
+Cheggs, and by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to
+exchange a few parting words.
+
+'My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass
+this door I will say farewell to thee,' murmured Dick, looking
+gloomily upon her.
+
+'Are you going?' said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at
+the result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference
+notwithstanding.
+
+'Am I going!' echoed Dick bitterly. 'Yes, I am. What then?'
+
+'Nothing, except that it's very early,' said Miss Sophy; 'but you are
+your own master, of course.'
+
+'I would that I had been my own mistress too,' said Dick, 'before I
+had ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you
+true, and I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e'er I
+knew, a girl so fair yet so deceiving.'
+
+Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after
+Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.
+
+'I came here,' said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which
+he had really come, 'with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and
+my sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with
+feelings that may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling
+within myself that desolating truth that my best affections have
+experienced this night a stifler!'
+
+'I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,' said Miss
+Sophy with downcast eyes. 'I'm very sorry if--'
+
+'Sorry, Ma'am!' said Dick, 'sorry in the possession of a Cheegs! But
+I wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark,
+that there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me,
+who has not only great personal attractions but great wealth, and
+who has requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which,
+having a regard for some members of her family, I have consented to
+promise. It's a gratifying circumstance which you'll be glad to hear,
+that a young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on
+my account, and is now saving up for me. I thought I'd mention it. I
+have now merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your
+attention. Good night.'
+
+'There's one good thing springs out of all this,' said Richard
+Swiviller to himself when he had reached home and was hanging
+over the candle with the extinguisher in his hand, 'which is, that I
+now go heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme
+about little Nelly, and right glad he'll be to find me so strong upon
+it. He shall know all about that to-morrow, and in the mean time, as
+it's rather late, I'll try and get a wink of the balmy.'
+
+'The balmy' came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few
+minutes Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married
+Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of
+power was to lay waste the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it
+into a brick-field.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+
+The child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly
+described the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness
+of the cloud which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its
+hearth.  Besides that it was very difficult to impart to any person
+not intimately acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense
+of its gloom and loneliness, a constant fear of in some way
+committing or injuring the old man to whom she was so tenderly
+attached, had restrained her, even in the midst of her heart's
+overflowing, and made her timid of allusion to the main cause of
+her anxiety and distress.
+
+For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and
+uncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary
+evenings or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of
+every slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or
+the knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness and its easily
+wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from Nell.  To see the old
+man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark
+his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a
+dreadful fear that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his
+words and looks the dawning of despondent madness; to watch and
+wait and listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and
+to feel and know that, come what might, they were alone in the
+world with no one to help or advise or care about them--these were
+causes of depression and anxiety that might have sat heavily on an
+older breast with many influences at work to cheer and gladden it,
+but how heavily on the mind of a young child to whom they were ever
+present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that could keep
+such thoughts in restless action!
+
+And yet, to the old man's vision, Nell was still the same.  When he
+could, for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that
+haunted and brooded on it always, there was his young companion
+with the same smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry
+laugh, the same love and care that, sinking deep into his soul,
+seemed to have been present to him through his whole life.  And so
+he went on, content to read the book of her heart from the page
+first presented to him, little dreaming of the story that lay
+hidden in its other leaves, and murmuring within himself that at
+least the child was happy.
+
+She had been once.  She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and
+moving with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures,
+making them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by
+her gay and cheerful presence.  But, now, the chambers were cold and
+gloomy, and when she left her own little room to while away the
+tedious hours, and sat in one of them, she was still and motionless
+as their inanimate occupants, and had no heart to startle the
+echoes--hoarse from their long silence--with her voice.
+
+In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where
+the child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the
+night, alone and thoughtful.  None are so anxious as those who watch
+and wait; at these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her
+mind, in crowds.
+
+She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as
+they passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of
+the opposite houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome
+as that in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company
+to see her sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and
+draw in their heads again.  There was a crooked stack of chimneys on
+one of the roofs, in which, by often looking at them, she had
+fancied ugly faces that were frowning over at her and trying to
+peer into the room; and she felt glad when it grew too dark to make
+them out, though she was sorry too, when the man came to light the
+lamps in the street--for it made it late, and very dull inside.
+Then, she would draw in her head to look round the room and see
+that everything was in its place and hadn't moved; and looking out
+into the street again, would perhaps see a man passing with a
+coffin on his back, and two or three others silently following him
+to a house where somebody lay dead; which made her shudder and
+think of such things until they suggested afresh the old man's
+altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and speculations.
+If he were to die--if sudden illness had happened to him, and he
+were never to come home again, alive--if, one night, he should
+come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had gone
+to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly,
+and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come
+creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door!  These
+thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have
+recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and
+more silent than before.  The shops were closing fast, and lights
+began to shine from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to
+bed.  By degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were
+replaced, here and there, by a feeble rush-candle which was to burn
+all night.  Still, there was one late shop at no great distance
+which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the pavement even yet, and
+looked bright and companionable.  But, in a little time, this
+closed, the light was extinguished, and all was gloomy and quiet,
+except when some stray footsteps sounded on the pavement, or a
+neighbour, out later than his wont, knocked lustily at his
+house-door to rouse the sleeping inmates.
+
+When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had)
+the child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs,
+thinking as she went that if one of those hideous faces below,
+which often mingled with her dreams, were to meet her by the way,
+rendering itself visible by some strange light of its own, how
+terrified she would be.  But these fears vanished before a
+well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect of her own room.  After
+praying fervently, and with many bursting tears, for the old man,
+and the restoration of his peace of mind and the happiness they had
+once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the pillow and sob
+herself to sleep: often starting up again, before the day-light
+came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary summons
+which had roused her from her slumber.
+
+One night, the third after Nelly's interview with Mrs Quilp, the
+old man, who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not
+leave home.  The child's eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her
+joy subsided when they reverted to his worn and sickly face.
+
+'Two days,' he said, 'two whole, clear, days have passed, and there
+is no reply.  What did he tell thee, Nell?'
+
+'Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.'
+
+'True,' said the old man, faintly.  'Yes.  But tell me again, Nell.
+My head fails me.  What was it that he told thee?  Nothing more than
+that he would see me to-morrow or next day?  That was in the note.'
+
+'Nothing more,' said the child.  'Shall I go to him again to-
+morrow, dear grandfather?  Very early?  I will be there and back,
+before breakfast.'
+
+The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her
+towards him.
+
+''Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use.  But if he deserts
+me, Nell, at this moment--if he deserts me now, when I should,
+with his assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I
+have lost, and all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes
+me what you see, I am ruined, and--worse, far worse than that--
+have ruined thee, for whom I ventured all.  If we are beggars--!'
+
+'What if we are?' said the child boldly.  'Let us be beggars, and be
+happy.'
+
+'Beggars--and happy!' said the old man.  'Poor child!'
+
+'Dear grandfather,' cried the girl with an energy which shone in
+her flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, 'I am
+not a child in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that
+we may beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty
+living, rather than live as we do now.'
+
+'Nelly!' said the old man.
+
+'Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,' the child repeated, more
+earnestly than before.  'If you are sorrowful, let me know why and
+be sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every
+day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you.  If you are poor,
+let us be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with
+you; do not let me see such change and not know why, or I shall
+break my heart and die.  Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad
+place to-morrow, and beg our way from door to door.'
+
+The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the
+pillow of the couch on which he lay.
+
+'Let us be beggars,' said the child passing an arm round his neck,
+'I have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall.  Let
+us walk through country places, and sleep in fields and under
+trees, and never think of money again, or anything that can make
+you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind upon our
+faces in the day, and thank God together!  Let us never set foot in
+dark rooms or melancholy houses, any more, but wander up and down
+wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you shall stop to
+rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and
+beg for both.'
+
+The child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old
+man's neck; nor did she weep alone.
+
+These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other
+eyes.  And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in
+all that passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no
+less a person than Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when
+the child first placed herself at the old man's side, refrained--
+actuated, no doubt, by motives of the purest delicacy--from
+interrupting the conversation, and stood looking on with his
+accustomed grin.  Standing, however, being a tiresome attitude to a
+gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the dwarf being one of
+that kind of persons who usually make themselves at home, he soon
+cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon
+agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon the
+seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort
+to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for
+doing something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions
+had strong possession of him.  Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked
+carelessly over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his
+hand, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features
+twisted into a complacent grimace.  And in this position the old
+man, happening in course of time to look that way, at length
+chanced to see him: to his unbounded astonishment.
+
+The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable
+figure; in their first surprise both she and the old man, not
+knowing what to say, and half doubting its reality, looked
+shrinkingly at it.  Not at all disconcerted by this reception,
+Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude, merely nodding twice or
+thrice with great condescension.  At length, the old man pronounced
+his name, and inquired how he came there.
+
+'Through the door,' said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his
+thumb.  'I'm not quite small enough to get through key-holes.  I
+wish I was.  I want to have some talk with you, particularly, and in
+private.  With nobody present, neighbour.  Good-bye, little Nelly.'
+
+Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed
+her cheek.
+
+'Ah!' said the dwarf, smacking his lips, 'what a nice kiss that was--
+just upon the rosy part.  What a capital kiss!'
+
+Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark.  Quilp
+looked after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the
+door, fell to complimenting the old man upon her charms.
+
+'Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,' said Quilp,
+nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; 'such
+a chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!'
+
+The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling
+with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience.  It was
+not lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed
+anybody else, when he could.
+
+'She's so,' said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be
+quite absorbed in the subject, 'so small, so compact, so
+beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a
+transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways--
+but bless me, you're nervous!  Why neighbour, what's the matter?  I
+swear to you,' continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and
+sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very
+different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, 'I
+swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so
+warm.  I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite
+cool.  I am pretty sure it ought to be.  Yours must be out of order,
+neighbour.'
+
+'I believe it is,' groaned the old man, clasping his head with both
+hands.  'There's burning fever here, and something now and then to
+which I fear to give a name.'
+
+The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced
+restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his
+seat.  Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for
+some time, and then suddenly raising it, said,
+
+'Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?'
+
+'No!' returned Quilp.
+
+'Then,' said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and
+looking upwards, 'the child and I are lost!'
+
+'Neighbour,' said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his
+hand twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering
+attention, 'let me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than
+when you held all the cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing
+more.  You have no secret from me now.'
+
+The old man looked up, trembling.
+
+'You are surprised,' said Quilp.  'Well, perhaps that's natural.  You
+have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one.  For now, I know,
+that all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and
+supplies that you have had from me, have found their way to--shall
+I say the word?'
+
+'Aye!' replied the old man, 'say it, if you will.'
+
+'To the gaming-table,' rejoined Quilp, 'your nightly haunt.  This
+was the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the
+secret certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my
+money (if I had been the fool you took me for); this was your
+inexhaustible mine of gold, your El Dorado, eh?'
+
+'Yes,' cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, 'it
+was.  It is.  It will be, till I die.'
+
+'That I should have been blinded,' said Quilp looking
+contemptuously at him, 'by a mere shallow gambler!'
+
+'I am no gambler,' cried the old man fiercely.  'I call Heaven to
+witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that
+at every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan's name
+and called on Heaven to bless the venture;--which it never did.
+Whom did it prosper?  Who were those with whom I played?  Men who
+lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in
+doing ill, and propagating vice and evil.  My winnings would have
+been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed to the last
+farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have
+sweetened and made happy.  What would they have contracted?  The
+means of corruption, wretchedness, and misery.  Who would not have
+hoped in such a cause?  Tell me that!  Who would not have hoped as I
+did?'
+
+'When did you first begin this mad career?' asked Quilp, his
+taunting inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man's grief
+and wildness.
+
+'When did I first begin?' he rejoined, passing his hand across his
+brow.  'When was it, that I first began?  When should it be, but when
+I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to
+save at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and
+how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with
+barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty;
+then it was that I began to think about it.'
+
+'After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed
+off to sea?' said Quilp.
+
+'Shortly after that,' replied the old man.  'I thought of it a long
+time, and had it in my sleep for months.  Then I began.  I found no
+pleasure in it, I expected none.  What has it ever brought me but
+anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of
+mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!'
+
+'You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me.
+While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were)
+you were making yourself a beggar, eh?  Dear me!  And so it comes to
+pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a
+bill of sale upon the--upon the stock and property,' said Quilp
+standing up and looking about him, as if to assure himself that
+none of it had been taken away.  'But did you never win?'
+
+'Never!' groaned the old man.  'Never won back my loss!'
+
+'I thought,' sneered the dwarf, 'that if a man played long enough
+he was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a
+loser.'
+
+'And so he is,' cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from
+his state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent
+excitement, 'so he is; I have felt that from the first, I have
+always known it, I've seen it, I never felt it half so strongly as
+I feel it now.  Quilp, I have dreamed, three nights, of winning the
+same large sum, I never could dream that dream before, though I
+have often tried.  Do not desert me, now I have this chance.  I have
+no resource but you, give me some help, let me try this one last
+hope.'
+
+The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
+
+'See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,' said the old man, drawing
+some scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and
+clasping the dwarf's arm, 'only see here.  Look at these figures,
+the result of long calculation, and painful and hard experience.  I
+MUST win.  I only want a little help once more, a few pounds, but
+two score pounds, dear Quilp.'
+
+'The last advance was seventy,' said the dwarf; 'and it went in one
+night.'
+
+'I know it did,' answered the old man, 'but that was the very worst
+fortune of all, and the time had not come then.  Quilp, consider,
+consider,' the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the
+papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind,
+'that orphan child!  If I were alone, I could die with gladness--
+perhaps even anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally:
+coming, as it does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and
+shunning the needy and afflicted, and all who court it in their
+despair--but what I have done, has been for her.  Help me for her
+sake I implore you; not for mine; for hers!'
+
+'I'm sorry I've got an appointment in the city,' said Quilp,
+looking at his watch with perfect self-possession, 'or I should
+have been very glad to have spent half an hour with you while you
+composed yourself, very glad.'
+
+'Nay, Quilp, good Quilp,' gasped the old man, catching at his
+skirts, 'you and I have talked together, more than once, of her
+poor mother's story.  The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps
+been bred in me by that.  Do not be hard upon me, but take that into
+account.  You are a great gainer by me.  Oh spare me the money for
+this one last hope!'
+
+'I couldn't do it really,' said Quilp with unusual politeness,
+'though I tell you what--and this is a circumstance worth bearing
+in mind as showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in
+sometimes--I was so deceived by the penurious way in which you
+lived, alone with Nelly--'
+
+'All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her
+triumph greater,' cried the old man.
+
+'Yes, yes, I understand that now,' said Quilp; 'but I was going to
+say, I was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation
+you had among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated
+assurances that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple
+the interest you paid me, that I'd have advanced you, even now,
+what you want, on your simple note of hand, if I hadn't
+unexpectedly become acquainted with your secret way of life.'
+
+'Who is it,' retorted the old man desperately, 'that,
+notwithstanding all my caution, told you?  Come.  Let me know the
+name--the person.'
+
+The crafty dwarf, bethinking himself that his giving up the child
+would lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed,
+which, as nothing was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal,
+stopped short in his answer and said, 'Now, who do you think?'
+
+'It was Kit, it must have been the boy; he played the spy, and you
+tampered with him?' said the old man.
+
+'How came you to think of him?' said the dwarf in a tone of great
+commiseration.  'Yes, it was Kit.  Poor Kit!'
+
+So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave:
+stopping when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and
+grinning with extraordinary delight.
+
+'Poor Kit!' muttered Quilp.  'I think it was Kit who said I was an
+uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn't it.  Ha
+ha ha!  Poor Kit!'  And with that he went his way, still chuckling as
+he went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+
+Daniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man's house,
+unobserved.  In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to
+one of the many passages which diverged from the main street, there
+lingered one, who, having taken up his position when the twilight
+first came on, still maintained it with undiminished patience, and
+leaning against the wall with the manner of a person who had a long
+time to wait, and being well used to it was quite resigned,
+scarcely changed his attitude for the hour together.
+
+This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those
+who passed, and bestowed as little upon them.  His eyes were
+constantly directed towards one object; the window at which the
+child was accustomed to sit.  If he withdrew them for a moment, it
+was only to glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then
+to strain his sight once more in the old quarter with increased
+earnestness and attention.
+
+It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in
+his place of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was.  But
+as the time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise,
+glancing at the clock more frequently and at the window less
+hopefully than before.  At length, the clock was hidden from his
+sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed
+eleven at night, then the quarter past, and then the conviction
+seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use tarrying
+there any longer.
+
+That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no
+means willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to
+quit the spot; from the tardy steps with which he often left it,
+still looking over his shoulder at the same window; and from the
+precipitation with which he as often returned, when a fancied noise
+or the changing and imperfect light induced him to suppose it had
+been softly raised.  At length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless
+for that night, and suddenly breaking into a run as though to force
+himself away, scampered off at his utmost speed, nor once ventured
+to look behind him lest he should be tempted back again.
+
+Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this
+mysterious individual dashed on through a great many alleys and
+narrow ways until he at length arrived in a square paved court,
+when he subsided into a walk, and making for a small house from the
+window of which a light was shining, lifted the latch of the door
+and passed in.
+
+'Bless us!' cried a woman turning sharply round, 'who's that?  Oh!
+It's you, Kit!'
+
+'Yes, mother, it's me.'
+
+'Why, how tired you look, my dear!'
+
+'Old master an't gone out to-night,' said Kit; 'and so she hasn't
+been at the window at all.'  With which words, he sat down by the
+fire and looked very mournful and discontented.
+
+The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an
+extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about
+it, nevertheless, which--or the spot must be a wretched one indeed--
+cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree.  Late as
+the Dutch clock' showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at
+work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle
+near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old,
+very wide awake, with a very tight night-cap on his head, and a
+night-gown very much too small for him on his body, was sitting
+bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his
+great round eyes, and looking as if he had thoroughly made up his
+mind never to go to sleep any more; which, as he had already
+declined to take his natural rest and had been brought out of bed
+in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and
+friends.  It was rather a queer-looking family: Kit, his mother, and
+the children, being all strongly alike.
+
+Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too
+often--but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping
+soundly, and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket,
+and from him to their mother, who had been at work without
+complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and
+kinder thing to be good-humoured.  So he rocked the cradle with his
+foot; made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him
+in high good-humour directly; and stoutly determined to be
+talkative and make himself agreeable.
+
+'Ah, mother!' said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling
+upon a great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for
+him, hours before, 'what a one you are!  There an't many such as
+you, I know.'
+
+'I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,' said Mrs Nubbles;
+'and that there are, or ought to be, accordin' to what the parson
+at chapel says.'
+
+'Much he knows about it,' returned Kit contemptuously.  'Wait till
+he's a widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does
+as much, and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I'll ask him
+what's o'clock and trust him for being right to half a second.'
+
+'Well,' said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, 'your beer's down
+there by the fender, Kit.'
+
+'I see,' replied her son, taking up the porter pot, 'my love to
+you, mother.  And the parson's health too if you like.  I don't bear
+him any malice, not I!'
+
+'Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn't gone out
+to-night?' inquired Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'Yes,' said Kit, 'worse luck!'
+
+'You should say better luck, I think,' returned his mother,
+'because Miss Nelly won't have been left alone.'
+
+'Ah!' said Kit, 'I forgot that.  I said worse luck, because I've
+been watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her.'
+
+'I wonder what she'd say,' cried his mother, stopping in her work
+and looking round, 'if she knew that every night, when she--poor
+thing--is sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the
+open street for fear any harm should come to her, and that you
+never leave the place or come home to your bed though you're ever
+so tired, till such time as you think she's safe in hers.'
+
+'Never mind what she'd say,' replied Kit, with something like a
+blush on his uncouth face; 'she'll never know nothing, and
+consequently, she'll never say nothing.'
+
+Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming
+to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while
+she rubbed it on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said
+nothing until she had returned to her table again: when, holding
+the iron at an alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test
+its temperature, and looking round with a smile, she observed:
+
+'I know what some people would say, Kit--'
+
+'Nonsense,' interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was
+to follow.
+
+'No, but they would indeed.  Some people would say that you'd fallen
+in love with her, I know they would.'
+
+To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother 'get
+out,' and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms,
+accompanied by sympathetic contortions of his face.  Not deriving
+from these means the relief which he sought, he bit off an immense
+mouthful from the bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the
+porter; by which artificial aids he choked himself and effected a
+diversion of the subject.
+
+'Speaking seriously though, Kit,' said his mother, taking up the
+theme afresh, after a time, 'for of course I was only in joke just
+now, it's very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and
+never let anybody know it, though some day I hope she may come to
+know it, for I'm sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it
+very much.  It's a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there.
+I don't wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you.'
+
+'He don't think it's cruel, bless you,' said Kit, 'and don't mean
+it to be so, or he wouldn't do it--I do consider, mother, that he
+wouldn't do it for all the gold and silver in the world.  No, no,
+that he wouldn't.  I know him better than that.'
+
+'Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from
+you?' said Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'That I don't know,' returned her son.  'If he hadn't tried to keep
+it so close though, I should never have found it out, for it was
+his getting me away at night and sending me off so much earlier
+than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going
+on.  Hark! what's that?'
+
+'It's only somebody outside.'
+
+'It's somebody crossing over here,' said Kit, standing up to
+listen, 'and coming very fast too.  He can't have gone out after I
+left, and the house caught fire, mother!'
+
+The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he
+had conjured up, of the power to move.  The footsteps drew nearer,
+the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale
+and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments,
+hurried into the room.
+
+'Miss Nelly!  What is the matter!' cried mother and son together.
+
+'I must not stay a moment,' she returned, 'grandfather has been
+taken very ill.  I found him in a fit upon the floor--'
+
+'I'll run for a doctor'--said Kit, seizing his brimless hat.  'I'll
+be there directly, I'll--'
+
+'No, no,' cried Nell, 'there is one there, you're not wanted, you--
+you--must never come near us any more!'
+
+'What!' roared Kit.
+
+'Never again,' said the child.  'Don't ask me why, for I don't know.
+Pray don't ask me why, pray don't be sorry, pray don't be vexed
+with me!  I have nothing to do with it indeed!'
+
+Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut
+his mouth a great many times; but couldn't get out one word.
+
+'He complains and raves of you,' said the child, 'I don't know what
+you have done, but I hope it's nothing very bad.'
+
+'I done!' roared Kit.
+
+'He cries that you're the cause of all his misery,' returned the
+child with tearful eyes; 'he screamed and called for you; they say
+you must not come near him or he will die.  You must not return to
+us any more.  I came to tell you.  I thought it would be better that
+I should come than somebody quite strange.  Oh, Kit, what have you
+done?  You, in whom I trusted so much, and who were almost the only
+friend I had!'
+
+The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder,
+and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless
+and silent.
+
+'I have brought his money for the week,' said the child, looking to
+the woman and laying it on the table--'and--and--a little more,
+for he was always good and kind to me.  I hope he will be sorry and
+do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much.  It
+grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no
+help.  It must be done.  Good night!'
+
+With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure
+trembling with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock
+she had received, the errand she had just discharged, and a
+thousand painful and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to
+the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come.
+
+The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every
+reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered,
+notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his
+defence.  Visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery; and of the nightly
+absences from home for which he had accounted so strangely, having
+been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit; flocked into her brain
+and rendered her afraid to question him.  She rocked herself upon a
+chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit made no
+attempt to comfort her and remained quite bewildered.  The baby in
+the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell
+over on his back with the basket upon him, and was seen no more;
+the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible
+to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+
+Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no
+longer, beneath the roof that sheltered the child.  Next morning,
+the old man was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium; and
+sinking under the influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks
+in imminent peril of his life.  There was watching enough, now, but
+it was the watching of strangers who made a greedy trade of it, and
+who, in the intervals in their attendance upon the sick man huddled
+together with a ghastly good-fellowship, and ate and drank and made
+merry; for disease and death were their ordinary household gods.
+
+Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was
+more alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in
+her devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed;
+alone in her unfeigned sorrow, and her unpurchased sympathy.  Day
+after day, and night after night, found her still by the pillow of
+the unconscious sufferer, still anticipating his every want, still
+listening to those repetitions of her name and those anxieties and
+cares for her, which were ever uppermost among his feverish
+wanderings.
+
+The house was no longer theirs.  Even the sick chamber seemed to be
+retained, on the uncertain tenure of Mr Quilp's favour.  The old
+man's illness had not lasted many days when he took formal
+possession of the premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain
+legal powers to that effect, which few understood and none presumed
+to call in question.  This important step secured, with the
+assistance of a man of law whom he brought with him for the
+purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish himself and his coadjutor
+in the house, as an assertion of his claim against all comers; and
+then set about making his quarters comfortable, after his own fashion.
+
+To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first
+put an effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the
+shop.  Having looked out, from among the old furniture, the
+handsomest and most commodious chair he could possibly find (which
+he reserved for his own use) and an especially hideous and
+uncomfortable one (which he considerately appropriated to the
+accommodation of his friend) he caused them to be carried into this
+room, and took up his position in great state.  The apartment was
+very far removed from the old man's chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it
+prudent, as a precaution against infection from fever, and a means
+of wholesome fumigation, not only to smoke, himself, without
+cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal friend did the
+like.  Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the tumbling
+boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit himself
+down in another chair just inside the door, continually to smoke a
+great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to
+take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for
+one minute at a time, if he dared.  These arrangements completed, Mr
+Quilp looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked
+that he called that comfort.
+
+The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have
+called it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he
+could by no exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was
+very hard, angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that
+tobacco-smoke always caused him great internal discomposure and
+annoyance.  But as he was quite a creature of Mr Quilp's and had a
+thousand reasons for conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile,
+and nodded his acquiescence with the best grace he could assume.
+
+This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks
+in the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like
+a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep
+red.  He wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles,
+short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish
+grey.  He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his
+blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his
+company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have
+wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.
+
+Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking
+very much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered
+when he happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly
+fanned the smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands
+with glee.
+
+'Smoke away, you dog,' said Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your
+pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put
+the sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon
+your tongue.'
+
+Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small
+lime-kiln if anybody had treated him with it.  Wherefore, he only
+muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered.
+
+'Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like
+the Grand Turk?" said Quilp.
+
+Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk's feelings were by
+no means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no
+doubt he felt very like that Potentate.
+
+'This is the way to keep off fever,' said Quilp, 'this is the way
+to keep off every calamity of life!  We'll never leave off, all the
+time we stop here--smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the
+pipe!'
+
+'Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?' inquired his legal friend,
+when the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition.
+
+'We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is
+dead,' returned Quilp.
+
+'He he he!' laughed Mr Brass, 'oh! very good!'
+
+'Smoke away!' cried Quilp.  'Never stop!  You can talk as you smoke.
+Don't lose time.'
+
+'He he he!' cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the
+odious pipe.  'But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?'
+
+'Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,' returned the
+dwarf.
+
+'How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!' said Brass.  'Some
+people, Sir, would have sold or removed the goods--oh dear, the
+very instant the law allowed 'em.  Some people, Sir, would have been
+all flintiness and granite.  Some people, sir, would have--'
+
+'Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a
+parrot as you,' interposed the dwarf.
+
+'He he he!' cried Brass.  'You have such spirits!'
+
+The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and
+without taking his pipe from his lips, growled,
+
+'Here's the gal a comin' down.'
+
+'The what, you dog?' said Quilp.
+
+'The gal,' returned the boy.  'Are you deaf?'
+
+'Oh!' said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he
+were taking soup, 'you and I will have such a settling presently;
+there's such a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear
+young friend!  Aha! Nelly!  How is he now, my duck of diamonds?"
+
+'He's very bad,' replied the weeping child.
+
+'What a pretty little Nell!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,' said Brass.  'Quite
+charming.'
+
+'Has she come to sit upon Quilp's knee,' said the dwarf, in what he
+meant to be a soothing tone, 'or is she going to bed in her own
+little room inside here?  Which is poor Nelly going to do?'
+
+'What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!' muttered
+Brass, as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; 'upon
+my word it's quite a treat to hear him.'
+
+'I'm not going to stay at all,' faltered Nell.  'I want a few things
+out of that room, and then I--I--won't come down here any more.'
+
+'And a very nice little room it is!' said the dwarf looking into it
+as the child entered.  'Quite a bower!  You're sure you're not going
+to use it; you're sure you're not coming back, Nelly?'
+
+'No,' replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of
+dress she had come to remove; 'never again!  Never again.'
+
+'She's very sensitive,' said Quilp, looking after her.  'Very
+sensitive; that's a pity.  The bedstead is much about my size.  I
+think I shall make it MY little room.'
+
+Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any
+other emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try
+the effect.  This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the
+bed with his pipe in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and
+smoking violently.  Mr Brass applauding this picture very much, and
+the bed being soft and comfortable, Mr Quilp determined to use it,
+both as a sleeping place by night and as a kind of Divan by day;
+and in order that it might be converted to the latter purpose at
+once, remained where he was, and smoked his pipe out.  The legal
+gentleman being by this time rather giddy and perplexed in his
+ideas (for this was one of the operations of the tobacco on his
+nervous system), took the opportunity of slinking away into the
+open air, where, in course of time, he recovered sufficiently to
+return with a countenance of tolerable composure.  He was soon led
+on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into a relapse, and in
+that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning.
+
+Such were Mr Quilp's first proceedings on entering upon his new
+property.  He was, for some days, restrained by business from
+performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well
+occupied between taking, with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute
+inventory of all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his
+other concerns which happily engaged him for several hours at a
+time.  His avarice and caution being, now, thoroughly awakened,
+however, he was never absent from the house one night; and his
+eagerness for some termination, good or bad, to the old man's
+disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time passed by, soon began to
+vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations of impatience.
+
+Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf's advances towards
+conversation, and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were
+the lawyer's smiles less terrible to her than Quilp's grimaces.  She
+lived in such continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or
+other of them on the stairs or in the passages if she stirred from
+her grandfather's chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment,
+until late at night, when the silence encouraged her to venture
+forth and breathe the purer air of some empty room.
+
+One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting
+there very sorrowfully--for the old man had been worse that day--
+when she thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the
+street.  Looking down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to
+attract her attention had roused her from her sad reflections.
+
+'Miss Nell!' said the boy in a low voice.
+
+'Yes,' replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any
+communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old
+favourite still; 'what do you want?'
+
+'I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,' the boy
+replied, 'but the people below have driven me away and wouldn't let
+me see you.  You don't believe--I hope you don't really believe--
+that I deserve to be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?'
+
+'I must believe it,' returned the child.  'Or why would grandfather
+have been so angry with you?'
+
+'I don't know,' replied Kit.  'I'm sure I never deserved it from
+him, no, nor from you.  I can say that, with a true and honest
+heart, any way.  And then to be driven from the door, when I only
+came to ask how old master was--!'
+
+'They never told me that,' said the child.  'I didn't know it
+indeed.  I wouldn't have had them do it for the world.'
+
+'Thank'ee, miss,' returned Kit, 'it's comfortable to hear you say
+that.  I said I never would believe that it was your doing.'
+'That was right!' said the child eagerly.
+
+'Miss Nell,' cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in
+a lower tone, 'there are new masters down stairs.  It's a change for
+you.'
+
+'It is indeed,' replied the child.
+
+'And so it will be for him when he gets better,' said the boy,
+pointing towards the sick room.
+
+'--If he ever does,' added the child, unable to restrain her tears.
+
+'Oh, he'll do that, he'll do that,' said Kit.  'I'm sure he will.
+You mustn't be cast down, Miss Nell.  Now don't be, pray!'
+
+These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly
+said, but they affected the child and made her, for the moment,
+weep the more.
+
+'He'll be sure to get better now,' said the boy anxiously, 'if you
+don't give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would
+make him worse and throw him back, just as he was recovering.  When
+he does, say a good word--say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!'
+
+'They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long,
+long time,' rejoined the child, 'I dare not; and even if I might,
+what good would a kind word do you, Kit?  We shall be very poor.  We
+shall scarcely have bread to eat.'
+
+'It's not that I may be taken back,' said the boy, 'that I ask the
+favour of you.  It isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've
+been waiting about so long in hopes to see you.  Don't think that
+I'd come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them.'
+
+The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he
+might speak again.
+
+'No, it's not that,' said Kit hesitating, 'it's something very
+different from that.  I haven't got much sense, I know, but if he
+could be brought to believe that I'd been a faithful servant to
+him, doing the best I could, and never meaning harm, perhaps he
+mightn't--'
+
+Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak
+out, and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the
+window.
+
+'Perhaps he mightn't think it over venturesome of me to say--well
+then, to say this,' cried Kit with sudden boldness.  'This home is
+gone from you and him.  Mother and I have got a poor one, but that's
+better than this with all these people here; and why not come
+there, till he's had time to look about, and find a better!'
+
+The child did not speak.  Kit, in the relief of having made his
+proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour
+with his utmost eloquence.
+
+'You think,' said the boy, 'that it's very small and inconvenient.
+So it is, but it's very clean.  Perhaps you think it would be noisy,
+but there's not a quieter court than ours in all the town.  Don't be
+afraid of the children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other
+one is very good--besides, I'd mind 'em.  They wouldn't vex you
+much, I'm sure.  Do try, Miss Nell, do try.  The little front room up
+stairs is very pleasant.  You can see a piece of the church-clock,
+through the chimneys, and almost tell the time; mother says it
+would be just the thing for you, and so it would, and you'd have
+her to wait upon you both, and me to run of errands.  We don't mean
+money, bless you; you're not to think of that!  Will you try him,
+Miss Nell?  Only say you'll try him.  Do try to make old master come,
+and ask him first what I have done.  Will you only promise that,
+Miss Nell?'
+
+Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the
+street-door opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped
+head called in a surly voice, 'Who's there!'  Kit immediately glided
+away, and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room.
+
+Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also
+embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked
+carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the
+house, from the opposite side.  Finding that there was nobody in
+sight, he presently returned into the house with his legal friend,
+protesting (as the child heard from the staircase), that there was
+a league and plot against him; that he was in danger of being
+robbed and plundered by a band of conspirators who prowled about
+the house at all seasons; and that he would delay no longer but
+take immediate steps for disposing of the property and returning to
+his own peaceful roof.  Having growled forth these, and a great many
+other threats of the same nature, he coiled himself once more in
+the child's little bed, and Nell crept softly up the stairs.
+
+It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with
+Kit should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her
+dreams that night and her recollections for a long, long time.
+Surrounded by unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon
+the sick, and meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with
+little regard or sympathy even from the women about her, it is not
+surprising that the affectionate heart of the child should have
+been touched to the quick by one kind and generous spirit, however
+uncouth the temple in which it dwelt.  Thank Heaven that the temples
+of such spirits are not made with hands, and that they may be even more
+worthily hung with poor patch-work than with purple and fine linen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+At length, the crisis of the old man's disorder was past, and he
+began to mend.  By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness
+came back; but the mind was weakened and its functions were
+impaired.  He was patient, and quiet; often sat brooding, but not
+despondently, for a long space; was easily amused, even by a
+sun-beam on the wall or ceiling; made no complaint that the days
+were long, or the nights tedious; and appeared indeed to have lost
+all count of time, and every sense of care or weariness.  He would
+sit, for hours together, with Nell's small hand in his, playing
+with the fingers and stopping sometimes to smooth her hair or kiss
+her brow; and, when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes,
+would look, amazed, about him for the cause, and forget his wonder
+even while he looked.
+
+The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and
+the child beside him.  They were hand in hand as usual.  The noise
+and motion in the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was
+not surprised, or curious, or pleased, or irritated.  He was asked
+if he remembered this, or that.  'O yes,' he said, 'quite well--why
+not?'  Sometimes he turned his head, and looked, with earnest gaze
+and outstretched neck, after some stranger in the crowd, until he
+disappeared from sight; but, to the question why he did this, he
+answered not a word.
+
+He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool
+beside him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter.
+'Yes,' he said without emotion, 'it was Quilp, he knew.  Quilp was
+master there.  Of course he might come in.'  And so he did.
+
+'I'm glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,' said the
+dwarf, sitting down opposite him.  'You're quite strong now?'
+
+'Yes,' said the old man feebly, 'yes.'
+
+'I don't want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,' said the dwarf,
+raising his voice, for the old man's senses were duller than they
+had been; 'but, as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings,
+the better.'
+
+'Surely,' said the old man.  'The better for all parties.'
+
+'You see,' pursued Quilp after a short pause, 'the goods being once
+removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.'
+
+'You say true,' returned the old man.  'Poor Nell too, what would
+she do?'
+
+'Exactly,' bawled the dwarf nodding his head; 'that's very well
+observed.  Then will you consider about it, neighbour?'
+
+'I will, certainly,' replied the old man.  'We shall not stop here.'
+
+'So I supposed,' said the dwarf.  'I have sold the things.  They have
+not yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty well--
+pretty well.  To-day's Tuesday.  When shall they be moved?  There's
+no hurry--shall we say this afternoon?'
+
+'Say Friday morning,' returned the old man.
+
+'Very good,' said the dwarf.  'So be it--with the understanding
+that I can't go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.'
+
+'Good,' returned the old man.  'I shall remember it.'
+
+Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way
+in which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and
+repeated 'on Friday morning.  I shall remember it,' he had no excuse
+for dwelling on the subject any further, and so took a friendly
+leave with many expressions of good-will and many compliments to
+his friend on his looking so remarkably well; and went below stairs
+to report progress to Mr Brass.
+
+All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state.
+He wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various
+rooms, as if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he
+referred neither by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the
+interview of the morning or the necessity of finding some other
+shelter.  An indistinct idea he had, that the child was desolate and
+in want of help; for he often drew her to his bosom and bade her be
+of good cheer, saying that they would not desert each other; but he
+seemed unable to contemplate their real position more distinctly,
+and was still the listless, passionless creature that suffering of
+mind and body had left him.
+
+We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor
+hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep.  Where, in the dull
+eyes of doating men, are the laughing light and life of childhood,
+the gaiety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no
+chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in
+blossoming?  Where, in the sharp lineaments of rigid and unsightly
+death, is the calm beauty of slumber, telling of rest for the
+waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those
+which are to come?  Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say
+who shall find the two akin.  Send forth the child and childish man
+together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy
+state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.
+
+Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man.  But
+a change came upon him that evening as he and the child sat
+silently together.
+
+In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree--green and
+flourishing enough, for such a place--and as the air stirred among
+its leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall.  The old
+man sat watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of
+light, until the sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon
+was slowly rising, he still sat in the same spot.
+
+To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these
+few green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished
+among chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things.  They suggested
+quiet places afar off, and rest, and peace.  The child thought, more
+than once that he was moved: and had forborne to speak.  But now he
+shed tears--tears that it lightened her aching heart to see--and
+making as though he would fall upon his knees, besought her to
+forgive him.
+
+'Forgive you--what?' said Nell, interposing to prevent his
+purpose.  'Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?'
+
+'All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was
+done in that uneasy dream,' returned the old man.
+
+'Do not talk so,' said the child.  'Pray do not.  Let us speak of
+something else.'
+
+'Yes, yes, we will,' he rejoined.  'And it shall be of what we
+talked of long ago--many months--months is it, or weeks, or days?
+which is it Nell?'
+
+'I do not understand you,' said the child.
+
+'It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we
+have been sitting here.  I bless thee for it, Nell!'
+
+'For what, dear grandfather?'
+
+'For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell.  Let us
+speak softly.  Hush!  for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they
+would cry that I was mad and take thee from me.  We will not stop
+here another day.  We will go far away from here.'
+
+'Yes, let us go,' said the child earnestly.  'Let us begone from
+this place, and never turn back or think of it again.  Let us wander
+barefoot through the world, rather than linger here.'
+
+'We will,' answered the old man, 'we will travel afoot through the
+fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to
+God in the places where He dwells.  It is far better to lie down at
+night beneath an open sky like that yonder--see how bright it is--
+than to rest in close rooms which are always full of care and
+weary dreams.  Thou and I together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy
+yet, and learn to forget this time, as if it had never been.'
+
+'We will be happy,' cried the child.  'We never can be here.'
+
+'No, we never can again--never again--that's truly said,'
+rejoined the old man.  'Let us steal away to-morrow morning--early
+and softly, that we may not be seen or heard--and leave no trace
+or track for them to follow by.  Poor Nell!  Thy cheek is pale, and
+thy eyes are heavy with watching and weeping for me--I know--for
+me; but thou wilt be well again, and merry too, when we are far
+away.  To-morrow morning, dear, we'll turn our faces from this scene
+of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds.'
+
+And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in
+a few broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up
+and down together, and never part more until Death took one or
+other of the twain.
+
+The child's heart beat high with hope and confidence.  She had no
+thought of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering.  She saw in
+this, but a return of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed,
+a relief from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape
+from the heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her
+late time of trial, the restoration of the old man's health and
+peace, and a life of tranquil happiness.  Sun, and stream, and
+meadow, and summer days, shone brightly in her view, and there was
+no dark tint in all the sparkling picture.
+
+The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she
+was yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight.  There were a
+few articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him;
+old garments, such as became their fallen fortunes, laid out to
+wear; and a staff to support his feeble steps, put ready for his
+use.  But this was not all her task; for now she must visit the old
+rooms for the last time.
+
+And how different the parting with them was, from any she had
+expected, and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured
+to herself.  How could she ever have thought of bidding them
+farewell in triumph, when the recollection of the many hours she
+had passed among them rose to her swelling heart, and made her feel
+the wish a cruelty: lonely and sad though many of those hours had
+been!  She sat down at the window where she had spent so many
+evenings--darker far than this--and every thought of hope or
+cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place came vividly
+upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful
+associations in an instant.
+
+Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and
+prayed at night--prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning
+now--the little room where she had slept so peacefully, and
+dreamed such pleasant dreams!  It was hard not to be able to glance
+round it once more, and to be forced to leave it without one kind
+look or grateful tear.  There were some trifles there--poor useless
+things--that she would have liked to take away; but that was
+impossible.
+
+This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet.
+She wept bitterly for the loss of this little creature--until the
+idea occurred to her--she did not know how, or why, it came into
+her head--that it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit
+who would keep it for her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had
+left it behind in the hope that he might have it, and as an
+assurance that she was grateful to him.  She was calmed and
+comforted by the thought, and went to rest with a lighter heart.
+
+From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but
+with some vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through
+them all, she awoke to find that it was yet night, and that the
+stars were shining brightly in the sky.  At length, the day began to
+glimmer, and the stars to grow pale and dim.  As soon as she was
+sure of this, she arose, and dressed herself for the journey.
+
+The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb
+him, she left him to slumber on, until the sun rose.  He was anxious
+that they should leave the house without a minute's loss of time,
+and was soon ready.
+
+The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and
+cautiously down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and
+often stopping to listen.  The old man had forgotten a kind of
+wallet which contained the light burden he had to carry; and the
+going back a few steps to fetch it seemed an interminable delay.
+
+At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the
+snoring of Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in
+their ears than the roars of lions.  The bolts of the door were
+rusty, and difficult to unfasten without noise.  When they were all
+drawn back, it was found to be locked, and worst of all, the key
+was gone.  Then the child remembered, for the first time, one of the
+nurses having told her that Quilp always locked both the house-
+doors at night, and kept the keys on the table in his bedroom.
+
+It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell
+slipped off her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old
+curiosities, where Mr Brass--the ugliest piece of goods in all the
+stock--lay sleeping on a mattress, passed into her own little
+chamber.
+
+Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at
+the sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he
+almost seemed to be standing on his head, and who, either from the
+uneasiness of this posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was
+gasping and growling with his mouth wide open, and the whites (or
+rather the dirty yellows) of his eyes distinctly visible.  It was no
+time, however, to ask whether anything ailed him; so, possessing
+herself of the key after one hasty glance about the room, and
+repassing the prostrate Mr Brass, she rejoined the old man in
+safety.  They got the door open without noise, and passing into the
+street, stood still.
+
+'Which way?' said the child.
+
+The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then
+to the right and left, then at her again, and shook his head.  It
+was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader.  The child
+felt it, but had no doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in
+his, led him gently away.
+
+It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied
+by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light.  The streets were, as
+yet, nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed,
+and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the
+sleeping town.
+
+The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate
+with hope and pleasure.  They were alone together, once again; every
+object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than
+by contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind;
+church towers and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now
+shone in the sun; each humble nook and corner rejoiced in light;
+and the sky, dimmed only by excessive distance, shed its placid
+smile on everything beneath.
+
+Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor
+adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+
+Daniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the
+city of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty's attornies of the
+Courts of the King's Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a
+solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious
+and unsuspicious of any mischance, until a knocking on the street
+door, often repeated and gradually mounting up from a modest single
+rap to a perfect battery of knocks, fired in long discharges with
+a very short interval between, caused the said Daniel Quilp to
+struggle into a horizontal position, and to stare at the ceiling
+with a drowsy indifference, betokening that he heard the noise and
+rather wondered at the same, and couldn't be at the trouble of
+bestowing any further thought upon the subject.
+
+As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his
+lazy state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if
+in earnest remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that
+he had once opened his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to
+comprehend the possibility of there being somebody at the door; and
+thus he gradually came to recollect that it was Friday morning, and
+he had ordered Mrs Quilp to be in waiting upon him at an early
+hour.
+
+Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes,
+and often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that
+which is usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the
+season, was by this time awake also.  Seeing that Mr Quilp invested
+himself in his every-day garments, he hastened to do the like,
+putting on his shoes before his stockings, and thrusting his legs
+into his coat sleeves, and making such other small mistakes in his
+toilet as are not uncommon to those who dress in a hurry, and
+labour under the agitation of having been suddenly roused.
+While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was groping under
+the table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and mankind
+in general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to
+Mr Brass the question, 'what's the matter?'
+
+'The key,' said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, 'the
+door-key--that's the matter.  D'ye know anything of it?'
+
+'How should I know anything of it, sir?' returned Mr Brass.
+
+'How should you?' repeated Quilp with a sneer.  'You're a nice
+lawyer, an't you?  Ugh, you idiot!'
+
+Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that
+the loss of a key by another person could scarcely be said to
+affect his (Brass's) legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr
+Brass humbly suggested that it must have been forgotten over night,
+and was, doubtless, at that moment in its native key-hole.
+Notwithstanding that Mr Quilp had a strong conviction to the
+contrary, founded on his recollection of having carefully taken it
+out, he was fain to admit that this was possible, and therefore
+went grumbling to the door where, sure enough, he found it.
+
+Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with
+great astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking
+came again with the most irritating violence, and the daylight
+which had been shining through the key-hole was intercepted on the
+outside by a human eye.  The dwarf was very much exasperated, and
+wanting somebody to wreak his ill-humour upon, determined to dart
+out suddenly, and favour Mrs Quilp with a gentle acknowledgment of
+her attention in making that hideous uproar.
+
+With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and
+opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the
+other side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another
+application, and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his
+hands and feet together, and biting the air in the fulness of his
+malice.
+
+So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no
+resistance and implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the
+arms of the individual whom he had taken for his wife than he found
+himself complimented with two staggering blows on the head, and two
+more, of the same quality, in the chest; and closing with his
+assailant, such a shower of buffets rained down upon his person as
+sufficed to convince him that he was in skilful and experienced
+hands.  Nothing daunted by this reception, he clung tight to his
+opponent, and bit and hammered away with such good-will and
+heartiness, that it was at least a couple of minutes before he was
+dislodged.  Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp found himself,
+all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the street, with Mr
+Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him and
+requiring to know 'whether he wanted any more?'
+
+'There's plenty more of it at the same shop,' said Mr Swiveller, by
+turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, 'a large
+and extensive assortment always on hand--country orders executed
+with promptitude and despatch--will you have a little more, Sir--
+don't say no, if you'd rather not.'
+
+'I thought it was somebody else,' said Quilp, rubbing his
+shoulders, 'why didn't you say who you were?'
+
+'Why didn't you say who YOU were?' returned Dick, 'instead of
+flying out of the house like a Bedlamite ?'
+
+'It was you that--that knocked,' said the dwarf, getting up with
+a short groan, 'was it?'
+
+'Yes, I am the man,' replied Dick.  'That lady had begun when I
+came, but she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.'  As he said
+this, he pointed towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little
+distance.
+
+'Humph!' muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, 'I
+thought it was your fault!  And you, sir--don't you know there has
+been somebody ill here, that you knock as if you'd beat the door
+down?'
+
+'Damme!' answered Dick, 'that's why I did it.  I thought there was
+somebody dead here.'
+
+'You came for some purpose, I suppose,' said Quilp.  'What is it you
+want?'
+
+'I want to know how the old gentleman is,' rejoined Mr Swiveller,
+'and to hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a
+little talk.  I'm a friend of the family, sir--at least I'm the
+friend of one of the family, and that's the same thing.'
+
+'You'd better walk in then,' said the dwarf.  'Go on, sir, go on.
+Now, Mrs Quilp--after you, ma'am.'
+
+Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted.  And it was not a
+contest of politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she
+knew very well that her husband wished to enter the house in this
+order, that he might have a favourable opportunity of inflicting a
+few pinches on her arms, which were seldom free from impressions of
+his fingers in black and blue colours.  Mr Swiveller, who was not in
+the secret, was a little surprised to hear a suppressed scream,
+and, looking round, to see Mrs Quilp following him with a sudden
+jerk; but he did not remark on these appearances, and soon forgot
+them.
+
+'Now, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf when they had entered the shop,
+'go you up stairs, if you please, to Nelly's room, and tell her
+that she's wanted.'
+
+'You seem to make yourself at home here,' said Dick, who was
+unacquainted with Mr Quilp's authority.
+
+'I AM at home, young gentleman,' returned the dwarf.
+
+Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what
+the presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying
+down stairs, declaring that the rooms above were empty.
+
+'Empty, you fool!' said the dwarf.
+
+'I give you my word, Quilp,' answered his trembling wife, 'that I
+have been into every room and there's not a soul in any of them.'
+
+'And that,' said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an
+emphasis, 'explains the mystery of the key!'
+
+Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and
+frowningly at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment
+from any of them, hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down
+again, confirming the report which had already been made.
+
+'It's a strange way of going,' he said, glancing at Swiveller,
+'very strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and
+intimate friend of his!  Ah! he'll write to me no doubt, or he'll
+bid Nelly write--yes, yes, that's what he'll do.  Nelly's very fond
+of me.  Pretty Nell!'
+
+Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment.
+Still glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and
+observed, with assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere
+with the removal of the goods.
+
+'For indeed,' he added, 'we knew that they'd go away to-day, but
+not that they'd go so early, or so quietly.  But they have their
+reasons, they have their reasons.'
+
+'Where in the devil's name are they gone?' said the wondering Dick.
+
+Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which
+implied that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say.
+
+'And what,' said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, 'what do
+you mean by moving the goods?'
+
+'That I have bought 'em, Sir,' rejoined Quilp.  'Eh?  What then?'
+
+'Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a
+tranquil cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing
+sea?' said Dick, in great bewilderment.
+
+'Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be
+visited too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted
+friends, eh?' added the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; 'I say
+nothing, but is that your meaning?'
+
+Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration
+of circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the
+project in which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip
+his prospects in the bud.  Having only received from Frederick
+Trent, late on the previous night, information of the old man's
+illness, he had come upon a visit of condolence and inquiry to
+Nell, prepared with the first instalment of that long train of
+fascinations which was to fire her heart at last.  And here, when he
+had been thinking of all kinds of graceful and insinuating
+approaches, and meditating on the fearful retaliation which was
+slowly working against Sophy Wackles--here were Nell, the old man,
+and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he knew not whither,
+as if with a fore-knowledge of the scheme and a resolution to
+defeat it in the very outset, before a step was taken.
+
+In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled
+by the flight which had been made.  It had not escaped his keen eye
+that some indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the
+fugitives, and knowing the old man's weak state of mind, he
+marvelled what that course of proceeding might be in which he had
+so readily procured the concurrence of the child.  It must not be
+supposed (or it would be a gross injustice to Mr Quilp) that he was
+tortured by any disinterested anxiety on behalf of either.  His
+uneasiness arose from a misgiving that the old man had some secret
+store of money which he had not suspected; and the idea of its
+escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him with mortification and
+self-reproach.
+
+In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that
+Richard Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated
+and disappointed by the same cause.  It was plain, thought the
+dwarf, that he had come there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole
+or frighten the old man out of some small fraction of that wealth
+of which they supposed him to have an abundance.  Therefore, it was
+a relief to vex his heart with a picture of the riches the old man
+hoarded, and to expatiate on his cunning in removing himself even
+beyond the reach of importunity.
+
+'Well,' said Dick, with a blank look, 'I suppose it's of no use my
+staying here.'
+
+'Not the least in the world,' rejoined the dwarf.
+
+'You'll mention that I called, perhaps?' said Dick.
+
+Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time
+he saw them.
+
+'And say,' added Mr Swiveller, 'say, sir, that I was wafted here
+upon the pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake
+of friendship, the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and
+to sow in their place, the germs of social harmony.  Will you have
+the goodness to charge yourself with that commission, Sir?'
+
+'Certainly!' rejoined Quilp.
+
+'Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,' said Dick, producing
+a very small limp card, 'that that is my address, and that I am to
+be found at home every morning.  Two distinct knocks, sir, will
+produce the slavey at any time.  My particular friends, Sir, are
+accustomed to sneeze when the door is opened, to give her to
+understand that they ARE my friends and have no interested motives
+in asking if I'm at home.  I beg your pardon; will you allow me to
+look at that card again?'
+
+'Oh! by all means,' rejoined Quilp.
+
+'By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,' said Dick,
+substituting another in its stead, 'I had handed you the pass-
+ticket of a select convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of
+which I have the honour to be Perpetual Grand.  That is the proper
+document, Sir.  Good morning.'
+
+Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious
+Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it
+carelessly on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a
+flourish.
+
+By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the
+goods, and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of
+drawers and other trifles of that nature upon their heads, and
+performing muscular feats which heightened their complexions
+considerably.  Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to
+work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about,
+like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous
+and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with
+no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he
+could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many
+sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood upon
+the door-steps to answer all the inquiries of curious neighbours,
+which was his department.  His presence and example diffused such
+alacrity among the persons employed, that, in a few hours, the
+house was emptied of everything, but pieces of matting, empty
+porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw.
+
+Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting,
+the dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and
+cheese and beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that
+a boy was prying in at the outer door.  Assured that it was Kit,
+though he saw little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his
+name; whereupon Kit came in and demanded what he wanted.
+
+'Come here, you sir,' said the dwarf.  'Well, so your old master and
+young mistress have gone?'
+
+'Where?' rejoined Kit, looking round.
+
+'Do you mean to say you don't know where?' answered Quilp sharply.
+'Where have they gone, eh?'
+
+'I don't know,' said Kit.
+
+'Come,' retorted Quilp, 'let's have no more of this!  Do you mean to
+say that you don't know they went away by stealth, as soon as it
+was light this morning?'
+
+'No,' said the boy, in evident surprise.
+
+'You don't know that?' cried Quilp.  'Don't I know that you were
+hanging about the house the other night, like a thief, eh?  Weren't
+you told then?'
+
+'No,' replied the boy.
+
+'You were not?' said Quilp.  'What were you told then; what were you
+talking about?'
+
+Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter
+secret now, related the purpose for which he had come on that
+occasion, and the proposal he had made.
+
+'Oh!' said the dwarf after a little consideration.  'Then, I think
+they'll come to you yet.'
+
+'Do you think they will?' cried Kit eagerly.
+
+'Aye, I think they will,' returned the dwarf.  'Now, when they do,
+let me know; d'ye hear?  Let me know, and I'll give you something.
+I want to do 'em a kindness, and I can't do 'em a kindness unless
+I know where they are.  You hear what I say?'
+
+Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been
+agreeable to his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf,
+who had been skulking about the room in search of anything that
+might have been left about by accident, had not happened to cry,
+'Here's a bird!  What's to be done with this?'
+
+'Wring its neck,' rejoined Quilp.
+
+'Oh no, don't do that,' said Kit, stepping forward.  'Give it to me.'
+
+'Oh yes, I dare say,' cried the other boy.  'Come!  You let the cage
+alone, and let me wring its neck will you?  He said I was to do it.
+You let the cage alone will you.'
+
+'Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,' roared Quilp.  'Fight for
+it, you dogs, or I'll wring its neck myself!'
+
+Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other,
+tooth and nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and
+chopping the ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by
+his taunts and cries to fight more fiercely.  They were a pretty
+equal match, and rolled about together, exchanging blows which were
+by no means child's play, until at length Kit, planting a
+well-directed hit in his adversary's chest, disengaged himself,
+sprung nimbly up, and snatching the cage from Quilp's hands made
+off with his prize.
+
+He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face
+occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl
+dreadfully.
+
+'Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been
+doing?' cried Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'Never you mind, mother,' answered her son, wiping his face on the
+jack-towel behind the door.  'I'm not hurt, don't you be afraid for
+me.  I've been a fightin' for a bird and won him, that's all.  Hold
+your noise, little Jacob.  I never see such a naughty boy in all my
+days!'
+
+'You have been fighting for a bird!' exclaimed his mother.
+
+'Ah!  Fightin' for a bird!' replied Kit, 'and here he is--Miss
+Nelly's bird, mother, that they was agoin' to wring the neck of!  I
+stopped that though--ha ha ha!  They wouldn't wring his neck and me
+by, no, no.  It wouldn't do, mother, it wouldn't do at all.  Ha ha
+ha!'
+
+Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking
+out of the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother
+laughed.  and then the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and
+then they all laughed in concert: partly because of Kit's triumph,
+and partly because they were very fond of each other.  When this fit
+was over, Kit exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and
+precious rarity--it was only a poor linnet--and looking about the
+wall for an old nail, made a scaffolding of a chair and table and
+twisted it out with great exultation.
+
+'Let me see,' said the boy, 'I think I'll hang him in the winder,
+because it's more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there,
+if he looks up very much.  He's such a one to sing, I can tell you!'
+
+So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the
+poker for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to
+the immeasurable delight of the whole family.  When it had been
+adjusted and straightened a great many times, and he had walked
+backwards into the fire-place in his admiration of it, the
+arrangement was pronounced to be perfect.
+
+'And now, mother,' said the boy, 'before I rest any more, I'll go
+out and see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some
+birdseed, and a bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+
+As it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house
+was in his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his
+passing it once more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable
+necessity, quite apart from any desire of his own, to which he
+could not choose but yield.  It is not uncommon for people who are
+much better fed and taught than Christopher Nubbles had ever been,
+to make duties of their inclinations in matters of more doubtful
+propriety, and to take great credit for the self-denial with which
+they gratify themselves.
+
+There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being
+detained by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp's
+boy.  The place was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy
+as if it had been so for months.  A rusty padlock was fastened on
+the door, ends of discoloured blinds and curtains flapped drearily
+against the half-opened upper windows, and the crooked holes cut in
+the closed shutters below, were black with the darkness of the
+inside.  Some of the glass in the window he had so often watched,
+had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning, and that room
+looked more deserted and dull than any.  A group of idle urchins had
+taken possession of the door-steps; some were plying the knocker
+and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread
+through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the
+keyhole, watching half in jest and half in earnest for 'the ghost,'
+which an hour's gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the
+late inhabitants, had already raised.  Standing all alone in the
+midst of the business and bustle of the street, the house looked a
+picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who remembered the cheerful
+fire that used to burn there on a winter's night and the no less
+cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite
+mournfully away.
+
+It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was
+by no means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that
+adjective in all his life.  He was only a soft-hearted grateful
+fellow, and had nothing genteel or polite about him; consequently,
+instead of going home again, in his grief, to kick the children and
+abuse his mother (for, when your finely strung people are out of
+sorts, they must have everybody else unhappy likewise), he turned
+his thoughts to the vulgar expedient of making them more
+comfortable if he could.
+
+Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding
+up and down, and how few of them wanted their horses held!  A good
+city speculator or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to
+a fraction, from the crowds that were cantering about, what sum of
+money was realised in London, in the course of a year, by holding
+horses alone.  And undoubtedly it would have been a very large one,
+if only a twentieth part of the gentlemen without grooms had had
+occasion to alight; but they had not; and it is often an
+ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most ingenious
+estimate in the world.
+
+Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now
+lingering as some rider slackened his horse's pace and looked about
+him; and now darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a
+glimpse of some distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of
+the road, and promising to stop, at every door.  But on they all
+went, one after another, and there was not a penny stirring.  'I
+wonder,' thought the boy, 'if one of these gentlemen knew there was
+nothing in the cupboard at home, whether he'd stop on purpose, and
+make believe that he wanted to call somewhere, that I might earn a
+trifle?'
+
+He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of
+repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest,
+when there approached towards him a little clattering jingling
+four-wheeled chaise' drawn by a little obstinate-looking
+rough-coated pony, and driven by a little fat placid-faced old
+gentleman.  Beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady,
+plump and placid like himself, and the pony was coming along at his
+own pace and doing exactly as he pleased with the whole concern.  If
+the old gentleman remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony
+replied by shaking his head.  It was plain that the utmost the pony
+would consent to do, was to go in his own way up any street that
+the old gentleman particularly wished to traverse, but that it was
+an understanding between them that he must do this after his own
+fashion or not at all.
+
+As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little
+turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him.  Kit rising and
+putting his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the
+pony that he wished to stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom
+objected to that part of his duty) graciously acceded.
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Kit.  'I'm sorry you stopped, sir.  I
+only meant did you want your horse minded.'
+
+'I'm going to get down in the next street,' returned the old
+gentleman.  'If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.'
+
+Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed.  The pony ran off at a sharp
+angle to inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and
+then went off at a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side.
+Having satisfied himself that they were of the same pattern and
+materials, he came to a stop apparently absorbed in meditation.
+'Will you go on, sir,' said the old gentleman, gravely, 'or are we
+to wait here for you till it's too late for our appointment?'
+
+The pony remained immoveable.
+
+'Oh you naughty Whisker,' said the old lady.  'Fie upon you!  I'm
+ashamed of such conduct.'
+
+The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for
+he trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no
+more until he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the
+words 'Witherden--Notary.'  Here the old gentleman got out and
+helped out the old lady, and then took from under the seat a
+nosegay resembling in shape and dimensions a full-sized warming-pan
+with the handle cut short off.  This, the old lady carried into the
+house with a staid and stately air, and the old gentleman (who had
+a club-foot) followed close upon her.
+
+They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices,
+into the front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office.  The
+day being very warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were
+wide open; and it was easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all
+that passed inside.
+
+At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet,
+succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed
+by the listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to
+exclaim a great many times, 'oh, delicious!' 'oh, fragrant,
+indeed!' and a nose, also supposed to be the property of that
+gentleman, was heard to inhale the scent with a snuffle of
+exceeding pleasure.
+
+'I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,' said the old lady.
+
+'Ah! an occasion indeed, ma'am, an occasion which does honour to
+me, ma'am, honour to me,' rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary.  'I
+have had many a gentleman articled to me, ma'am, many a one.  Some
+of them are now rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion
+and friend, ma'am, others are in the habit of calling upon me to
+this day and saying, "Mr Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours
+I ever spent in my life were spent in this office--were spent,
+Sir, upon this very stool"; but there was never one among the
+number, ma'am, attached as I have been to many of them, of whom I
+augured such bright things as I do of your only son.'
+
+'Oh dear!' said the old lady.  'How happy you do make us when you
+tell us that, to be sure!'
+
+'I tell you, ma'am,' said Mr Witherden, 'what I think as an honest
+man, which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God.  I
+agree with the poet in every particular, ma'am.  The mountainous
+Alps on the one hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing,
+in point of workmanship, to an honest man--or woman--or woman.'
+
+'Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,' observed a small quiet
+voice, 'I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.'
+
+'It's a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,' said the
+Notary, 'to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and
+I hope I know how to appreciate it.  I trust, Mr Garland, my dear
+Sir, that we may mutually congratulate each other upon this
+auspicious occasion.'
+
+To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might.
+There appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and
+when it was over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it
+who should not, he believed no son had ever been a greater comfort
+to his parents than Abel Garland had been to his.
+
+'Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting
+for a great many years, until we were well enough off--coming
+together when we were no longer young, and then being blessed with
+one child who has always been dutiful and affectionate--why, it's
+a source of great happiness to us both, sir.'
+
+'Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,' returned the Notary in a
+sympathising voice.  'It's the contemplation of this sort of thing,
+that makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor.  There was a
+young lady once, sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of
+the first respectability--but that's a weakness.  Chuckster, bring
+in Mr Abel's articles.'
+
+'You see, Mr Witherden,' said the old lady, 'that Abel has not been
+brought up like the run of young men.  He has always had a pleasure
+in our society, and always been with us.  Abel has never been absent
+from us, for a day; has he, my dear?'
+
+'Never, my dear,' returned the old gentleman, 'except when he went
+to Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher
+at that school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he
+was very ill after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a
+dissipation.'
+
+'He was not used to it, you know,' said the old lady, 'and he
+couldn't bear it, that's the truth.  Besides he had no comfort in
+being there without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself
+with.'
+
+'That was it, you know,' interposed the same small quiet voice that
+had spoken once before.  'I was quite abroad, mother, quite
+desolate, and to think that the sea was between us--oh, I never
+shall forget what I felt when I first thought that the sea was
+between us!'
+
+'Very natural under the circumstances,' observed the Notary.  'Mr
+Abel's feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your
+nature, ma'am, and his father's nature, and human nature.  I trace
+the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive
+proceedings.---I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot
+of the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my
+finger upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am
+constrained to remark in a distinct tone of voice--don't be
+alarmed, ma'am, it is merely a form of law--that I deliver this,
+as my act and deed.  Mr Abel will place his name against the other
+wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is
+over.  Ha ha ha!  You see how easily these things are done!'
+
+There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through
+the prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of
+feet were renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of
+wine-glasses and a great talkativeness on the part of everybody.  In
+about a quarter of an hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear
+and his face inflamed with wine) appeared at the door, and
+condescending to address Kit by the jocose appellation of 'Young
+Snob,' informed him that the visitors were coming out.
+
+Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby,
+fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with
+extreme politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in
+arm.  Mr Abel, who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked
+nearly of the same age as his father, and bore a wonderful
+resemblance to him in face and figure, though wanting something of
+his full, round, cheerfulness, and substituting in its place a
+timid reserve.  In all other respects, in the neatness of the dress,
+and even in the club-foot, he and the old gentleman were precisely
+alike.
+
+Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the
+arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an
+indispensable portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little
+box behind which had evidently been made for his express
+accommodation, and smiled at everybody present by turns, beginning
+with his mother and ending with the pony.  There was then a great
+to-do to make the pony hold up his head that the bearing-rein might
+be fastened; at last even this was effected; and the old gentleman,
+taking his seat and the reins, put his hand in his pocket to find
+a sixpence for Kit.
+
+He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the
+Notary, nor Mr Chuckster.  The old gentleman thought a shilling too
+much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he
+gave it to the boy.
+
+'There,' he said jokingly, 'I'm coming here again next Monday at
+the same time, and mind you're here, my lad, to work it out.'
+
+'Thank you, Sir,' said Kit.  'I'll be sure to be here.'
+
+He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying
+so, especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to
+relish the joke amazingly.  As the pony, with a presentiment that he
+was going home, or a determination that he would not go anywhere
+else (which was the same thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had
+no time to justify himself, and went his way also.  Having expended
+his treasure in such purchases as he knew would be most acceptable
+at home, not forgetting some seed for the wonderful bird, he
+hastened back as fast as he could, so elated with his success and
+great good fortune, that he more than half expected Nell and the
+old man would have arrived before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+
+Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on
+the morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled
+sensation of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly
+seen in the clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest
+Kit.  But although she would gladly have given him her hand and
+thanked him for what he had said at their last meeting, it was
+always a relief to find, when they came nearer to each other, that
+the person who approached was not he, but a stranger; for even if
+she had not dreaded the effect which the sight of him might have
+wrought upon her fellow-traveller, she felt that to bid farewell to
+anybody now, and most of all to him who had been so faithful and so
+true, was more than she could bear.  It was enough to leave dumb
+things behind, and objects that were insensible both to her love
+and sorrow.  To have parted from her only other friend upon the
+threshold of that wild journey, would have wrung her heart indeed.
+
+Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body,
+and while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve
+to say it?  On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years,
+friends who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual
+look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview
+for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint
+to save the pain of uttering that one word, and that the meeting
+will never be.  Should possibilities be worse to bear than
+certainties?  We do not shun our dying friends; the not having
+distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all
+kindness and affection, will often embitter the whole remainder of
+a life.
+
+The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly
+and distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling
+sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind
+and curtain before sleepers' eyes, shed light even into dreams, and
+chased away the shadows of the night.  Birds in hot rooms, covered
+up close and dark, felt it was morning, and chafed and grew
+restless in their little cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to
+their tiny homes and nestled timidly together; the sleek house-cat,
+forgetful of her prey, sat winking at the rays of sun starting
+through keyhole and cranny in the door, and longed for her stealthy
+run and warm sleek bask outside.  The nobler beasts confined in
+dens, stood motionless behind their bars and gazed on fluttering
+boughs, and sunshine peeping through some little window, with eyes
+in which old forests gleamed--then trod impatiently the track
+their prisoned feet had worn--and stopped and gazed again.  Men in
+their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the
+stone that no bright sky could warm.  The flowers that sleep by
+night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day.  The
+light, creation's mind, was everywhere, and all things owned its
+power.
+
+The two pilgrims, often pressing each other's hands, or exchanging
+a smile or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence.  Bright and
+happy as it was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted
+streets, from which, like bodies without souls, all habitual
+character and expression had departed, leaving but one dead uniform
+repose, that made them all alike.  All was so still at that early
+hour, that the few pale people whom they met seemed as much
+unsuited to the scene, as the sickly lamp which had been here and
+there left burning, was powerless and faint in the full glory of
+the sun.
+
+Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men's
+abodes which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect
+began to melt away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place.  Some
+straggling carts and coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm,
+then others came, then others yet more active, then a crowd.  The
+wonder was, at first, to see a tradesman's window open, but it was
+a rare thing soon to see one closed; then, smoke rose slowly from
+the chimneys, and sashes were thrown up to let in air, and doors
+were opened, and servant girls, looking lazily in all directions
+but their brooms, scattered brown clouds of dust into the eyes of
+shrinking passengers, or listened disconsolately to milkmen who
+spoke of country fairs, and told of waggons in the mews, with
+awnings and all things complete, and gallant swains to boot, which
+another hour would see upon their journey.
+
+This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and
+great traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was
+already rife.  The old man looked about him with a startled and
+bewildered gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun.  He
+pressed his finger on his lip, and drew the child along by narrow
+courts and winding ways, nor did he seem at ease until they had
+left it far behind, often casting a backward look towards it,
+murmuring that ruin and self-murder were crouching in every street,
+and would follow if they scented them; and that they could not fly
+too fast.
+
+Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling
+neighbourhood, where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and
+windows patched with rags and paper, told of the populous poverty
+that sheltered there.  The shops sold goods that only poverty could
+buy, and sellers and buyers were pinched and griped alike.  Here
+were poor streets where faded gentility essayed with scanty space
+and shipwrecked means to make its last feeble stand, but
+tax-gatherer and creditor came there as elsewhere, and the poverty
+that yet faintly struggled was hardly less squalid and manifest
+than that which had long ago submitted and given up the game.
+
+This was a wide, wide track--for the humble followers of the camp
+of wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile--but
+its character was still the same.  Damp rotten houses, many to let,
+many yet building, many half-built and mouldering away--lodgings,
+where it would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who
+let or those who came to take--children, scantily fed and clothed,
+spread over every street, and sprawling in the dust--scolding
+mothers, stamping their slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the
+pavement--shabby fathers, hurrying with dispirited looks to the
+occupation which brought them 'daily bread' and little more--
+mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers, tailors, chandlers,
+driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and back room and
+garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same roof--
+brick-fields skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or
+timber pillaged from houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered
+by the flames--mounds of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and
+oyster-shells, heaped in rank confusion--small dissenting chapels
+to teach, with no lack of illustration, the miseries of Earth, and
+plenty of new churches, erected with a little superfluous wealth,
+to show the way to Heaven.
+
+At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and
+dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering
+the road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of
+old timber or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough
+cabbage-stalks that grew about it, and grottoed at the seams with
+toad-stools and tight-sticking snails.  To these succeeded pert
+cottages, two and two with plots of ground in front, laid out in
+angular beds with stiff box borders and narrow paths between, where
+footstep never strayed to make the gravel rough.  Then came the
+public-house, freshly painted in green and white, with tea-gardens
+and a bowling green, spurning its old neighbour with the
+horse-trough where the waggons stopped; then, fields; and then,
+some houses, one by one, of goodly size with lawns, some even with
+a lodge where dwelt a porter and his wife.  Then came a turnpike;
+then fields again with trees and hay-stacks; then, a hill, and on
+the top of that, the traveller might stop, and--looking back at
+old Saint Paul's looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above
+the cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and
+casting his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he
+traced it down to the furthest outposts of the invading army of
+bricks and mortar whose station lay for the present nearly at his
+feet--might feel at last that he was clear of London.
+
+Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and
+his little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were
+bound) sat down to rest.  She had had the precaution to furnish her
+basket with some slices of bread and meat, and here they made their
+frugal breakfast.
+
+The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of
+the waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the
+thousand exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air--
+deep joys to most of us, but most of all to those whose life is in
+a crowd or who live solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of
+a human well--sunk into their breasts and made them very glad.
+The child had repeated her artless prayers once that morning, more
+earnestly perhaps than she had ever done in all her life, but as
+she felt all this, they rose to her lips again.  The old man took
+off his hat--he had no memory for the words--but he said amen,
+and that they were very good.
+
+There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, with strange
+plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole
+evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where
+those distant countries with the curious names might be.  As she
+looked back upon the place they had left, one part of it came
+strongly on her mind.
+
+'Dear grandfather,' she said, 'only that this place is prettier and
+a great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like
+it, I feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this
+grass all the cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take
+them up again.'
+
+'No--never to return--never to return'--replied the old man,
+waving his hand towards the city.  'Thou and I are free of it now,
+Nell.  They shall never lure us back.'
+
+'Are you tired?' said the child, 'are you sure you don't feel ill
+from this long walk?'
+
+'I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,' was his
+reply.  'Let us be stirring, Nell.  We must be further away--a long,
+long way further.  We are too near to stop, and be at rest.  Come!'
+
+There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child
+laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth
+to walk again.  She would have the old man refresh himself in this
+way too, and making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on
+him with her hands, and dried it with her simple dress.
+
+'I can do nothing for myself, my darling,' said the grandfather; 'I
+don't know how it is, I could once, but the time's gone.  Don't
+leave me, Nell; say that thou'lt not leave me.  I loved thee all the
+while, indeed I did.  If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!'
+
+He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously.  The time
+had been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have
+restrained her tears and must have wept with him.  But now she
+soothed him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking
+they could ever part, and rallied him cheerfully upon the jest.  He
+was soon calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice,
+like a little child.
+
+He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey.  The road was
+pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn,
+about which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled
+out her happy song.  The air came laden with the fragrance it caught
+upon its way, and the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed
+forth their drowsy satisfaction as they floated by.
+
+They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and
+scattered at long intervals, often miles apart.  Occasionally they
+came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low
+board put across the open door to keep the scrambling children from
+the road, others shut up close while all the family were working in
+the fields.  These were often the commencement of a little village:
+and after an interval came a wheelwright's shed or perhaps a
+blacksmith's forge; then a thriving farm with sleepy cows lying
+about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall and scampering
+away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in
+triumph at their freedom.  There were dull pigs too, turning up the
+ground in search of dainty food, and grunting their monotonous
+grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed each other in their
+quest; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or strutting on the
+eaves; and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their own conceit,
+waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing glibly on
+its surface.  The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn; the
+humbler beer-shop; and the village tradesman's; then the lawyer's
+and the parson's, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled; the
+church then peeped out modestly from a clump of trees; then there
+were a few more cottages; then the cage, and pound, and not
+unfrequently, on a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty well.
+Then came the trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road
+again.
+
+They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where
+beds were let to travellers.  Next morning they were afoot again,
+and though jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long
+and proceeded briskly forward.
+
+They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time,
+and still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the
+morning.  It was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, when drawing
+near another cluster of labourers' huts, the child looked wistfully
+in each, doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile,
+and buy a draught of milk.
+
+It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of
+being repulsed.  Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife.  In
+this, the people seemed too poor; in that, too many.  At length she
+stopped at one where the family were seated round the table--
+chiefly because there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair
+beside the hearth, and she thought he was a grandfather and would
+feel for hers.
+
+There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young
+sturdy children, brown as berries.  The request was no sooner
+preferred, than granted.  The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk,
+the second dragged two stools towards the door, and the youngest
+crept to his mother's gown, and looked at the strangers from
+beneath his sunburnt hand.
+
+'God save you, master,' said the old cottager in a thin piping
+voice; 'are you travelling far?'
+
+'Yes, Sir, a long way'--replied the child; for her grandfather
+appealed to her.
+
+'From London?' inquired the old man.
+
+The child said yes.
+
+Ah!  He had been in London many a time--used to go there often
+once, with waggons.  It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had
+been there last, and he did hear say there were great changes.  Like
+enough!  He had changed, himself, since then.  Two-and-thirty year
+was a long time and eighty-four a great age, though there was some
+he had known that had lived to very hard upon a hundred--and not
+so hearty as he, neither--no, nothing like it.
+
+'Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,' said the old man,
+knocking his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so
+sharply.  'Take a pinch out o' that box; I don't take much myself,
+for it comes dear, but I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye're
+but a boy to me.  I should have a son pretty nigh as old as you if
+he'd lived, but they listed him for a so'ger--he come back home
+though, for all he had but one poor leg.  He always said he'd be
+buried near the sun-dial he used to climb upon when he was a baby,
+did my poor boy, and his words come true--you can see the place
+with your own eyes; we've kept the turf up, ever since.'
+
+He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes,
+said she needn't be afraid that he was going to talk about that,
+any more.  He didn't wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled
+anybody by what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.
+
+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,
+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
+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
+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
+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,
+and going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+
+Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and
+claiming fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her.
+At sight of the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she
+started up in alarm, wondering how she had been moved from the
+familiar chamber in which she seemed to have fallen asleep last
+night, and whither she had been conveyed.  But, another glance
+around called to her mind all that had lately passed, and she
+sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.
+
+It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked
+out into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with
+her feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer
+than in others, that she might not tread upon the graves.  She felt
+a curious kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the
+dead, and read the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a
+great number of good people were buried there), passing on from one
+to another with increasing interest.
+
+It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the
+cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of
+some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in
+the air.  First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as
+it swung and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by
+chance as it would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but
+talking to himself.  Another answered, and he called again, but
+louder than before; then another spoke and then another; and each
+time the first, aggravated by contradiction, insisted on his case
+more strongly.  Other voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs
+lower down and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and
+from the tree-tops; and others, arriving hastily from the grey
+church turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamour which rose
+and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all
+this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and lighting on
+fresh branches, and frequent change of place, which satirised the
+old restlessness of those who lay so still beneath the moss and
+turf below, and the strife in which they had worn away their lives.
+
+Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came
+down, and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than
+perfect silence would have done, the child loitered from grave to
+grave, now stopping to replace with careful hands the bramble which
+had started from some green mound it helped to keep in shape, and
+now peeping through one of the low latticed windows into the
+church, with its worm-eaten books upon the desks, and baize of
+whitened-green mouldering from the pew sides and leaving the naked
+wood to view.  There were the seats where the poor old people sat,
+worn spare, and yellow like themselves; the rugged font where
+children had their names, the homely altar where they knelt in
+after life, the plain black tressels that bore their weight on
+their last visit to the cool old shady church.  Everything told of
+long use and quiet slow decay; the very bell-rope in the porch was
+frayed into a fringe, and hoary with old age.
+
+She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had
+died at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she
+heard a faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble
+woman bent with the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of
+that same grave and asked her to read the writing on the stone.  The
+old woman thanked her when she had done, saying that she had had
+the words by heart for many a long, long year, but could not see
+them now.
+
+'Were you his mother?' said the child.
+
+'I was his wife, my dear.'
+
+She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty!  Ah, true!  It was
+fifty-five years ago.
+
+'You wonder to hear me say that,' remarked the old woman, shaking
+her head.  'You're not the first.  Older folk than you have wondered
+at the same thing before now.  Yes, I was his wife.  Death doesn't
+change us more than life, my dear.'
+
+'Do you come here often?' asked the child.
+
+'I sit here very often in the summer time,' she answered, 'I used
+to come here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago,
+bless God!'
+
+'I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,' said the
+old woman after a short silence.  'I like no flowers so well as
+these, and haven't for five-and-fifty years.  It's a long time, and
+I'm getting very old.'
+
+Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener
+though it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and
+moaned and prayed to die herself, when this happened; and how when
+she first came to that place, a young creature strong in love and
+grief, she had hoped that her heart was breaking as it seemed to
+be.  But that time passed by, and although she continued to be sad
+when she came there, still she could bear to come, and so went on
+until it was pain no longer, but a solemn pleasure, and a duty she
+had learned to like.  And now that five-and-fifty years were gone,
+she spoke of the dead man as if he had been her son or grandson,
+with a kind of pity for his youth, growing out of her own old age,
+and an exalting of his strength and manly beauty as compared with
+her own weakness and decay; and yet she spoke about him as her
+husband too, and thinking of herself in connexion with him, as she
+used to be and not as she was now, talked of their meeting in
+another world, as if he were dead but yesterday, and she, separated
+from her former self, were thinking of the happiness of that comely
+girl who seemed to have died with him.
+
+The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave,
+and thoughtfully retraced her steps.
+
+The old man was by this time up and dressed.  Mr Codlin, still
+doomed to contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing
+among his linen the candle-ends which had been saved from the
+previous night's performance; while his companion received the
+compliments of all the loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to
+separate him from the master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in
+importance to that merry outlaw, and loved him scarcely less.  When
+he had sufficiently acknowledged his popularity he came in to
+breakfast, at which meal they all sat down together.
+
+'And where are you going to-day?' said the little man, addressing
+himself to Nell.
+
+'Indeed I hardly know--we have not determined yet,' replied the child.
+
+'We're going on to the races,' said the little man.  'If that's your
+way and you like to have us for company, let us travel together.  If
+you prefer going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we
+shan't trouble you.'
+
+'We'll go with you,' said the old man.  'Nell--with them, with them.'
+
+The child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must
+shortly beg, and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place
+than where crowds of rich ladies and gentlemen were assembled
+together for purposes of enjoyment and festivity, determined to
+accompany these men so far.  She therefore thanked the little man
+for his offer, and said, glancing timidly towards his friend, that
+if there was no objection to their accompanying them as far as the
+race town--
+
+'Objection!' said the little man.  'Now be gracious for once, Tommy,
+and say that you'd rather they went with us.  I know you would.  Be
+gracious, Tommy.'
+
+'Trotters,' said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very
+greedily, as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes;
+'you're too free.'
+
+'Why what harm can it do?' urged the other.  'No harm at all in this
+particular case, perhaps,' replied Mr Codlin; 'but the principle's
+a dangerous one, and you're too free I tell you.'
+
+'Well, are they to go with us or not?'
+
+'Yes, they are,' said Mr Codlin; 'but you might have made a favour
+of it, mightn't you?'
+
+The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually
+merged into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the
+prefatory adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason
+of the small size of his legs.  Short Trotters however, being a
+compound name, inconvenient of use in friendly dialogue, the
+gentleman on whom it had been bestowed was known among his
+intimates either as 'Short,' or 'Trotters,' and was seldom accosted
+at full length as Short Trotters, except in formal conversations
+and on occasions of ceremony.
+
+Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the
+remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer
+calculated to turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with
+great relish to the cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and
+butter, strongly impressed upon his companions that they should do
+the like.  Mr Codlin indeed required no such persuasion, as he had
+already eaten as much as he could possibly carry and was now
+moistening his clay with strong ale, whereof he took deep draughts
+with a silent relish and invited nobody to partake--thus again
+strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of mind.
+
+Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and
+charging the ale to the company generally (a practice also
+savouring of misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and
+equal parts, assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the
+other to Nelly and her grandfather.  These being duly discharged and
+all things ready for their departure, they took farewell of the
+landlord and landlady and resumed their journey.
+
+And here Mr Codlin's false position in society and the effect it
+wrought upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for
+whereas he had been last night accosted by Mr Punch as 'master,'
+and had by inference left the audience to understand that he
+maintained that individual for his own luxurious entertainment and
+delight, here he was, now, painfully walking beneath the burden of
+that same Punch's temple, and bearing it bodily upon his shoulders
+on a sultry day and along a dusty road.  In place of enlivening his
+patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful rattle of his
+quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and acquaintance, here
+was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all slack and
+drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck,
+and not one of his social qualities remaining.
+
+Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals
+with Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally.  Short led
+the way; with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not
+extensive) tied up in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his
+shoulder-blade.  Nell and her grandfather walked next him on either
+hand, and Thomas Codlin brought up the rear.
+
+When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house
+of good appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and
+carolled a fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to
+Punches and their consorts.  If people hurried to the windows, Mr
+Codlin pitched the temple, and hastily unfurling the drapery and
+concealing Short therewith, flourished hysterically on the pipes
+and performed an air.  Then the entertainment began as soon as might
+be; Mr Codlin having the responsibility of deciding on its length
+and of protracting or expediting the time for the hero's final
+triumph over the enemy of mankind, according as he judged that the
+after-crop of half-pence would be plentiful or scant.  When it had
+been gathered in to the last farthing, he resumed his load and on
+they went again.
+
+Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and
+once exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the
+collector, being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to
+have it to himself.  There was one small place of rich promise in
+which their hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the
+play having gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling
+wooden-headed fellow was held to be a libel on the beadle, for
+which reason the authorities enforced a quick retreat; but they
+were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a
+troop of ragged children shouting at their heels.
+
+They made a long day's journey, despite these interruptions, and
+were yet upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky.  Short
+beguiled the time with songs and jests, and made the best of
+everything that happened.  Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his
+fate, and all the hollow things of earth (but Punch especially),
+and limped along with the theatre on his back, a prey to the
+bitterest chagrin.
+
+They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads
+met, and Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery
+and seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal
+eyes and disdainful of the company of his fellow creatures, when
+two monstrous shadows were seen stalking towards them from a
+turning in the road by which they had come.  The child was at first
+quite terrified by the sight of these gaunt giants--for such they
+looked as they advanced with lofty strides beneath the shadow of
+the trees--but Short, telling her there was nothing to fear, blew
+a blast upon the trumpet, which was answered by a cheerful shout.
+
+'It's Grinder's lot, an't it?' cried Mr Short in a loud key.
+
+'Yes,' replied a couple of shrill voices.
+
+'Come on then,' said Short.  'Let's have a look at you.  I thought it
+was you.'
+
+Thus invited, 'Grinder's lot' approached with redoubled speed and
+soon came up with the little party.
+
+Mr Grinder's company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young
+gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who
+used his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his
+back a drum.  The public costume of the young people was of the
+Highland kind, but the night being damp and cold, the young
+gentleman wore over his kilt a man's pea jacket reaching to his
+ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was muffled in an old
+cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her head.  Their
+Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr
+Grinder carried on his instrument.
+
+'Bound for the races, I see,' said Mr Grinder coming up out of
+breath.  'So are we.  How are you, Short?'  With that they shook hands
+in a very friendly manner.  The young people being too high up for
+the ordinary salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion.
+The young gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on
+the shoulder, and the young lady rattled her tambourine.
+
+'Practice?' said Short, pointing to the stilts.
+
+'No,' returned Grinder.  'It comes either to walkin' in 'em or
+carryin' of 'em, and they like walkin' in 'em best.  It's wery
+pleasant for the prospects.  Which road are you takin'?  We go the
+nighest.'
+
+'Why, the fact is,' said Short, 'that we are going the longest way,
+because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on.  But
+three or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and
+if you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.'
+
+'Where's your partner?' inquired Grinder.
+
+'Here he is,' cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face
+in the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of
+countenance not often seen there; 'and he'll see his partner boiled
+alive before he'll go on to-night.  That's what he says.'
+
+'Well, don't say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted
+to something pleasanter,' urged Short.  'Respect associations,
+Tommy, even if you do cut up rough.'
+
+'Rough or smooth,' said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little
+footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of
+his legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to
+exhibit them to popular admiration, 'rough or smooth, I won't go
+further than the mile and a half to-night.  I put up at the Jolly
+Sandboys and nowhere else.  If you like to come there, come there.
+If you like to go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without
+me if you can.'
+
+So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately
+presented himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at
+a jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility.
+
+Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was
+fain to part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his
+morose companion.  After lingering at the finger-post for a few
+minutes to see the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the
+bearer of the drum toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes
+upon the trumpet as a parting salute, and hastened with all speed
+to follow Mr Codlin.  With this view he gave his unoccupied hand to
+Nell, and bidding her be of good cheer as they would soon be at the
+end of their journey for that night, and stimulating the old man
+with a similar assurance, led them at a pretty swift pace towards
+their destination, which he was the less unwilling to make for, as
+the moon was now overcast and the clouds were threatening rain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+
+The Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn of pretty ancient
+date, with a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their
+jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and
+swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road.  As the
+travellers had observed that day many indications of their drawing
+nearer and nearer to the race town, such as gipsy camps, carts
+laden with gambling booths and their appurtenances, itinerant
+showmen of various kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree,
+all wending their way in the same direction, Mr Codlin was fearful
+of finding the accommodations forestalled; this fear increasing as
+he diminished the distance between himself and the hostelry, he
+quickened his pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had to carry,
+maintained a round trot until he reached the threshold.  Here he had
+the gratification of finding that his fears were without
+foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the door-post
+looking lazily at the rain, which had by this time begun to descend
+heavily, and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor boisterous shout, nor
+noisy chorus, gave note of company within.
+
+'All alone?' said Mr Codlin, putting down his burden and wiping his
+forehead.
+
+'All alone as yet,' rejoined the landlord, glancing at the sky,
+'but we shall have more company to-night I expect.  Here one of you
+boys, carry that show into the barn.  Make haste in out of the wet,
+Tom; when it came on to rain I told 'em to make the fire up, and
+there's a glorious blaze in the kitchen, I can tell you.'
+
+Mr Codlin followed with a willing mind, and soon found that the
+landlord had not commended his preparations without good reason.  A
+mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide
+chimney with a cheerful sound, which a large iron cauldron,
+bubbling and simmering in the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell.
+There was a deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the
+landlord stirred the fire, sending the flames skipping and leaping
+up--when he took off the lid of the iron pot and there rushed out
+a savoury smell, while the bubbling sound grew deeper and more
+rich, and an unctuous steam came floating out, hanging in a
+delicious mist above their heads--when he did this, Mr Codlin's
+heart was touched.  He sat down in the chimney-corner and smiled.
+
+Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as
+with a roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning
+that his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery,
+suffered the delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest.
+The glow of the fire was upon the landlord's bald head, and upon
+his twinkling eye, and upon his watering mouth, and upon his
+pimpled face, and upon his round fat figure.  Mr Codlin drew his
+sleeve across his lips, and said in a murmuring voice, 'What is
+it?'
+
+'It's a stew of tripe,' said the landlord smacking his lips, 'and
+cow-heel,' smacking them again, 'and bacon,' smacking them once
+more, 'and steak,' smacking them for the fourth time, 'and peas,
+cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up
+together in one delicious gravy.'  Having come to the climax, he
+smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff
+of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again
+with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.
+
+'At what time will it be ready?' asked Mr Codlin faintly.
+
+'It'll be done to a turn,' said the landlord looking up to the
+clock--and the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and
+looked a clock for jolly Sandboys to consult--'it'll be done to a
+turn at twenty-two minutes before eleven.'
+
+'Then,' said Mr Codlin, 'fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don't let
+nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time
+arrives.'
+
+Nodding his approval of this decisive and manly course of
+procedure, the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently
+returning with it, applied himself to warm the same in a small tin
+vessel shaped funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far
+down in the fire and getting at the bright places.  This was soon
+done, and he handed it over to Mr Codlin with that creamy froth
+upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances attendant
+on mulled malt.
+
+Greatly softened by this soothing beverage, Mr Codlin now bethought
+him of his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys
+that their arrival might be shortly looked for.  The rain was
+rattling against the windows and pouring down in torrents,
+and such was Mr Codlin's extreme amiability of mind, that
+he more than once expressed his earnest hope that they would not be
+so foolish as to get wet.
+
+At length they arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a
+most miserable appearance, notwithstanding that Short had sheltered
+the child as well as he could under the skirts of his own coat, and
+they were nearly breathless from the haste they had made.  But their
+steps were no sooner heard upon the road than the landlord, who had
+been at the outer door anxiously watching for their coming, rushed
+into the kitchen and took the cover off.  The effect was electrical.
+They all came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping
+from their clothes upon the floor, and Short's first remark was,
+'What a delicious smell!'
+
+It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a
+cheerful fire, and in a bright room.  They were furnished with
+slippers and such dry garments as the house or their own bundles
+afforded, and ensconcing themselves, as Mr Codlin had already done,
+in the warm chimney-corner, soon forgot their late troubles or only
+remembered them as enhancing the delights of the present time.
+Overpowered by the warmth and comfort and the fatigue they had
+undergone, Nelly and the old man had not long taken their seats
+here, when they fell asleep.
+
+'Who are they?' whispered the landlord.  Short shook his head, and
+wished he knew himself.  'Don't you know?' asked the host, turning
+to Mr Codlin.  'Not I,' he replied.  'They're no good, I suppose.'
+
+'They're no harm,' said Short.  'Depend upon that.  I tell you what--
+it's plain that the old man an't in his right mind--'
+
+'If you haven't got anything newer than that to say,' growled Mr
+Codlin, glancing at the clock, 'you'd better let us fix our minds
+upon the supper, and not disturb us.'
+
+'Here me out, won't you?' retorted his friend.  'It's very plain to
+me, besides, that they're not used to this way of life.  Don't tell
+me that that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about
+as she's done these last two or three days.  I know better.'
+
+'Well, who DOES tell you she has?' growled Mr Codlin, again
+glancing at the clock and from it to the cauldron, 'can't you think
+of anything more suitable to present circumstances than saying
+things and then contradicting 'em?'
+
+'I wish somebody would give you your supper,' returned Short, 'for
+there'll be no peace till you've got it.  Have you seen how anxious
+the old man is to get on--always wanting to be furder away--
+furder away.  Have you seen that?'
+
+'Ah! what then?' muttered Thomas Codlin.
+
+'This, then,' said Short.  'He has given his friends the slip.  Mind
+what I say--he has given his friends the slip, and persuaded this
+delicate young creetur all along of her fondness for him to be his
+guide and travelling companion--where to, he knows no more than
+the man in the moon.  Now I'm not a going to stand that.'
+
+'YOU'RE not a going to stand that!' cried Mr Codlin, glancing at
+the clock again and pulling his hair with both hands in a kind of
+frenzy, but whether occasioned by his companion's observation or
+the tardy pace of Time, it was difficult to determine.  'Here's a
+world to live in!'
+
+'I,' repeated Short emphatically and slowly, 'am not a-going to
+stand it.  I am not a-going to see this fair young child a falling
+into bad hands, and getting among people that she's no more fit
+for, than they are to get among angels as their ordinary chums.
+Therefore when they dewelope an intention of parting company from
+us, I shall take measures for detaining of 'em, and restoring 'em
+to their friends, who I dare say have had their disconsolation
+pasted up on every wall in London by this time.'
+
+'Short,' said Mr Codlin, who with his head upon his hands, and his
+elbows on his knees, had been shaking himself impatiently from side
+to side up to this point and occasionally stamping on the ground,
+but who now looked up with eager eyes; 'it's possible that there
+may be uncommon good sense in what you've said.  If there is, and
+there should be a reward, Short, remember that we're partners in
+everything!'
+
+His companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this position,
+for the child awoke at the instant.  They had drawn close together
+during the previous whispering, and now hastily separated and were
+rather awkwardly endeavouring to exchange some casual remarks in
+their usual tone, when strange footsteps were heard without, and
+fresh company entered.
+
+These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering
+in one after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly
+mournful aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had
+got as far as the door, erected himself upon his hind legs and
+looked round at his companions, who immediately stood upon their
+hind legs, in a grave and melancholy row.  Nor was this the only
+remarkable circumstance about these dogs, for each of them wore a
+kind of little coat of some gaudy colour trimmed with tarnished
+spangles, and one of them had a cap upon his head, tied very
+carefully under his chin, which had fallen down upon his nose and
+completely obscured one eye; add to this, that the gaudy coats were
+all wet through and discoloured with rain, and that the wearers
+were splashed and dirty, and some idea may be formed of the unusual
+appearance of these new visitors to the Jolly Sandboys.
+
+Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in
+the least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry's dogs
+and that Jerry could not be far behind.  So there the dogs stood,
+patiently winking and gaping and looking extremely hard at the
+boiling pot, until Jerry himself appeared, when they all dropped
+down at once and walked about the room in their natural manner.
+This posture it must be confessed did not much improve their
+appearance, as their own personal tails and their coat tails--both
+capital things in their way--did not agree together.
+
+Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-
+whiskered man in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the
+landlord and his guests and accosted them with great cordiality.
+Disencumbering himself of a barrel organ which he placed upon a
+chair, and retaining in his hand a small whip wherewith to awe his
+company of comedians, he came up to the fire to dry himself, and
+entered into conversation.
+
+'Your people don't usually travel in character, do they?' said
+Short, pointing to the dresses of the dogs.  'It must come expensive
+if they do?'
+
+'No,' replied Jerry, 'no, it's not the custom with us.  But we've
+been playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a
+new wardrobe at the races, so I didn't think it worth while to stop
+to undress.  Down, Pedro!'
+
+This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who being a new
+member of the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his
+unobscured eye anxiously on his master, and was perpetually
+starting upon his hind legs when there was no occasion, and falling
+down again.
+
+'I've got a animal here,' said Jerry, putting his hand into the
+capacious pocket of his coat, and diving into one corner as if he
+were feeling for a small orange or an apple or some such article,
+'a animal here, wot I think you know something of, Short.'
+
+'Ah!' cried Short, 'let's have a look at him.'
+
+'Here he is,' said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his
+pocket.  'He was once a Toby of yours, warn't he!'
+
+In some versions of the great drama of Punch there is a small dog--
+a modern innovation--supposed to be the private property of that
+gentleman, whose name is always Toby.  This Toby has been stolen in
+youth from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the
+confiding hero, who having no guile himself has no suspicion that
+it lurks in others; but Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection
+of his old master, and scorning to attach himself to any new
+patrons, not only refuses to smoke a pipe at the bidding of Punch,
+but to mark his old fidelity more strongly, seizes him by the nose
+and wrings the same with violence, at which instance of canine
+attachment the spectators are deeply affected.  This was the
+character which the little terrier in question had once sustained;
+if there had been any doubt upon the subject he would speedily have
+resolved it by his conduct; for not only did he, on seeing Short,
+give the strongest tokens of recognition, but catching sight of the
+flat box he barked so furiously at the pasteboard nose which he
+knew was inside, that his master was obliged to gather him up and
+put him into his pocket again, to the great relief of the whole
+company.
+
+The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which
+process Mr Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own
+knife and fork in the most convenient place and establishing
+himself behind them.  When everything was ready, the landlord took
+off the cover for the last time, and then indeed there burst forth
+such a goodly promise of supper, that if he had offered to put it
+on again or had hinted at postponement, he would certainly have
+been sacrificed on his own hearth.
+
+However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead thereof assisted
+a stout servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into
+a large tureen; a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various
+hot splashes which fell upon their noses, watched with terrible
+eagerness.  At length the dish was lifted on the table, and mugs of
+ale having been previously set round, little Nell ventured to say
+grace, and supper began.
+
+At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind
+legs quite surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about
+to cast some morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself,
+hungry though she was, when their master interposed.
+
+'No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody's hand but mine if you
+please.  That dog,' said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the
+troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, 'lost a halfpenny to-day.
+He goes without his supper.'
+
+The unfortunate creature dropped upon his fore-legs directly,
+wagged his tail, and looked imploringly at his master.
+
+'You must be more careful, Sir,' said Jerry, walking coolly to the
+chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop.  'Come
+here.  Now, Sir, you play away at that, while we have supper, and
+leave off if you dare.'
+
+The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music.  His master
+having shown him the whip resumed his seat and called up the
+others, who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright
+as a file of soldiers.
+
+'Now, gentlemen,' said Jerry, looking at them attentively.  'The dog
+whose name's called, eats.  The dogs whose names an't called, keep
+quiet.  Carlo!'
+
+The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel
+thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle.  In this
+manner they were fed at the discretion of their master.  Meanwhile
+the dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick
+time, sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant.  When
+the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got
+an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a
+short howl, but he immediately checked it on his master looking
+round, and applied himself with increased diligence to the Old
+Hundredth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+
+Supper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys
+two more travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had
+been walking in the rain for some hours, and came in shining and
+heavy with water.  One of these was the proprietor of a giant, and
+a little lady without legs or arms, who had jogged forward in a
+van; the other, a silent gentleman who earned his living by showing
+tricks upon the cards, and who had rather deranged the natural
+expression of his countenance by putting small leaden lozenges into
+his eyes and bringing them out at his mouth, which was one of his
+professional accomplishments.  The name of the first of these
+newcomers was Vuffin; the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon
+his ugliness, was called Sweet William.  To render them as
+comfortable as he could, the landlord bestirred himself nimbly, and
+in a very short time both gentlemen were perfectly at their ease.
+
+'How's the Giant?' said Short, when they all sat smoking round the
+fire.
+
+'Rather weak upon his legs,' returned Mr Vuffin.  'I begin to be
+afraid he's going at the knees.'
+
+'That's a bad look-out,' said Short.
+
+'Aye!  Bad indeed,' replied Mr Vuffin, contemplating the fire with
+a sigh.  'Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no
+more about him than they do for a dead cabbage stalk.'
+
+'What becomes of old giants?' said Short, turning to him again
+after a little reflection.
+
+'They're usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,' said Mr
+Vuffin.
+
+'The maintaining of 'em must come expensive, when they can't be
+shown, eh?' remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.
+
+'It's better that, than letting 'em go upon the parish or about the
+streets," said Mr Vuffin.  'Once make a giant common and giants will
+never draw again.  Look at wooden legs.  If there was only one man
+with a wooden leg what a property he'd be!'
+
+'So he would!' observed the landlord and Short both together.
+'That's very true.'
+
+'Instead of which,' pursued Mr Vuffin, 'if you was to advertise
+Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs,' it's my belief you
+wouldn't draw a sixpence.'
+
+'I don't suppose you would,' said Short.  And the landlord said so
+too.
+
+'This shows, you see,' said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an
+argumentative air, 'this shows the policy of keeping the used-up
+giants still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for
+nothing, all their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop
+there.  There was one giant--a black 'un--as left his carawan some
+year ago and took to carrying coach-bills about London, making
+himself as cheap as crossing-sweepers.  He died.  I make no
+insinuation against anybody in particular,' said Mr Vuffin, looking
+solemnly round, 'but he was ruining the trade;--and he died.'
+
+The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the
+dogs, who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered.
+
+'I know you do, Jerry,' said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning.  'I
+know you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it
+served him right.  Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had
+three-and-twenty wans--I remember the time when old Maunders had
+in his cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season
+was over, eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every
+day, who was waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red
+smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows: and there was one
+dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his giant
+wasn't quick enough to please him, used to stick pins in his legs,
+not being able to reach up any higher.  I know that's a fact, for
+Maunders told it me himself.'
+
+'What about the dwarfs when they get old?' inquired the landlord.
+
+'The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,' returned Mr Vuffin;
+'a grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion.  But
+a giant weak in the legs and not standing upright!--keep him in
+the carawan, but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion
+that can be offered.'
+
+While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled
+the time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat
+in a warm corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth
+of halfpence for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and
+rehearsing other feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying
+any regard whatever to the company, who in their turn left him
+utterly unnoticed.  At length the weary child prevailed upon her
+grandfather to retire, and they withdrew, leaving the company yet
+seated round the fire, and the dogs fast asleep at a humble
+distance.
+
+After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor
+garret, but had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped
+at.  She opened it directly, and was a little startled by the sight
+of Mr Thomas Codlin, whom she had left, to all appearance, fast
+asleep down stairs.
+
+'What is the matter?' said the child.
+
+'Nothing's the matter, my dear,' returned her visitor.  'I'm your
+friend.  Perhaps you haven't thought so, but it's me that's your
+friend--not him.'
+
+'Not who?' the child inquired.
+
+'Short, my dear.  I tell you what,' said Codlin, 'for all his having
+a kind of way with him that you'd be very apt to like, I'm the
+real, open-hearted man.  I mayn't look it, but I am indeed.'
+
+The child began to be alarmed, considering that the ale had taken
+effect upon Mr Codlin, and that this commendation of himself was
+the consequence.
+
+'Short's very well, and seems kind,' resumed the misanthrope, 'but
+he overdoes it.  Now I don't.'
+
+Certainly if there were any fault in Mr Codlin's usual deportment,
+it was that he rather underdid his kindness to those about him,
+than overdid it.  But the child was puzzled, and could not tell what
+to say.
+
+'Take my advice,' said Codlin: 'don't ask me why, but take it.
+As long as you travel with us, keep as near me as you can.  Don't
+offer to leave us--not on any account--but always stick to me and
+say that I'm your friend.  Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and
+always say that it was me that was your friend?'
+
+'Say so where--and when?' inquired the child innocently.
+
+'O, nowhere in particular,' replied Codlin, a little put out as it
+seemed by the question; 'I'm only anxious that you should think me
+so, and do me justice.  You can't think what an interest I have in
+you.  Why didn't you tell me your little history--that about you
+and the poor old gentleman?  I'm the best adviser that ever was, and
+so interested in you--so much more interested than Short.  I think
+they're breaking up down stairs; you needn't tell Short, you know,
+that we've had this little talk together.  God bless you.  Recollect
+the friend.  Codlin's the friend, not Short.  Short's very well as
+far as he goes, but the real friend is Codlin--not Short.'
+
+Eking out these professions with a number of benevolent and
+protecting looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole
+away on tiptoe, leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise.
+She was still ruminating upon his curious behaviour, when the floor
+of the crazy stairs and landing cracked beneath the tread of the
+other travellers who were passing to their beds.  When they had all
+passed, and the sound of their footsteps had died away, one of them
+returned, and after a little hesitation and rustling in the
+passage, as if he were doubtful what door to knock at, knocked at
+hers.
+
+'Yes,' said the child from within.
+
+'It's me--Short'--a voice called through the keyhole.  'I only
+wanted to say that we must be off early to-morrow morning, my dear,
+because unless we get the start of the dogs and the conjuror, the
+villages won't be worth a penny.  You'll be sure to be stirring
+early and go with us?  I'll call you.'
+
+The child answered in the affirmative, and returning his 'good
+night' heard him creep away.  She felt some uneasiness at the
+anxiety of these men, increased by the recollection of their
+whispering together down stairs and their slight confusion when she
+awoke, nor was she quite free from a misgiving that they were not
+the fittest companions she could have stumbled on.  Her uneasiness,
+however, was nothing, weighed against her fatigue; and she soon
+forgot it in sleep.  Very early next morning, Short fulfilled his
+promise, and knocking softly at her door, entreated that she would
+get up directly, as the proprietor of the dogs was still snoring,
+and if they lost no time they might get a good deal in advance both
+of him and the conjuror, who was talking in his sleep, and from
+what he could be heard to say, appeared to be balancing a donkey in
+his dreams.  She started from her bed without delay, and roused the
+old man with so much expedition that they were both ready as soon
+as Short himself, to that gentleman's unspeakable gratification and
+relief.
+
+After a very unceremonious and scrambling breakfast, of which the
+staple commodities were bacon and bread, and beer, they took leave
+of the landlord and issued from the door of the jolly Sandboys.  The
+morning was fine and warm, the ground cool to the feet after the
+late rain, the hedges gayer and more green, the air clear, and
+everything fresh and healthful.  Surrounded by these influences,
+they walked on pleasantly enough.
+
+They had not gone very far, when the child was again struck by the
+altered behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on
+sulkily by himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her,
+and when he had an opportunity of looking at her unseen by his
+companion, warned her by certain wry faces and jerks of the head
+not to put any trust in Short, but to reserve all confidences for
+Codlin.  Neither did he confine himself to looks and gestures, for
+when she and her grandfather were walking on beside the aforesaid
+Short, and that little man was talking with his accustomed
+cheerfulness on a variety of indifferent subjects, Thomas Codlin
+testified his jealousy and distrust by following close at her
+heels, and occasionally admonishing her ankles with the legs of the
+theatre in a very abrupt and painful manner.
+
+All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and
+suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to
+perform outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while
+he went through his share of the entertainments kept his eye
+steadily upon her and the old man, or with a show of great
+friendship and consideration invited the latter to lean upon his
+arm, and so held him tight until the representation was over and
+they again went forward.  Even Short seemed to change in this
+respect, and to mingle with his good-nature something of a desire
+to keep them in safe custody.  This increased the child's
+misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy.
+
+Meanwhile, they were drawing near the town where the races were to
+begin next day; for, from passing numerous groups of gipsies and
+trampers on the road, wending their way towards it, and straggling
+out from every by-way and cross-country lane, they gradually fell
+into a stream of people, some walking by the side of covered carts,
+others with horses, others with donkeys, others toiling on with
+heavy loads upon their backs, but all tending to the same point.
+The public-houses by the wayside, from being empty and noiseless as
+those in the remoter parts had been, now sent out boisterous shouts
+and clouds of smoke; and, from the misty windows, clusters of broad
+red faces looked down upon the road.  On every piece of waste or
+common ground, some small gambler drove his noisy trade, and
+bellowed to the idle passersby to stop and try their chance; the
+crowd grew thicker and more noisy; gilt gingerbread in
+blanket-stalls exposed its glories to the dust; and often a
+four-horse carriage, dashing by, obscured all objects in the gritty
+cloud it raised, and left them, stunned and blinded, far behind.
+
+It was dark before they reached the town itself, and long indeed
+the few last miles had been.  Here all was tumult and confusion; the
+streets were filled with throngs of people--many strangers were
+there, it seemed, by the looks they cast about--the church-bells
+rang out their noisy peals, and flags streamed from windows and
+house-tops.  In the large inn-yards waiters flitted to and fro and
+ran against each other, horses clattered on the uneven stones,
+carriage steps fell rattling down, and sickening smells from many
+dinners came in a heavy lukewarm breath upon the sense.  In the
+smaller public-houses, fiddles with all their might and main were
+squeaking out the tune to staggering feet; drunken men, oblivious
+of the burden of their song, joined in a senseless howl, which
+drowned the tinkling of the feeble bell and made them savage for
+their drink; vagabond groups assembled round the doors to see the
+stroller woman dance, and add their uproar to the shrill flageolet
+and deafening drum.
+
+Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by
+all she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her
+conductor, and trembling lest in the press she should be separated
+from him and left to find her way alone.  Quickening their steps to
+get clear of all the roar and riot, they at length passed through
+the town and made for the race-course, which was upon an open
+heath, situated on an eminence, a full mile distant from its
+furthest bounds.
+
+Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or
+best clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground,
+and hurrying to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath--
+although there were tired children cradled on heaps of straw
+between the wheels of carts, crying themselves to sleep--and poor
+lean horses and donkeys just turned loose, grazing among the men
+and women, and pots and kettles, and half-lighted fires, and ends
+of candles flaring and wasting in the air--for all this, the child
+felt it an escape from the town and drew her breath more freely.
+After a scanty supper, the purchase of which reduced her little
+stock so low, that she had only a few halfpence with which to buy
+a breakfast on the morrow, she and the old man lay down to rest in
+a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the busy preparations that
+were going on around them all night long.
+
+And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread.
+Soon after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, and
+rambling into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild
+roses and such humble flowers, purposing to make them into little
+nosegays and offer them to the ladies in the carriages when the
+company arrived.  Her thoughts were not idle while she was thus
+employed; when she returned and was seated beside the old man in
+one corner of the tent, tying her flowers together, while the two
+men lay dozing in another corner, she plucked him by the sleeve,
+and slightly glancing towards them, said, in a low voice--
+
+'Grandfather, don't look at those I talk of, and don't seem as if
+I spoke of anything but what I am about.  What was that you told me
+before we left the old house?  That if they knew what we were going
+to do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?'
+
+The old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she
+checked him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she
+tied them up, and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said--
+
+'I know that was what you told me.  You needn't speak, dear.  I
+recollect it very well.  It was not likely that I should forget it.
+Grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our
+friends, and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us
+taken care of and sent back.  If you let your hand tremble so, we
+can never get away from them, but if you're only quiet now, we
+shall do so, easily.'
+
+'How?' muttered the old man.  'Dear Nelly, how?  They will shut me up
+in a stone room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell--
+flog me with whips, and never let me see thee more!'
+
+'You're trembling again,' said the child.  'Keep close to me all
+day.  Never mind them, don't look at them, but me.  I shall find a
+time when we can steal away.  When I do, mind you come with me, and
+do not stop or speak a word.  Hush!  That's all.'
+
+'Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?' said Mr Codlin, raising his
+head, and yawning.  Then observing that his companion was fast
+asleep, he added in an earnest whisper, 'Codlin's the friend,
+remember--not Short.'
+
+'Making some nosegays,' the child replied; 'I am going to try and
+sell some, these three days of the races.  Will you have one--as a
+present I mean?'
+
+Mr Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried
+towards him and placed it in his hand.  He stuck it in his
+buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope,
+and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he
+laid himself down again, 'Tom Codlin's the friend, by G--!'
+
+As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a gayer and more
+brilliant appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling
+softly on the turf.  Men who had lounged about all night in
+smock-frocks and leather leggings, came out in silken vests and
+hats and plumes, as jugglers or mountebanks; or in gorgeous
+liveries as soft-spoken servants at gambling booths; or in sturdy
+yeoman dress as decoys at unlawful games.  Black-eyed gipsy girls,
+hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes, and
+pale slender women with consumptive faces lingered upon the
+footsteps of ventriloquists and conjurors, and counted the
+sixpences with anxious eyes long before they were gained.  As many
+of the children as could be kept within bounds, were stowed away,
+with all the other signs of dirt and poverty, among the donkeys,
+carts, and horses; and as many as could not be thus disposed of ran
+in and out in all intricate spots, crept between people's legs and
+carriage wheels, and came forth unharmed from under horses' hoofs.
+The dancing-dogs, the stilts, the little lady and the tall man, and
+all the other attractions, with organs out of number and bands
+innumerable, emerged from the holes and corners in which they had
+passed the night, and flourished boldly in the sun.
+
+Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the
+brazen trumpet and revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his
+heels went Thomas Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping
+his eye on Nelly and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in
+the rear.  The child bore upon her arm the little basket with her
+flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid and modest looks, to
+offer them at some gay carriage; but alas! there were many bolder
+beggars there, gipsies who promised husbands, and other adepts in
+their trade, and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook
+their heads, and others cried to the gentlemen beside them 'See,
+what a pretty face!' they let the pretty face pass on, and never
+thought that it looked tired or hungry.
+
+There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she
+was one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men
+in dashing clothes, who had just dismounted from it, talked and
+laughed loudly at a little distance, appearing to forget her,
+quite.  There were many ladies all around, but they turned their
+backs, or looked another way, or at the two young men (not
+unfavourably at them), and left her to herself.  She motioned away
+a gipsy-woman urgent to tell her fortune, saying that it was told
+already and had been for some years, but called the child towards
+her, and taking her flowers put money into her trembling hand, and
+bade her go home and keep at home for God's sake.
+
+Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing
+everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang to clear
+the course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not
+coming out again until the heat was over.  Many a time, too, was
+Punch displayed in the full zenith of his humour, but all this
+while the eye of Thomas Codlin was upon them, and to escape without
+notice was impracticable.
+
+At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a
+convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph
+of the scene.  The child, sitting down with the old man close behind
+it, had been thinking how strange it was that horses who were such
+fine honest creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men
+they drew about them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous
+witticism of Mr Short's, having allusion to the circumstances of
+the day, roused her from her meditation and caused her to look
+around.
+
+If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment.
+Short was plying the quarter-staves vigorously and knocking the
+characters in the fury of the combat against the sides of the show,
+the people were looking on with laughing faces, and Mr Codlin had
+relaxed into a grim smile as his roving eye detected hands going
+into waistcoat pockets and groping secretly for sixpences.  If they
+were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment.  They seized
+it, and fled.
+
+They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of
+people, and never once stopped to look behind.  The bell was ringing
+and the course was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but
+they dashed across it insensible to the shouts and screeching that
+assailed them for breaking in upon its sanctity, and creeping under
+the brow of the hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+
+Day after day as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some
+new effort to procure employment, Kit raised his eyes to the window
+of the little room he had so much commended to the child, and hoped
+to see some indication of her presence.  His own earnest wish,
+coupled with the assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him
+with the belief that she would yet arrive to claim the humble
+shelter he had offered, and from the death of each day's hope
+another hope sprung up to live to-morrow.
+
+'I think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh mother?' said Kit,
+laying aside his hat with a weary air and sighing as he spoke.
+'They have been gone a week.  They surely couldn't stop away more
+than a week, could they now?'
+
+The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been
+disappointed already.
+
+'For the matter of that,' said Kit, 'you speak true and sensible
+enough, as you always do, mother.  Still, I do consider that a week
+is quite long enough for 'em to be rambling about; don't you say
+so?'
+
+'Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come
+back for all that.'
+
+Kit was for a moment disposed to be vexed by this contradiction,
+and not the less so from having anticipated it in his own mind and
+knowing how just it was.  But the impulse was only momentary, and
+the vexed look became a kind one before it had crossed the room.
+
+'Then what do you think, mother, has become of 'em?  You don't think
+they've gone to sea, anyhow?'
+
+'Not gone for sailors, certainly,' returned the mother with a
+smile.  'But I can't help thinking that they have gone to some
+foreign country.'
+
+'I say,' cried Kit with a rueful face, 'don't talk like that,
+mother.'
+
+'I am afraid they have, and that's the truth,' she said.  'It's the
+talk of all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of
+their having been seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of
+the place they've gone to, which is more than I can, my dear, for
+it's a very hard one.'
+
+'I don't believe it,' said Kit.  'Not a word of it.  A set of idle
+chatterboxes, how should they know!'
+
+'They may be wrong of course,' returned the mother, 'I can't tell
+about that, though I don't think it's at all unlikely that they're
+in the right, for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a
+little money that nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you
+talk to me about--what's his name--Quilp; and that he and Miss
+Nell have gone to live abroad where it can't be taken from them,
+and they will never be disturbed.  That don't seem very far out of
+the way now, do it?'
+
+Kit scratched his head mournfully, in reluctant admission that it
+did not, and clambering up to the old nail took down the cage and
+set himself to clean it and to feed the bird.  His thoughts
+reverting from this occupation to the little old gentleman who had
+given him the shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the
+very day--nay, nearly the very hour--at which the little old
+gentleman had said he should be at the Notary's house again.  He no
+sooner remembered this, than he hung up the cage with great
+precipitation, and hastily explaining the nature of his errand,
+went off at full speed to the appointed place.
+
+It was some two minutes after the time when he reached the spot,
+which was a considerable distance from his home, but by great good
+luck the little old gentleman had not yet arrived; at least there
+was no pony-chaise to be seen, and it was not likely that he had
+come and gone again in so short a space.  Greatly relieved to find
+that he was not too late, Kit leant against a lamp-post to take
+breath, and waited the advent of the pony and his charge.
+
+Sure enough, before long the pony came trotting round the corner of
+the street, looking as obstinate as pony might, and picking his
+steps as if he were spying about for the cleanest places, and would
+by no means dirty his feet or hurry himself inconveniently.  Behind
+the pony sat the little old gentleman, and by the old gentleman's
+side sat the little old lady, carrying just such a nosegay as she
+had brought before.
+
+The old gentleman, the old lady, the pony, and the chaise, came up
+the street in perfect unanimity, until they arrived within some
+half a dozen doors of the Notary's house, when the pony, deceived
+by a brass-plate beneath a tailor's knocker, came to a halt, and
+maintained by a sturdy silence, that that was the house they
+wanted.
+
+'Now, Sir, will you ha' the goodness to go on; this is not the
+place,' said the old gentleman.
+
+The pony looked with great attention into a fire-plug which was
+near him, and appeared to be quite absorbed in contemplating it.
+
+'Oh dear, such a naughty Whisker" cried the old lady.  'After being
+so good too, and coming along so well!  I am quite ashamed of him.
+I don't know what we are to do with him, I really don't.'
+
+The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and
+properties of the fire-plug, looked into the air after his old
+enemies the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling
+his ear at that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail,
+after which he appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and
+collected.  The old gentleman having exhausted his powers of
+persuasion, alighted to lead him; whereupon the pony, perhaps
+because he held this to be a sufficient concession, perhaps because
+he happened to catch sight of the other brass-plate, or perhaps
+because he was in a spiteful humour, darted off with the old lady
+and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come
+panting on behind.
+
+It was then that Kit presented himself at the pony's head, and
+touched his hat with a smile.
+
+'Why, bless me,' cried the old gentleman, 'the lad is here!  My
+dear, do you see?'
+
+'I said I'd be here, Sir,' said Kit, patting Whisker's neck.  'I
+hope you've had a pleasant ride, sir.  He's a very nice little
+pony.'
+
+'My dear,' said the old gentleman.  'This is an uncommon lad; a good
+lad, I'm sure.'
+
+'I'm sure he is,' rejoined the old lady.  'A very good lad, and I am
+sure he is a good son.'
+
+Kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his
+hat again and blushing very much.  The old gentleman then handed the
+old lady out, and after looking at him with an approving smile,
+they went into the house--talking about him as they went, Kit
+could not help feeling.  Presently Mr Witherden, smelling very hard
+at the nosegay, came to the window and looked at him, and after
+that Mr Abel came and looked at him, and after that the old
+gentleman and lady came and looked at him again, and after that
+they all came and looked at him together, which Kit, feeling very
+much embarrassed by, made a pretence of not observing.  Therefore he
+patted the pony more and more; and this liberty the pony most
+handsomely permitted.
+
+The faces had not disappeared from the window many moments, when Mr
+Chuckster in his official coat, and with his hat hanging on his
+head just as it happened to fall from its peg, appeared upon the
+pavement, and telling him he was wanted inside, bade him go in and
+he would mind the chaise the while.  In giving him this direction Mr
+Chuckster remarked that he wished that he might be blessed if he
+could make out whether he (Kit) was 'precious raw' or 'precious
+deep,' but intimated by a distrustful shake of the head, that he
+inclined to the latter opinion.
+
+Kit entered the office in a great tremor, for he was not used to
+going among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and
+bundles of dusty papers had in his eyes an awful and venerable air.
+Mr Witherden too was a bustling gentleman who talked loud and fast,
+and all eyes were upon him, and he was very shabby.
+
+'Well, boy,' said Mr Witherden, 'you came to work out that
+shilling;--not to get another, hey?'
+
+'No indeed, sir,' replied Kit, taking courage to look up.  'I never
+thought of such a thing.'
+
+'Father alive?' said the Notary.
+
+'Dead, sir.'
+
+'Mother?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Married again--eh?'
+
+Kit made answer, not without some indignation, that she was a widow
+with three children, and that as to her marrying again, if the
+gentleman knew her he wouldn't think of such a thing.  At this reply
+Mr Witherden buried his nose in the flowers again, and whispered
+behind the nosegay to the old gentleman that he believed the lad
+was as honest a lad as need be.
+
+'Now,' said Mr Garland when they had made some further inquiries of
+him, 'I am not going to give you anything--'
+
+'Thank you, sir,' Kit replied; and quite seriously too, for this
+announcement seemed to free him from the suspicion which the Notary
+had hinted.
+
+'--But,' resumed the old gentleman, 'perhaps I may want to know
+something more about you, so tell me where you live, and I'll put
+it down in my pocket-book.'
+
+Kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his
+pencil.  He had scarcely done so, when there was a great uproar in
+the street, and the old lady hurrying to the window cried that
+Whisker had run away, upon which Kit darted out to the rescue, and
+the others followed.
+
+It seemed that Mr Chuckster had been standing with his hands in his
+pockets looking carelessly at the pony, and occasionally insulting
+him with such admonitions as 'Stand still,'--'Be quiet,'--
+'Wo-a-a,' and the like, which by a pony of spirit cannot be borne.
+Consequently, the pony being deterred by no considerations of duty
+or obedience, and not having before him the slightest fear of the
+human eye, had at length started off, and was at that moment
+rattling down the street--Mr Chuckster, with his hat off and a
+pen behind his ear, hanging on in the rear of the chaise and making
+futile attempts to draw it the other way, to the unspeakable
+admiration of all beholders.  Even in running away, however, Whisker
+was perverse, for he had not gone very far when he suddenly
+stopped, and before assistance could be rendered, commenced backing
+at nearly as quick a pace as he had gone forward.  By these means Mr
+Chuckster was pushed and hustled to the office again, in a most
+inglorious manner, and arrived in a state of great exhaustion and
+discomfiture.
+
+The old lady then stepped into her seat, and Mr Abel (whom they had
+come to fetch) into his.  The old gentleman, after reasoning with
+the pony on the extreme impropriety of his conduct, and making the
+best amends in his power to Mr Chuckster, took his place also, and
+they drove away, waving a farewell to the Notary and his clerk, and
+more than once turning to nod kindly to Kit as he watched them from
+the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+
+Kit turned away and very soon forgot the pony, and the chaise, and
+the little old lady, and the little old gentleman, and the little
+young gentleman to boot, in thinking what could have become of his
+late master and his lovely grandchild, who were the fountain-head
+of all his meditations.  Still casting about for some plausible
+means of accounting for their non-appearance, and of persuading
+himself that they must soon return, he bent his steps
+towards home, intending to finish the task which the sudden
+recollection of his contract had interrupted, and then to sally
+forth once more to seek his fortune for the day.
+
+When he came to the corner of the court in which he lived, lo and
+behold there was the pony again!  Yes, there he was, looking more
+obstinate than ever; and alone in the chaise, keeping a steady
+watch upon his every wink, sat Mr Abel, who, lifting up his eyes by
+chance and seeing Kit pass by, nodded to him as though he would
+have nodded his head off.
+
+Kit wondered to see the pony again, so near his own home too, but
+it never occurred to him for what purpose the pony might have come
+there, or where the old lady and the old gentleman had gone, until
+he lifted the latch of the door, and walking in, found them seated
+in the room in conversation with his mother, at which unexpected
+sight he pulled off his hat and made his best bow in some
+confusion.
+
+'We are here before you, you see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland
+smiling.
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his
+mother for an explanation of the visit.
+
+'The gentleman's been kind enough, my dear,' said she, in reply to
+this mute interrogation, 'to ask me whether you were in a good
+place, or in any place at all, and when I told him no, you were not
+in any, he was so good as to say that--'
+
+'--That we wanted a good lad in our house,' said the old gentleman
+and the old lady both together, 'and that perhaps we might think of
+it, if we found everything as we would wish it to be.'
+
+As this thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit,
+he immediately partook of his mother's anxiety and fell into a
+great flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and
+cautious, and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid
+there was no chance of his success.
+
+'You see, my good woman,' said Mrs Garland to Kit's mother, 'that
+it's necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter
+as this, for we're only three in family, and are very quiet regular
+folks, and it would be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake,
+and found things different from what we hoped and expected.'
+
+To this, Kit's mother replied, that certainly it was quite true,
+and quite right, and quite proper, and Heaven forbid that she
+should shrink, or have cause to shrink, from any inquiry into her
+character or that of her son, who was a very good son though she
+was his mother, in which respect, she was bold to say, he took
+after his father, who was not only a good son to HIS mother, but
+the best of husbands and the best of fathers besides, which Kit
+could and would corroborate she knew, and so would little Jacob and
+the baby likewise if they were old enough, which unfortunately they
+were not, though as they didn't know what a loss they had had,
+perhaps it was a great deal better that they should be as young as
+they were; and so Kit's mother wound up a long story by wiping her
+eyes with her apron, and patting little Jacob's head, who was
+rocking the cradle and staring with all his might at the strange
+lady and gentleman.
+
+When Kit's mother had done speaking, the old lady struck in again,
+and said that she was quite sure she was a very honest and very
+respectable person or she never would have expressed herself in
+that manner, and that certainly the appearance of the children and
+the cleanliness of the house deserved great praise and did her the
+utmost credit, whereat Kit's mother dropped a curtsey and became
+consoled.  Then the good woman entered in a long and minute account
+of Kit's life and history from the earliest period down to that
+time, not omitting to make mention of his miraculous fall out of a
+back-parlour window when an infant of tender years, or his uncommon
+sufferings in a state of measles, which were illustrated by correct
+imitations of the plaintive manner in which he called for toast and
+water, day and night, and said, 'don't cry, mother, I shall soon be
+better;' for proof of which statements reference was made to Mrs
+Green, lodger, at the cheesemonger's round the corner, and divers
+other ladies and gentlemen in various parts of England and Wales
+(and one Mr Brown who was supposed to be then a corporal in the
+East Indies, and who could of course be found with very little
+trouble), within whose personal knowledge the circumstances had
+occurred.  This narration ended, Mr Garland put some questions to
+Kit respecting his qualifications and general acquirements, while
+Mrs Garland noticed the children, and hearing from Kit's mother
+certain remarkable circumstances which had attended the birth of
+each, related certain other remarkable circumstances which had
+attended the birth of her own son, Mr Abel, from which it appeared
+that both Kit's mother and herself had been, above and beyond all
+other women of what condition or age soever, peculiarly hemmed in
+with perils and dangers.  Lastly, inquiry was made into the nature
+and extent of Kit's wardrobe, and a small advance being made to
+improve the same, he was formally hired at an annual income of Six
+Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by Mr and Mrs
+Garland, of Abel Cottage, Finchley.
+
+It would be difficult to say which party appeared most pleased with
+this arrangement, the conclusion of which was hailed with nothing
+but pleasant looks and cheerful smiles on both sides.  It was
+settled that Kit should repair to his new abode on the next day but
+one, in the morning; and finally, the little old couple, after
+bestowing a bright half-crown on little Jacob and another on the
+baby, took their leaves; being escorted as far as the street by
+their new attendant, who held the obdurate pony by the bridle while
+they took their seats, and saw them drive away with a lightened
+heart.
+
+'Well, mother,' said Kit, hurrying back into the house, 'I think my
+fortune's about made now.'
+
+'I should think it was indeed, Kit,' rejoined his mother.  'Six
+pound a year!  Only think!'
+
+'Ah!' said Kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the
+consideration of such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in
+spite of himself.  'There's a property!'
+
+Kit drew a long breath when he had said this, and putting his hands
+deep into his pockets as if there were one year's wages at least in
+each, looked at his mother, as though he saw through her, and down
+an immense perspective of sovereigns beyond.
+
+'Please God we'll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such
+a scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the
+one up stairs!  Six pound a year!'
+
+'Hem!' croaked a strange voice.  'What's that about six pound a
+year?  What about six pound a year?'  And as the voice made this
+inquiry, Daniel Quilp walked in with Richard Swiveller at his
+heels.
+
+'Who said he was to have six pound a year?' said Quilp, looking
+sharply round.  'Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it?
+And what's he to have it for, and where are they, eh!'  The good
+woman was so much alarmed by the sudden apparition of this unknown
+piece of ugliness, that she hastily caught the baby from its cradle
+and retreated into the furthest corner of the room; while little
+Jacob, sitting upon his stool with his hands on his knees, looked
+full at him in a species of fascination, roaring lustily all the
+time.  Richard Swiveller took an easy observation of the family over
+Mr Quilp's head, and Quilp himself, with his hands in his pockets,
+smiled in an exquisite enjoyment of the commotion he occasioned.
+
+'Don't be frightened, mistress,' said Quilp, after a pause.  'Your
+son knows me; I don't eat babies; I don't like 'em.  It will be as
+well to stop that young screamer though, in case I should be
+tempted to do him a mischief.  Holloa, sir!  Will you be quiet?'
+
+Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing
+out of his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror.
+
+'Mind you don't break out again, you villain,' said Quilp, looking
+sternly at him, 'or I'll make faces at you and throw you into fits,
+I will.  Now you sir, why haven't you been to me as you promised?'
+
+'What should I come for?' retorted Kit.  'I hadn't any business with
+you, no more than you had with me.'
+
+'Here, mistress,' said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing
+from Kit to his mother.  'When did his old master come or send here
+last?  Is he here now?  If not, where's he gone?'
+
+'He has not been here at all,' she replied.  'I wish we knew where
+they have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his
+mind, and me too.  If you're the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should
+have thought you'd have known, and so I told him only this very
+day.'
+
+'Humph!' muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that
+this was true.  'That's what you tell this gentleman too, is it?'
+
+'If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can't tell him
+anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,'
+was the reply.
+
+Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met
+him on the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some
+intelligence of the fugitives.  He supposed he was right?
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, 'that was the object of the present expedition.
+I fancied it possible--but let us go ring fancy's knell.  I'll
+begin it.'
+
+'You seem disappointed,' observed Quilp.
+
+'A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that's all,' returned Dick.  'I have
+entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being
+of brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs's
+altar.  That's all, sir.'
+
+The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had
+been taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not,
+and continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent
+looks.  Quilp plainly discerned that there was some secret reason
+for this visit and his uncommon disappointment, and, in the hope
+that there might be means of mischief lurking beneath it, resolved
+to worm it out.  He had no sooner adopted this resolution, than he
+conveyed as much honesty into his face as it was capable of
+expressing, and sympathised with Mr Swiveller exceedingly.
+
+'I am disappointed myself,' said Quilp, 'out of mere friendly
+feeling for them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have
+no doubt, for your disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier
+than mine.'
+
+'Why, of course it does,' Dick observed, testily.
+
+'Upon my word, I'm very sorry, very sorry.  I'm rather cast down
+myself.  As we are companions in adversity, shall we be companions
+in the surest way of forgetting it?  If you had no particular
+business, now, to lead you in another direction,' urged Quilp,
+plucking him by the sleeve and looking slyly up into his face out
+of the corners of his eyes, 'there is a house by the water-side
+where they have some of the noblest Schiedam--reputed to be
+smuggled, but that's between ourselves--that can be got in all the
+world.  The landlord knows me.  There's a little summer-house
+overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this
+delicious liquor with a whiff of the best tobacco--it's in this
+case, and of the rarest quality, to my certain knowledge--and be
+perfectly snug and happy, could we possibly contrive it; or is
+there any very particular engagement that peremptorily takes you
+another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?'
+
+As the dwarf spoke, Dick's face relaxed into a compliant smile, and
+his brows slowly unbent.  By the time he had finished, Dick was
+looking down at Quilp in the same sly manner as Quilp was looking
+up at him, and there remained nothing more to be done but to set
+out for the house in question.  This they did, straightway.  The
+moment their backs were turned, little Jacob thawed, and resumed
+his crying from the point where Quilp had frozen him.
+
+The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden
+box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river's mud, and
+threatened to slide down into it.  The tavern to which it belonged
+was a crazy building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only
+upheld by great bars of wood which were reared against its walls,
+and had propped it up so long that even they were decaying and
+yielding with their load, and of a windy night might be heard to
+creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to come toppling
+down.  The house stood--if anything so old and feeble could be said
+to stand--on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome
+smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank of iron wheels and
+rush of troubled water.  Its internal accommodations amply fulfilled
+the promise of the outside.  The rooms were low and damp, the clammy
+walls were pierced with chinks and holes, the rotten floors had sunk
+from their level, the very beams started from their places and warned
+the timid stranger from their neighbourhood.
+
+To this inviting spot, entreating him to observe its beauties as
+they passed along, Mr Quilp led Richard Swiveller, and on the table
+of the summer-house, scored deep with many a gallows and initial
+letter, there soon appeared a wooden keg, full of the vaunted
+liquor.  Drawing it off into the glasses with the skill of a
+practised hand, and mixing it with about a third part of water, Mr
+Quilp assigned to Richard Swiveller his portion, and lighting his
+pipe from an end of a candle in a very old and battered lantern,
+drew himself together upon a seat and puffed away.
+
+'Is it good?' said Quilp, as Richard Swiveller smacked his lips,
+'is it strong and fiery?  Does it make you wink, and choke, and your
+eyes water, and your breath come short--does it?'
+
+'Does it?' cried Dick, throwing away part of the contents of his
+glass, and filling it up with water, 'why, man, you don't mean to
+tell me that you drink such fire as this?'
+
+'No!' rejoined Quilp, 'Not drink it!  Look here.  And here.  And here
+again.  Not drink it!'
+
+As he spoke, Daniel Quilp drew off and drank three small glassfuls
+of the raw spirit, and then with a horrible grimace took a great
+many pulls at his pipe, and swallowing the smoke, discharged it in
+a heavy cloud from his nose.  This feat accomplished he drew himself
+together in his former position, and laughed excessively.
+
+'Give us a toast!' cried Quilp, rattling on the table in a
+dexterous manner with his fist and elbow alternately, in a kind of
+tune, 'a woman, a beauty.  Let's have a beauty for our toast and
+empty our glasses to the last drop.  Her name, come!'
+
+'If you want a name,' said Dick, 'here's Sophy Wackles.'
+
+'Sophy Wackles,' screamed the dwarf, 'Miss Sophy Wackles that is--
+Mrs Richard Swiveller that shall be--that shall be--ha ha ha!'
+
+'Ah!' said Dick, 'you might have said that a few weeks ago, but it
+won't do now, my buck.  Immolating herself upon the shrine of Cheggs--'
+
+'Poison Cheggs, cut Cheggs's ears off,' rejoined Quilp.  'I won't
+hear of Cheggs.  Her name is Swiveller or nothing.  I'll drink her
+health again, and her father's, and her mother's; and to all her
+sisters and brothers--the glorious family of the Wackleses--all
+the Wackleses in one glass--down with it to the dregs!'
+
+'Well,' said Richard Swiveller, stopping short in the act of
+raising the glass to his lips and looking at the dwarf in a species
+of stupor as he flourished his arms and legs about: 'you're a jolly
+fellow, but of all the jolly fellows I ever saw or heard of, you
+have the queerest and most extraordinary way with you, upon my life
+you have.'
+
+This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr
+Quilp's eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see
+him in such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself,
+for company--began imperceptibly to become more companionable and
+confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew
+at last very confiding indeed.  Having once got him into this mood,
+and knowing now the key-note to strike whenever he was at a loss,
+Daniel Quilp's task was comparatively an easy one, and he was
+soon in possession of the whole details of the scheme contrived
+between the easy Dick and his more designing friend.
+
+'Stop!' said Quilp.  'That's the thing, that's the thing.  It can be
+brought about, it shall be brought about.  There's my hand upon it;
+I am your friend from this minute.'
+
+'What! do you think there's still a chance?' inquired Dick, in
+surprise at this encouragement.
+
+'A chance!' echoed the dwarf, 'a certainty!  Sophy Wackles may
+become a Cheggs or anything else she likes, but not a Swiveller.
+Oh you lucky dog!  He's richer than any Jew alive; you're a
+made man.  I see in you now nothing but Nelly's husband, rolling
+in gold and silver.  I'll help you.  It shall be done.  Mind my words,
+it shall be done.'
+
+'But how?' said Dick.
+
+'There's plenty of time,' rejoined the dwarf, 'and it shall be
+done.  We'll sit down and talk it over again all the way through.
+Fill your glass while I'm gone.  I shall be back directly--
+directly.'  With these hasty words, Daniel Quilp withdrew into a
+dismantled skittle-ground behind the public-house, and, throwing
+himself upon the ground actually screamed and rolled about in
+uncontrollable delight.
+
+'Here's sport!' he cried, 'sport ready to my hand, all invented and
+arranged, and only to be enjoyed.  It was this shallow-pated fellow
+who made my bones ache t'other day, was it?  It was his friend and
+fellow-plotter, Mr Trent, that once made eyes at Mrs Quilp, and
+leered and looked, was it?  After labouring for two or three years
+in their precious scheme, to find that they've got a beggar at
+last, and one of them tied for life.  Ha ha ha!  He shall marry
+Nell.  He shall have her, and I'll be the first man, when the
+knot's tied hard and fast, to tell 'em what they've gained and
+what I've helped 'em to.  Here will be a clearing of old scores,
+here will be a time to remind 'em what a capital friend I was, and
+how I helped them to the heiress.  Ha ha ha!'
+
+In the height of his ecstasy, Mr Quilp had like to have met with a
+disagreeable check, for rolling very near a broken dog-kennel,
+there leapt forth a large fierce dog, who, but that his chain was
+of the shortest, would have given him a disagreeable salute.  As it
+was, the dwarf remained upon his back in perfect safety, taunting
+the dog with hideous faces, and triumphing over him in his
+inability to advance another inch, though there were not a couple
+of feet between them.
+
+'Why don't you come and bite me, why don't you come and tear me to
+pieces, you coward?' said Quilp, hissing and worrying the animal
+till he was nearly mad.  'You're afraid, you bully, you're afraid,
+you know you are.'
+
+The dog tore and strained at his chain with starting eyes and
+furious bark, but there the dwarf lay, snapping his fingers with
+gestures of defiance and contempt.  When he had sufficiently
+recovered from his delight, he rose, and with his arms a-kimbo,
+achieved a kind of demon-dance round the kennel, just without
+the limits of the chain, driving the dog quite wild.  Having by this
+means composed his spirits and put himself in a pleasant train, he
+returned to his unsuspicious companion, whom he found looking at
+the tide with exceeding gravity, and thinking of that same gold and
+silver which Mr Quilp had mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+
+The remainder of that day and the whole of the next were a busy
+time for the Nubbles family, to whom everything connected with
+Kit's outfit and departure was matter of as great moment as if he
+had been about to penetrate into the interior of Africa, or to take
+a cruise round the world.  It would be difficult to suppose that
+there ever was a box which was opened and shut so many times within
+four-and-twenty hours, as that which contained his wardrobe and
+necessaries; and certainly there never was one which to two small
+eyes presented such a mine of clothing, as this mighty chest with
+its three shirts and proportionate allowance of stockings and
+pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the astonished vision of little
+Jacob.  At last it was conveyed to the carrier's, at whose house at
+Finchley Kit was to find it next day; and the box being gone, there
+remained but two questions for consideration: firstly, whether the
+carrier would lose, or dishonestly feign to lose, the box upon the
+road; secondly, whether Kit's mother perfectly understood how to
+take care of herself in the absence of her son.
+
+'I don't think there's hardly a chance of his really losing it, but
+carriers are under great temptation to pretend they lose things, no
+doubt,' said Mrs Nubbles apprehensively, in reference to the first
+point.
+
+'No doubt about it,' returned Kit, with a serious look; 'upon my
+word, mother, I don't think it was right to trust it to itself.
+Somebody ought to have gone with it, I'm afraid.'
+
+'We can't help it now,' said his mother; 'but it was foolish and
+wrong.  People oughtn't to be tempted.'
+
+Kit inwardly resolved that he would never tempt a carrier any more,
+save with an empty box; and having formed this Christian
+determination, he turned his thoughts to the second question.
+
+'YOU know you must keep up your spirits, mother, and not be
+lonesome because I'm not at home.  I shall very often be able to
+look in when I come into town I dare say, and I shall send you a
+letter sometimes, and when the quarter comes round, I can get a
+holiday of course; and then see if we don't take little Jacob to
+the play, and let him know what oysters means.'
+
+'I hope plays mayn't be sinful, Kit, but I'm a'most afraid,' said
+Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'I know who has been putting that in your head,' rejoined her son
+disconsolately; 'that's Little Bethel again.  Now I say, mother,
+pray don't take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your
+good-humoured face that has always made home cheerful, turned into
+a grievous one, and the baby trained to look grievous too, and to
+call itself a young sinner (bless its heart) and a child of the
+devil (which is calling its dead father names); if I was to see
+this, and see little Jacob looking grievous likewise, I should so
+take it to heart that I'm sure I should go and list for a soldier,
+and run my head on purpose against the first cannon-ball I saw
+coming my way.'
+
+'Oh, Kit, don't talk like that.'
+
+'I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me
+feel very wretched and uncomfortable, you'll keep that bow on your
+bonnet, which you'd more than half a mind to pull off last week.
+Can you suppose there's any harm in looking as cheerful and being
+as cheerful as our poor circumstances will permit?  Do I see
+anything in the way I'm made, which calls upon me to be a
+snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, sneaking about as if I
+couldn't help it, and expressing myself in a most unpleasant
+snuffle?  on the contrary, don't I see every reason why I shouldn't?
+just hear this!  Ha ha ha!  An't that as nat'ral as walking, and as
+good for the health?  Ha ha ha!  An't that as nat'ral as a sheep's
+bleating, or a pig's grunting, or a horse's neighing, or a bird's
+singing?  Ha ha ha!  Isn't it, mother?'
+
+There was something contagious in Kit's laugh, for his mother, who
+had looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell
+to joining in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew
+it was natural, and to laugh the more.  Kit and his mother, laughing
+together in a pretty loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that
+there was something very jovial and agreeable in progress, was no
+sooner in its mother's arms than it began to kick and laugh, most
+vigorously.  This new illustration of his argument so tickled Kit,
+that he fell backward in his chair in a state of exhaustion,
+pointing at the baby and shaking his sides till he rocked again.
+After recovering twice or thrice, and as often relapsing, he wiped
+his eyes and said grace; and a very cheerful meal their scanty
+supper was.
+
+With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen
+who start upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind
+them, would deem within the bounds of probability (if matter so low
+could be herein set down), Kit left the house at an early hour next
+morning, and set out to walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient
+pride in his appearance to have warranted his excommunication from
+Little Bethel from that time forth, if he had ever been one of that
+mournful congregation.
+
+Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it
+may be briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in
+a coat of pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and
+nether garments of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in
+the lustre of a new pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny
+hat, which on being struck anywhere with the knuckles, sounded like
+a drum.  And in this attire, rather wondering that he attracted so
+little attention, and attributing the circumstance to the insensibility
+of those who got up early, he made his way towards Abel Cottage.
+
+Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road,
+than meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his
+old one, on whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit
+arrived in course of time at the carrier's house, where, to the
+lasting honour of human nature, he found the box in safety.
+Receiving from the wife of this immaculate man, a direction to Mr
+Garland's, he took the box upon his shoulder and repaired thither
+directly.
+
+To be sure, it was a beautiful little cottage with a thatched roof
+and little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in
+some of the windows, almost as large as pocket-books.  On one side
+of the house was a little stable, just the size for the pony, with
+a little room over it, just the size for Kit.  White curtains were
+fluttering, and birds in cages that looked as bright as if they
+were made of gold, were singing at the windows; plants were
+arranged on either side of the path, and clustered about the door;
+and the garden was bright with flowers in full bloom, which shed a
+sweet odour all round, and had a charming and elegant appearance.
+Everything within the house and without, seemed to be the
+perfection of neatness and order.  In the garden there was not a
+weed to be seen, and to judge from some dapper gardening-tools, a
+basket, and a pair of gloves which were lying in one of the walks,
+old Mr Garland had been at work in it that very morning.
+
+Kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, and this a
+great many times before he could make up his mind to turn his head
+another way and ring the bell.  There was abundance of time to look
+about him again though, when he had rung it, for nobody came, so
+after ringing it twice or thrice he sat down upon his box, and
+waited.
+
+He rang the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came.  But at
+last, as he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants'
+castles, and princesses tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads,
+and dragons bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of
+the like nature, common in story-books to youths of low degree on
+their first visit to strange houses, the door was gently opened,
+and a little servant-girl, very tidy, modest, and demure, but very
+pretty too, appeared.  'I suppose you're Christopher,sir,' said the
+servant-girl.
+
+Kit got off the box, and said yes, he was.
+
+'I'm afraid you've rung a good many times perhaps,' she rejoined,
+'but we couldn't hear you, because we've been catching the pony.'
+
+Kit rather wondered what this meant, but as he couldn't stop there,
+asking questions, he shouldered the box again and followed the girl
+into the hall, where through a back-door he descried Mr Garland
+leading Whisker in triumph up the garden, after that self-willed
+pony had (as he afterwards learned) dodged the family round a small
+paddock in the rear, for one hour and three quarters.
+
+The old gentleman received him very kindly and so did the old lady,
+whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his
+wiping his boots on the mat until the soles of his feet burnt
+again.  He was then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his
+new clothes; and when he had been surveyed several times, and had
+afforded by his appearance unlimited satisfaction, he was taken
+into the stable (where the pony received him with uncommon
+complaisance); and thence into the little chamber he had already
+observed, which was very clean and comfortable: and thence into the
+garden, in which the old gentleman told him he would be taught to
+employ himself, and where he told him, besides, what great things
+he meant to do to make him comfortable, and happy, if he found he
+deserved it.  All these kindnesses, Kit acknowledged with various
+expressions of gratitude, and so many touches of the new hat, that
+the brim suffered considerably.  When the old gentleman had said all
+he had to say in the way of promise and advice, and Kit had said
+all he had to say in the way of assurance and thankfulness, he was
+handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning the little
+servant-girl (whose name was Barbara) instructed her to take him
+down stairs and give him something to eat and drink, after his
+walk.
+
+Down stairs, therefore, Kit went; and at the bottom of the stairs
+there was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out
+of a toy-shop window, with everything in it as bright and glowing,
+and as precisely ordered too, as Barbara herself.  And in this
+kitchen, Kit sat himself down at a table as white as a tablecloth,
+to eat cold meat, and drink small ale, and use his knife and fork
+the more awkwardly, because there was an unknown Barbara looking on
+and observing him.
+
+It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably
+tremendous about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very
+quiet life, blushed very much and was quite as embarrassed and
+uncertain what she ought to say or do, as Kit could possibly be.
+When he had sat for some little time, attentive to the ticking of
+the sober clock, he ventured to glance curiously at the dresser,
+and there, among the plates and dishes, were Barbara's little
+work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of cotton, and
+Barbara's prayer-book, and Barbara's hymn-book, and Barbara's
+Bible.  Barbara's little looking-glass hung in a good light near the
+window, and Barbara's bonnet was on a nail behind the door.  From
+all these mute signs and tokens of her presence, he
+naturally glanced at Barbara herself, who sat as mute as they,
+shelling peas into a dish; and just when Kit was looking at her
+eyelashes and wondering--quite in the simplicity of his heart--
+what colour her eyes might be, it perversely happened that Barbara
+raised her head a little to look at him, when both pair
+of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit leant over his plate, and
+Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme confusion at having
+been detected by the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+
+Mr Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such
+was the appropriate name of Quilp's choice retreat), after a
+sinuous and corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after
+stopping suddenly and staring about him, then as suddenly running
+forward for a few paces, and as suddenly halting again and shaking
+his head; doing everything with a jerk and nothing by
+premeditation;--Mr Richard Swiveller wending his way homeward
+after this fashion, which is considered by evil-minded men to be
+symbolical of intoxication, and is not held by such persons to
+denote that state of deep wisdom and reflection in which the actor
+knows himself to be, began to think that possibly he had misplaced
+his confidence and that the dwarf might not be precisely the sort
+of person to whom to entrust a secret of such delicacy and
+importance.  And being led and tempted on by this remorseful thought
+into a condition which the evil-minded class before referred to
+would term the maudlin state or stage of drunkenness, it occurred
+to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the ground, and moan, crying
+aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if he had not been an
+unhappy orphan things had never come to this.
+
+'Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,' said Mr Swiveller,
+bewailing his hard lot, 'cast upon the world in my tenderest
+period, and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can
+wonder at my weakness!  Here's a miserable orphan for you.  Here,'
+said Mr Swiveller raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking
+sleepily round, 'is a miserable orphan!'
+
+'Then,' said somebody hard by, 'let me be a father to you.'
+
+Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance,
+and, looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at
+last perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he
+observed after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and
+mouth.  Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with
+reference to a man's face, his legs are usually to be found, he
+observed that the face had a body attached; and when he looked more
+intently he was satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed
+had been in his company all the time, but whom he had some vague
+idea of having left a mile or two behind.
+
+'You have deceived an orphan, Sir,' said Mr Swiveller solemnly.'
+
+'I!  I'm a second father to you,' replied Quilp.
+
+'You my father, Sir!' retorted Dick.  'Being all right myself, Sir,
+I request to be left alone--instantly, Sir.'
+
+'What a funny fellow you are!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Go, Sir,' returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his
+hand.  'Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p'r'aps you'll waken, from
+pleasure's dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken.  Will you
+go, Sir?'
+
+The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced
+with the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement.  But
+forgetting his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to
+him, he seized his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring
+with an agreeable frankness that from that time forth they were
+brothers in everything but personal appearance.  Then he told his
+secret over again, with the addition of being pathetic on the
+subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave Mr Quilp to understand, was
+the occasion of any slight incoherency he might observe in his
+speech at that moment, which was attributable solely to the
+strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other fermented
+liquor.  And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly together.
+
+'I'm as sharp,' said Quilp to him, at parting, 'as sharp as a
+ferret, and as cunning as a weazel.  You bring Trent to me; assure
+him that I'm his friend though i fear he a little distrusts me (I
+don't know why, I have not deserved it); and you've both of you
+made your fortunes--in perspective.'
+
+'That's the worst of it,' returned Dick.  'These fortunes in
+perspective look such a long way off.'
+
+'But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,' said
+Quilp, pressing his arm.  'You'll have no conception of the value of
+your prize until you draw close to it.  Mark that.'
+
+'D'ye think not?' said Dick.
+
+'Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that's better,'
+returned the dwarf.  'You bring Trent to me.  Tell him I am his
+friend and yours--why shouldn't I be?'
+
+'There's no reason why you shouldn't, certainly,' replied Dick,
+'and perhaps there are a great many why you should--at least there
+would be nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you
+were a choice spirit, but then you know you're not a choice
+spirit.'
+
+'I not a choice spirit?' cried Quilp.
+
+'Devil a bit,sir,' returned Dick.  'A man of your appearance
+couldn't be.  If you're any spirit at all,sir, you're an evil
+spirit.  Choice spirits,' added Dick, smiting himself on the breast,
+'are quite a different looking sort of people, you may take your
+oath of that,sir.'
+
+Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression
+of cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same
+moment, declared that he was an uncommon character and had his
+warmest esteem.  With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the
+best of his way home and sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate
+upon the discovery he had made, and exult in the prospect of the
+rich field of enjoyment and reprisal it opened to him.
+
+It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr
+Swiveller, next morning, his head racked by the fumes of the
+renowned Schiedam, repaired to the lodging of his friend Trent
+(which was in the roof of an old house in an old ghostly inn), and
+recounted by very slow degrees what had yesterday taken place
+between him and Quilp.  Nor was it without great surprise and much
+speculation on Quilp's probable motives, nor without many bitter
+comments on Dick Swiveller's folly, that his friend received the
+tale.
+
+'I don't defend myself, Fred,' said the penitent Richard; 'but the
+fellow has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog,
+that first of all he set me upon thinking whether there was any
+harm in telling him, and while I was thinking, screwed it out of
+me.  If you had seen him drink and smoke, as I did, you couldn't
+have kept anything from him.  He's a Salamander you know, that's
+what he is.'
+
+Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good
+confidential agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of
+course trustworthy, Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair,
+and, burying his head in his hands, endeavoured to fathom the
+motives which had led Quilp to insinuate himself into Richard
+Swiveller's confidence;--for that the disclosure was of his
+seeking, and had not been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was
+sufficiently plain from Quilp's seeking his company and enticing
+him away.
+
+The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to
+obtain intelligence of the fugitives.  This, perhaps, as he had not
+shown any previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken
+suspicion in the breast of a creature so jealous and distrustful by
+nature, setting aside any additional impulse to curiosity that he
+might have derived from Dick's incautious manner.  But knowing the
+scheme they had planned, why should he offer to assist it?  This was
+a question more difficult of solution; but as knaves generally
+overreach themselves by imputing their own designs to others, the
+idea immediately presented itself that some circumstances of
+irritation between Quilp and the old man, arising out of their
+secret transactions and not unconnected perhaps with his sudden
+disappearance, now rendered the former desirous of revenging
+himself upon him by seeking to entrap the sole object of his love
+and anxiety into a connexion of which he knew he had a dread and
+hatred.  As Frederick Trent himself, utterly regardless of his
+sister, had this object at heart, only second to the hope of gain,
+it seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp's main principle of
+action.  Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in
+abetting them, which the attainment of their purpose would serve,
+it was easy to believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as
+there could be no doubt of his proving a powerful and useful
+auxiliary, Trent determined to accept his invitation and go to his
+house that night, and if what he said and did confirmed him in the
+impression he had formed, to let him share the labour of their
+plan, but not the profit.
+
+Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this
+conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his
+meditations as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly
+satisfied with less), and giving him the day to recover himself
+from his late salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr
+Quilp's house.
+
+Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to
+be; and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs jiniwin;
+and very sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she
+was affected by the recognition of young Trent.  Mrs Quilp was as
+innocent as her own mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant,
+which the sight of him awakened, but as her husband's glance made
+her timid and confused, and uncertain what to do or what was
+required of her, Mr Quilp did not fail to assign her embarrassment
+to the cause he had in his mind, and while he chuckled at his
+penetration was secretly exasperated by his jealousy.
+
+Nothing of this appeared, however.  On the contrary, Mr Quilp was
+all blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum
+with extraordinary open-heartedness.
+
+'Why, let me see,' said Quilp.  'It must be a matter of nearly two
+years since we were first acquainted.'
+
+'Nearer three, I think,' said Trent.
+
+'Nearer three!' cried Quilp.  'How fast time flies.  Does it seem as
+long as that to you, Mrs Quilp?'
+
+'Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,' was the
+unfortunate reply.
+
+'Oh indeed, ma'am,' thought Quilp, 'you have been pining, have you?
+Very good, ma'am.'
+
+'It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the
+Mary Anne,' said Quilp; 'but yesterday, I declare.  Well, I like a
+little wildness.  I was wild myself once.'
+
+Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink,
+indicative of old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was
+indignant, and could not forbear from remarking under her breath
+that he might at least put off his confessions until his wife was
+absent; for which act of boldness and insubordination Mr Quilp
+first stared her out of countenance and then drank her health
+ceremoniously.
+
+'I thought you'd come back directly, Fred.  I always thought that,'
+said Quilp setting down his glass.  'And when the Mary Anne returned
+with you on board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart
+you had, and how happy you were in the situation that had been
+provided for you, I was amused--exceedingly amused.  Ha ha ha!'
+
+The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most
+agreeable one that could have been selected for his entertainment;
+and for that reason Quilp pursued it.
+
+'I always will say,' he resumed, 'that when a rich relation having
+two young people--sisters or brothers, or brother and sister--
+dependent on him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts
+off the other, he does wrong.'
+
+The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as
+calmly as if he were discussing some abstract question in which
+nobody present had the slightest personal interest.
+
+'It's very true,' said Quilp, 'that your grandfather urged repeated
+forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but
+as I told him "these are common faults."  "But he's a scoundrel,"
+said he.  "Granting that," said I (for the sake of argument of
+course), "a great many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels
+too!" But he wouldn't be convinced.'
+
+'I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,' said the young man sarcastically.
+
+'Well, so did I at the time,' returned Quilp, 'but he was always
+obstinate.  He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always
+obstinate and wrong-headed.  Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming
+girl, but you're her brother, Frederick.  You're her brother after
+all; as you told him the last time you met, he can't alter that.'
+
+'He would if he could, confound him for that and all other
+kindnesses,' said the young man impatiently.  'But nothing can come
+of this subject now, and let us have done with it in the Devil's
+name.'
+
+'Agreed,' returned Quilp, 'agreed on my part readily.  Why have I
+alluded to it?  Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always
+stood your friend.  You little knew who was your friend, and who
+your foe; now did you?  You thought I was against you, and so there
+has been a coolness between us; but it was all on your side,
+entirely on your side.  Let's shake hands again, Fred.'
+
+With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin
+over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short
+arm across the table.  After a moment's hesitation, the young man
+stretched out his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip
+that for the moment stopped the current of the blood within them,
+and pressing his other hand upon his lip and frowning towards the
+unsuspicious Richard, released them and sat down.
+
+This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard
+Swiveller was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his
+designs than he thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf
+perfectly understood their relative position, and fully entered
+into the character of his friend.  It is something to be
+appreciated, even in knavery.  This silent homage to his superior
+abilities, no less than a sense of the power with which the dwarf's
+quick perception had already invested him, inclined the young man
+towards that ugly worthy, and determined him to profit by his aid.
+
+It being now Mr Quilp's cue to change the subject with all
+convenient expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness
+should reveal anything which it was inexpedient for the women to
+know, he proposed a game at four-handed cribbage, and partners
+being cut for, Mrs Quilp fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself
+to Quilp.  Mrs Jiniwin being very fond of cards was carefully
+excluded by her son-in-law from any participation in the game, and
+had assigned to her the duty of occasionally replenishing the
+glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp from that moment keeping one
+eye constantly upon her, lest she should by any means procure a
+taste of the same, and thereby tantalising the wretched old lady
+(who was as much attached to the case-bottle as the cards) in a
+double degree and most ingenious manner.
+
+But it was not to Mrs Jiniwin alone that Mr Quilp's attention was
+restricted, as several other matters required his constant
+vigilance.  Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous one
+of always cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part,
+not only a close observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in
+counting and scoring, but also involved the constant correction, by
+looks, and frowns, and kicks under the table, of Richard Swiveller,
+who being bewildered by the rapidity with which his cards were
+told, and the rate at which the pegs travelled down the board,
+could not be prevented from sometimes expressing his surprise and
+incredulity.  Mrs Quilp too was the partner of young Trent, and for
+every look that passed between them, and every word they spoke, and
+every card they played, the dwarf had eyes and ears; not occupied
+alone with what was passing above the table, but with signals that
+might be exchanging beneath it, which he laid all kinds of traps to
+detect; besides often treading on his wife's toes to see whether
+she cried out or remained silent under the infliction, in which
+latter case it would have been quite clear that Trent had been
+treading on her toes before.  Yet, in the most of all these
+distractions, the one eye was upon the old lady always, and if she
+so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards a neighbouring
+glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting but one
+sup of its sweet contents, Quilp's hand would overset it in the
+very moment of her triumph, and Quilp's mocking voice implore her
+to regard her precious health.  And in any one of these his many
+cares, from first to last, Quilp never flagged nor faltered.
+
+At length, when they had played a great many rubbers and drawn
+pretty freely upon the case-bottle, Mr Quilp warned his lady to
+retire to rest, and that submissive wife complying, and being
+followed by her indignant mother, Mr Swiveller fell asleep.  The
+dwarf beckoning his remaining companion to the other end of the
+room, held a short conference with him in whispers.
+
+'It's as well not to say more than one can help before our worthy
+friend,' said Quilp, making a grimace towards the slumbering Dick.
+'Is it a bargain between us, Fred?  Shall he marry little rosy Nell
+by-and-by?'
+
+'You have some end of your own to answer, of course,' returned the
+other.
+
+'Of course I have, dear Fred,' said Quilp, grinning to think how
+little he suspected what the real end was.  'It's retaliation
+perhaps; perhaps whim.  I have influence, Fred, to help or oppose.
+Which way shall I use it?  There are a pair of scales, and it goes
+into one.'
+
+'Throw it into mine then,' said Trent.
+
+'It's done, Fred,' rejoined Quilp, stretching out his clenched hand
+and opening it as if he had let some weight fall out.  'It's in the
+scale from this time, and turns it, Fred.  Mind that.'
+
+'Where have they gone?' asked Trent.
+
+Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be
+discovered, which it might be, easily.  When it was, they would
+begin their preliminary advances.  He would visit the old man, or
+even Richard Swiveller might visit him, and by affecting a deep
+concern in his behalf, and imploring him to settle in some worthy
+home, lead to the child's remembering him with gratitude and
+favour.  Once impressed to this extent, it would be easy, he said,
+to win her in a year or two, for she supposed the old man to be
+poor, as it was a part of his jealous policy (in common with many
+other misers) to feign to be so, to those about him.
+
+'He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,' said Trent.
+
+'Oh! and to me too!' replied the dwarf.  'Which is more
+extraordinary, as I know how rich he really is.'
+
+'I suppose you should,' said Trent.
+
+'I think I should indeed,' rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at
+least, he spoke the truth.
+
+After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and
+the young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was
+waiting to depart.  This was welcome news to Dick, who started up
+directly.  After a few words of confidence in the result of their
+project had been exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good
+night.
+
+Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and
+listened.  Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they
+were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to
+marry such a misshapen wretch as he.  The dwarf after watching their
+retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet
+displayed, stole softly in the dark to bed.
+
+In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had
+one thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell.  It
+would have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the
+butt of both, had been harassed by any such consideration; for his
+high opinion of his own merits and deserts rendered the project
+rather a laudable one than otherwise; and if he had been visited by
+so unwonted a guest as reflection, he would--being a brute only in
+the gratification of his appetites--have soothed his conscience
+with the plea that he did not mean to beat or kill his wife, and
+would therefore, after all said and done, be a very tolerable,
+average husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24
+
+
+It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer
+maintain the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that
+the old man and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest
+upon the borders of a little wood.  Here, though the course was
+hidden from their view, they could yet faintly distinguish the
+noise of distant shouts, the hum of voices, and the beating of
+drums.  Climbing the eminence which lay between them and the spot
+they had left, the child could even discern the fluttering flags
+and white tops of booths; but no person was approaching towards
+them, and their resting-place was solitary and still.
+
+Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling
+companion, or restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity.  His
+disordered imagination represented to him a crowd of persons
+stealing towards them beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in
+every ditch, and peeping from the boughs of every rustling tree.  He
+was haunted by apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy
+place where he would be chained and scourged, and worse than all,
+where Nell could never come to see him, save through iron bars and
+gratings in the wall.  His terrors affected the child.  Separation
+from her grandfather was the greatest evil she could dread; and
+feeling for the time as though, go where they would, they were to
+be hunted down, and could never be safe but in hiding, her heart
+failed her, and her courage drooped.
+
+In one so young, and so unused to the scenes in which she had
+lately moved, this sinking of the spirit was not surprising.  But,
+Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms--
+oftenest, God bless her, in female breasts--and when the child,
+casting her tearful eyes upon the old man, remembered how weak he
+was, and how destitute and helpless he would be if she failed him,
+her heart swelled within her, and animated her with new strength
+and fortitude.
+
+'We are quite safe now, and have nothing to fear indeed, dear
+grandfather,' she said.
+
+'Nothing to fear!' returned the old man.  'Nothing to fear if they
+took me from thee!  Nothing to fear if they parted us!  Nobody is
+true to me.  No, not one.  Not even Nell!'
+
+'Oh! do not say that,' replied the child, 'for if ever anybody was
+true at heart, and earnest, I am.  I am sure you know I am.'
+
+'Then how,' said the old man, looking fearfully round, 'how can you
+bear to think that we are safe, when they are searching for me
+everywhere, and may come here, and steal upon us, even while we're
+talking?'
+
+'Because I'm sure we have not been followed,' said the child.
+'Judge for yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how
+quiet and still it is.  We are alone together, and may ramble where
+we like.  Not safe!  Could I feel easy--did I feel at ease--when
+any danger threatened you?'
+
+'True, too,' he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking
+anxiously about.  'What noise was that?'
+
+'A bird,' said the child, 'flying into the wood, and leading the
+way for us to follow.'  You remember that we said we would walk in
+woods and fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would
+be--you remember that?  But here, while the sun shines above our
+heads, and everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly
+down, and losing time.  See what a pleasant path; and there's the
+bird--the same bird--now he flies to another tree, and stays to
+sing.  Come!'
+
+When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which
+led them through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny
+footsteps in the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure
+and gave it back as mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured
+the old man on, with many a backward look and merry beck, now
+pointing stealthily to some lone bird as it perched and twittered
+on a branch that strayed across their path, now stopping to listen
+to the songs that broke the happy silence, or watch the sun as it
+trembled through the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied trunks
+of stout old trees, opened long paths of light.  As they passed
+onward, parting the boughs that clustered in their way, the
+serenity which the child had first assumed, stole into her breast
+in earnest; the old man cast no longer fearful looks behind, but
+felt at ease and cheerful, for the further they passed into the
+deep green shade, the more they felt that the tranquil mind of God
+was there, and shed its peace on them.
+
+At length the path becoming clearer and less intricate, brought
+them to the end of the wood, and into a public road.  Taking their
+way along it for a short distance, they came to a lane, so shaded
+by the trees on either hand that they met together over-head, and
+arched the narrow way.  A broken finger-post announced that this led
+to a village three miles off; and thither they resolved to bend
+their steps.
+
+The miles appeared so long that they sometimes thought they must
+have missed their road.  But at last, to their great joy, it led
+downwards in a steep descent, with overhanging banks over which the
+footpaths led; and the clustered houses of the village peeped from
+the woody hollow below.
+
+It was a very small place.  The men and boys were playing at cricket
+on the green; and as the other folks were looking on, they wandered
+up and down, uncertain where to seek a humble lodging.  There was
+but one old man in the little garden before his cottage, and him
+they were timid of approaching, for he was the schoolmaster, and
+had 'School' written up over his window in black letters on a white
+board.  He was a pale, simple-looking man, of a spare and meagre
+habit, and sat among his flowers and beehives, smoking his pipe, in
+the little porch before his door.
+
+'Speak to him, dear,' the old man whispered.
+
+'I am almost afraid to disturb him,' said the child timidly.  'He
+does not seem to see us.  Perhaps if we wait a little, he may look
+this way.'
+
+They waited, but the schoolmaster cast no look towards them, and
+still sat, thoughtful and silent, in the little porch.  He had a
+kind face.  In his plain old suit of black, he looked pale and
+meagre.  They fancied, too, a lonely air about him and his house,
+but perhaps that was because the other people formed a merry
+company upon the green, and he seemed the only solitary man in all
+the place.
+
+They were very tired, and the child would have been bold enough to
+address even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which
+seemed to denote that he was uneasy or distressed.  As they stood
+hesitating at a little distance, they saw that he sat for a few
+minutes at a time like one in a brown study, then laid aside his
+pipe and took a few turns in his garden, then approached the gate
+and looked towards the green, then took up his pipe again with a
+sigh, and sat down thoughtfully as before.
+
+As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length
+took courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured
+to draw near, leading her grandfather by the hand.  The slight noise
+they made in raising the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his
+attention.  He looked at them kindly but seemed disappointed too,
+and slightly shook his head.
+
+Nell dropped a curtsey, and told him they were poor travellers who
+sought a shelter for the night which they would gladly pay for, so
+far as their means allowed.  The schoolmaster looked earnestly at
+her as she spoke, laid aside his pipe, and rose up directly.
+
+'If you could direct us anywhere,sir,' said the child, 'we should
+take it very kindly.'
+
+'You have been walking a long way,' said the schoolmaster.
+
+'A long way, Sir,' the child replied.
+
+'You're a young traveller, my child,' he said, laying his hand
+gently on her head.  'Your grandchild, friend?  '
+
+'Aye, Sir,' cried the old man, 'and the stay and comfort of my
+life.'
+
+'Come in,' said the schoolmaster.
+
+Without further preface he conducted them into his little
+school-room, which was parlour and kitchen likewise, and told them
+that they were welcome to remain under his roof till morning.
+Before they had done thanking him, he spread a coarse white cloth
+upon the table, with knives and platters; and bringing out some
+bread and cold meat and a jug of beer, besought them to eat and
+drink.
+
+The child looked round the room as she took her seat.  There were a
+couple of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal
+desk perched on four legs, at which no doubt the master sat; a few
+dog's-eared books upon a high shelf; and beside them a motley
+collection of peg-tops, balls, kites, fishing-lines, marbles,
+half-eaten apples, and other confiscated property of idle urchins.
+Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors, were the
+cane and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the
+dunce's cap, made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring
+wafers of the largest size.  But, the great ornaments of the walls
+were certain moral sentences fairly copied in good round text, and
+well-worked sums in simple addition and multiplication, evidently
+achieved by the same hand, which were plentifully pasted all round
+the room: for the double purpose, as it seemed, of bearing
+testimony to the excellence of the school, and kindling a worthy
+emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.
+
+'Yes,' said the old schoolmaster, observing that her attention was
+caught by these latter specimens.  'That's beautiful writing, my
+dear.'
+
+'Very, Sir,' replied the child modestly, 'is it yours?'
+
+'Mine!' he returned, taking out his spectacles and putting them on,
+to have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart.  'I
+couldn't write like that, now-a-days.  No.  They're all done by one
+hand; a little hand it is, not so old as yours, but a very clever one.'
+
+As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had
+been thrown on one of the copies, so he took a penknife from his
+pocket, and going up to the wall, carefully scraped it out.  When he
+had finished, he walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring
+it as one might contemplate a beautiful picture, but with something
+of sadness in his voice and manner which quite touched the child,
+though she was unacquainted with its cause.
+
+'A little hand indeed,' said the poor schoolmaster.  'Far beyond all
+his companions, in his learning and his sports too, how did he ever
+come to be so fond of me!  That I should love him is no wonder, but
+that he should love me--' and there the schoolmaster stopped, and
+took off his spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim.
+
+'I hope there is nothing the matter,sir,' said Nell anxiously.
+
+'Not much, my dear,' returned the schoolmaster.  'I hoped to have
+seen him on the green to-night.  He was always foremost among them.
+But he'll be there to-morrow.'
+
+'Has he been ill?' asked the child, with a child's quick sympathy.
+
+'Not very.  They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear
+boy, and so they said the day before.  But that's a part of that
+kind of disorder; it's not a bad sign--not at all a bad sign.'
+The child was silent.  He walked to the door, and looked wistfully
+out.  The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still.
+
+'If he could lean upon anybody's arm, he would come to me, I know,'
+he said, returning into the room.  'He always came into the garden
+to say good night.  But perhaps his illness has only just taken a
+favourable turn, and it's too late for him to come out, for it's
+very damp and there's a heavy dew.  it's much better he shouldn't
+come to-night.'
+
+The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter,
+and closed the door.  But after he had done this, and sat silent a
+little time, he took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy
+himself, if Nell would sit up till he returned.  The child readily
+complied, and he went out.
+
+She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange
+and lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed,
+and there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock,
+and the whistling of the wind among the trees.  When he returned, he
+took his seat in the chimney corner, but remained silent for a long
+time.  At length he turned to her, and speaking very gently, hoped
+she would say a prayer that night for a sick child.
+
+'My favourite scholar!' said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe
+he had forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the
+walls.  'It is a little hand to have done all that, and waste away
+with sickness.  It is a very, very little hand!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25
+
+
+After a sound night's rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in
+which it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but
+which he had lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own,
+the child rose early in the morning and descended to the room where
+she had supped last night.  As the schoolmaster had already left his
+bed and gone out, she bestirred herself to make it neat and
+comfortable, and had just finished its arrangement when the kind
+host returned.
+
+He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually
+did such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom
+he had told her of.  The child asked how he was, and hoped he was
+better.
+
+'No,' rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, 'no
+better.  They even say he is worse.'
+
+'I am very sorry for that, Sir,' said the child.
+
+The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest
+manner, but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily
+that anxious people often magnified an evil and thought it greater
+than it was; 'for my part,' he said, in his quiet, patient way, 'I
+hope it's not so.  I don't think he can be worse.'
+
+The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather
+coming down stairs, they all three partook of it together.  While
+the meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man
+seemed much fatigued, and evidently stood in need of rest.
+
+'If the journey you have before you is a long one,' he said, 'and
+don't press you for one day, you're very welcome to pass another
+night here.  I should really be glad if you would, friend.'
+
+He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept
+or decline his offer; and added,
+
+'I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day.
+If you can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the
+same time, do so.  If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you
+well through it, and will walk a little way with you before school
+begins.'
+
+'What are we to do, Nell?' said the old man irresolutely, 'say what
+we're to do, dear.'
+
+It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that
+they had better accept the invitation and remain.  She was happy to
+show her gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in
+the performance of such household duties as his little cottage
+stood in need of.  When these were done, she took some needle-work
+from her basket, and sat herself down upon a stool beside the
+lattice, where the honeysuckle and woodbine entwined their tender
+stems, and stealing into the room filled it with their delicious
+breath.  Her grandfather was basking in the sun outside, breathing
+the perfume of the flowers, and idly watching the clouds as they
+floated on before the light summer wind.
+
+As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order,
+took his seat behind his desk and made other preparations for
+school, the child was apprehensive that she might be in the way,
+and offered to withdraw to her little bedroom.  But this he would
+not allow, and as he seemed pleased to have her there, she
+remained, busying herself with her work.
+
+'Have you many scholars, sir?' she asked.
+
+The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely
+filled the two forms.
+
+'Are the others clever, sir?' asked the child, glancing at the
+trophies on the wall.
+
+'Good boys,' returned the schoolmaster, 'good boys enough, my dear,
+but they'll never do like that.'
+
+A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door
+while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow,
+came in and took his seat upon one of the forms.  The white-headed
+boy then put an open book, astonishingly dog's-eared upon his
+knees, and thrusting his hands into his pockets began counting the
+marbles with which they were filled; displaying in the expression
+of his face a remarkable capacity of totally abstracting his mind
+from the spelling on which his eyes were fixed.  Soon afterwards
+another white-headed little boy came straggling in, and after him
+a red-headed lad, and after him two more with white heads, and then
+one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the forms were occupied by
+a dozen boys or thereabouts, with heads of every colour but grey,
+and ranging in their ages from four years old to fourteen years or
+more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way from the floor
+when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a heavy good-tempered
+foolish fellow, about half a head taller than the schoolmaster.
+
+At the top of the first form--the post of honour in the school--
+was the vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of
+the row of pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont
+to hang them up, one was left empty.  No boy attempted to violate
+the sanctity of seat or peg, but many a one looked from the empty
+spaces to the schoolmaster, and whispered his idle neighbour behind
+his hand.
+
+Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by
+heart, the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and
+drawl of school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor
+schoolmaster, the very image of meekness and simplicity, vainly
+attempting to fix his mind upon the duties of the day, and to
+forget his little friend.  But the tedium of his office reminded him
+more strongly of the willing scholar, and his thoughts were
+rambling from his pupils--it was plain.
+
+None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder
+with impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even
+under the master's eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke,
+pinching each other in sport or malice without the least reserve,
+and cutting their autographs in the very legs of his desk.  The
+puzzled dunce, who stood beside it to say his lesson out of book,
+looked no longer at the ceiling for forgotten words, but drew
+closer to the master's elbow and boldly cast his eye upon the page;
+the wag of the little troop squinted and made grimaces (at the
+smallest boy of course), holding no book before his face, and his
+approving audience knew no constraint in their delight.  If the
+master did chance to rouse himself and seem alive to what was going
+on, the noise subsided for a moment and no eyes met his but wore a
+studious and a deeply humble look; but the instant he relapsed
+again, it broke out afresh, and ten times louder than before.
+
+Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how
+they looked at the open door and window, as if they half
+meditated rushing violently out, plunging into the woods, and being
+wild boys and savages from that time forth.  What rebellious
+thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath
+willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and
+urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and
+flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with
+a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly,
+or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling day!  Heat!
+ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to the door gave him
+opportunities of gliding out into the garden and driving his
+companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket of the
+well and then rolling on the grass--ask him if there were ever
+such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into
+the cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up
+their minds to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey
+no more.  The day was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in
+green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one
+to shut one's eyes and go to sleep; and was this a time to be
+poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by the very sun
+itself?  Monstrous!
+
+Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still
+to all that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous
+boys.  The lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one
+desk and that the master's, each boy sat at it in turn and laboured
+at his crooked copy, while the master walked about.  This was a
+quieter time; for he would come and look over the writer's
+shoulder, and tell him mildly to observe how such a letter was
+turned in such a copy on the wall, praise such an up-stroke here
+and such a down-stroke there, and bid him take it for his model.
+Then he would stop and tell them what the sick child had said last
+night, and how he had longed to be among them once again; and such
+was the poor schoolmaster's gentle and affectionate manner, that
+the boys seemed quite remorseful that they had worried him so much,
+and were absolutely quiet; eating no apples, cutting no names,
+inflicting no pinches, and making no grimaces, for full two minutes
+afterwards.
+
+'I think, boys,' said the schoolmaster when the clock struck
+twelve, 'that I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon.'
+
+At this intelligence, the boys, led on and headed by the tall boy,
+raised a great shout, in the midst of which the master was seen to
+speak, but could not be heard.  As he held up his hand, however, in
+token of his wish that they should be silent, they were considerate
+enough to leave off, as soon as the longest-winded among them were
+quite out of breath.
+
+'You must promise me first,' said the schoolmaster, 'that you'll
+not be noisy, or at least, if you are, that you'll go away and be
+so--away out of the village I mean.  I'm sure you wouldn't disturb
+your old playmate and companion.'
+
+There was a general murmur (and perhaps a very sincere one, for
+they were but boys) in the negative; and the tall boy, perhaps as
+sincerely as any of them, called those about him to witness that he
+had only shouted in a whisper.
+
+'Then pray don't forget, there's my dear scholars,' said the
+schoolmaster, 'what I have asked you, and do it as a favour to me.
+Be as happy as you can, and don't be unmindful that you are blessed
+with health.  Good-bye all!'
+
+'Thank'ee, Sir,' and 'good-bye, Sir,' were said a good many times
+in a variety of voices, and the boys went out very slowly and
+softly.  But there was the sun shining and there were the birds
+singing, as the sun only shines and the birds only sing on holidays
+and half-holidays; there were the trees waving to all free boys to
+climb and nestle among their leafy branches; the hay, entreating
+them to come and scatter it to the pure air; the green corn, gently
+beckoning towards wood and stream; the smooth ground, rendered
+smoother still by blending lights and shadows, inviting to runs and
+leaps, and long walks God knows whither.  It was more than boy could
+bear, and with a joyous whoop the whole cluster took to their heels
+and spread themselves about, shouting and laughing as they went.
+
+'It's natural, thank Heaven!' said the poor schoolmaster, looking
+after them.  'I'm very glad they didn't mind me!'
+
+It is difficult, however, to please everybody, as most of us would
+have discovered, even without the fable which bears that moral, and
+in the course of the afternoon several mothers and aunts of pupils
+looked in to express their entire disapproval of the schoolmaster's
+proceeding.  A few confined themselves to hints, such as politely
+inquiring what red-letter day or saint's day the almanack said it
+was; a few (these were the profound village politicians) argued
+that it was a slight to the throne and an affront to church and
+state, and savoured of revolutionary principles, to grant a
+half-holiday upon any lighter occasion than the birthday of the
+Monarch; but the majority expressed their displeasure on private
+grounds and in plain terms, arguing that to put the pupils on this
+short allowance of learning was nothing but an act of downright
+robbery and fraud: and one old lady, finding that she could not
+inflame or irritate the peaceable schoolmaster by talking to him,
+bounced out of his house and talked at him for half-an-hour outside
+his own window, to another old lady, saying that of course he would
+deduct this half-holiday from his weekly charge, or of course he
+would naturally expect to have an opposition started against him;
+there was no want of idle chaps in that neighbourhood (here the old
+lady raised her voice), and some chaps who were too idle even to be
+schoolmasters, might soon find that there were other chaps put over
+their heads, and so she would have them take care, and look pretty
+sharp about them.  But all these taunts and vexations failed to
+elicit one word from the meek schoolmaster, who sat with the child
+by his side--a little more dejected perhaps, but quite silent and
+uncomplaining.
+
+Towards night an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily
+as she could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was
+to go to Dame West's directly, and had best run on before her.  He
+and the child were on the point of going out together for a walk,
+and without relinquishing her hand, the schoolmaster hurried away,
+leaving the messenger to follow as she might.
+
+They stopped at a cottage-door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly
+at it with his hand.  It was opened without loss of time.  They
+entered a room where a little group of women were gathered about
+one, older than the rest, who was crying very bitterly, and sat
+wringing her hands and rocking herself to and fro.
+
+'Oh, dame!' said the schoolmaster, drawing near her chair, 'is it
+so bad as this?'
+
+'He's going fast,' cried the old woman; 'my grandson's dying.  It's
+all along of you.  You shouldn't see him now, but for his being so
+earnest on it.  This is what his learning has brought him to.  Oh
+dear, dear, dear, what can I do!'
+
+'Do not say that I am in any fault,' urged the gentle school-
+master.  'I am not hurt, dame.  No, no.  You are in great distress of
+mind, and don't mean what you say.  I am sure you don't.'
+
+'I do,' returned the old woman.  'I mean it all.  If he hadn't been
+poring over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well
+and merry now, I know he would.'
+
+The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat
+some one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook
+their heads, and murmured to each other that they never thought
+there was much good in learning, and that this convinced them.
+Without saying a word in reply, or giving them a look of reproach,
+he followed the old woman who had summoned him (and who had now
+rejoined them) into another room, where his infant friend,
+half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.
+
+He was a very young boy; quite a little child.  His hair still hung
+in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their
+light was of Heaven, not earth.  The schoolmaster took a seat beside
+him, and stooping over the pillow, whispered his name.  The boy
+sprung up, stroked his face with his hand, and threw his wasted
+arms round his neck, crying out that he was his dear kind friend.
+
+'I hope I always was.  I meant to be, God knows,' said the poor
+schoolmaster.
+
+'Who is that?' said the boy, seeing Nell.  'I am afraid to kiss her,
+lest I should make her ill.  Ask her to shake hands with me.'  The
+sobbing child came closer up, and took the little languid hand in
+hers.  Releasing his again after a time, the sick boy laid him
+gently down.
+
+'You remember the garden, Harry,' whispered the schoolmaster,
+anxious to rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the
+child, 'and how pleasant it used to be in the evening time?  You
+must make haste to visit it again, for I think the very flowers
+have missed you, and are less gay than they used to be.  You will
+come soon, my dear, very soon now--won't you?'
+
+The boy smiled faintly--so very, very faintly--and put his hand
+upon his friend's grey head.  He moved his lips too, but no voice
+came from them; no, not a sound.
+
+In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices borne upon
+the evening air came floating through the open window.  'What's
+that?' said the sick child, opening his eyes.
+
+'The boys at play upon the green.'
+
+He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above
+his head.  But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.
+
+'Shall I do it?' said the schoolmaster.
+
+'Please wave it at the window,' was the faint reply.  'Tie it to the
+lattice.  Some of them may see it there.  Perhaps they'll think of
+me, and look this way.'
+
+He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his
+idle bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property
+upon a table in the room.  And then he laid him softly down once more,
+and asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her.
+
+She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the
+coverlet.  The two old friends and companions--for such they were,
+though they were man and child--held each other in a long embrace,
+and then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and
+fell asleep.
+
+The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold
+hand in his, and chafing it.  It was but the hand of a dead child.
+He felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26
+
+
+Almost broken-hearted, Nell withdrew with the schoolmaster from the
+bedside and returned to his cottage.  In the midst of her grief and
+tears she was yet careful to conceal their real cause from the old
+man, for the dead boy had been a grandchild, and left but one aged
+relative to mourn his premature decay.
+
+She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was
+alone, gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was
+overcharged.  But the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without
+its lesson of content and gratitude; of content with the lot which
+left her health and freedom; and gratitude that she was spared to
+the one relative and friend she loved, and to live and move in a
+beautiful world, when so many young creatures--as young and full
+of hope as she--were stricken down and gathered to their graves.
+How many of the mounds in that old churchyard where she had lately
+strayed, grew green above the graves of children!  And though she
+thought as a child herself, and did not perhaps sufficiently
+consider to what a bright and happy existence those who die young
+are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of seeing others die
+around them, bearing to the tomb some strong affection of their
+hearts (which makes the old die many times in one long life), still
+she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy moral from what
+she had seen that night, and to store it, deep in her mind.
+
+Her dreams were of the little scholar: not coffined and covered up,
+but mingling with angels, and smiling happily.  The sun darting his
+cheerful rays into the room, awoke her; and now there remained but
+to take leave of the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more.
+
+By the time they were ready to depart, school had begun.  In the
+darkened room, the din of yesterday was going on again: a little
+sobered and softened down, perhaps, but only a very little, if at
+all.  The schoolmaster rose from his desk and walked with them to
+the gate.
+
+It was with a trembling and reluctant hand, that the child held out
+to him the money which the lady had given her at the races for her
+flowers: faltering in her thanks as she thought how small the sum
+was, and blushing as she offered it.  But he bade her put it up,
+and stooping to kiss her cheek, turned back into his house.
+
+They had not gone half-a-dozen paces when he was at the door again;
+the old man retraced his steps to shake hands, and the child did
+the same.
+
+'Good fortune and happiness go with you!' said the poor
+schoolmaster.  'I am quite a solitary man now.  If you ever pass
+this way again, you'll not forget the little village-school.'
+
+'We shall never forget it, sir,' rejoined Nell; 'nor ever forget to
+be grateful to you for your kindness to us.'
+
+'I have heard such words from the lips of children very often,'
+said the schoolmaster, shaking his head, and smiling thoughtfully,
+'but they were soon forgotten.  I had attached one young friend to
+me, the better friend for being young--but that's over--God bless
+you!'
+
+They bade him farewell very many times, and turned away, walking
+slowly and often looking back, until they could see him no more.
+At length they had left the village far behind, and even lost sight
+of the smoke among the trees.  They trudged onward now, at a
+quicker pace, resolving to keep the main road, and go wherever it
+might lead them.
+
+But main roads stretch a long, long way.  With the exception of two
+or three inconsiderable clusters of cottages which they passed,
+without stopping, and one lonely road-side public-house where they
+had some bread and cheese, this highway had led them to nothing--
+late in the afternoon--and still lengthened out, far in the
+distance, the same dull, tedious, winding course, that they had
+been pursuing all day.  As they had no resource, however, but to go
+forward, they still kept on, though at a much slower pace, being
+very weary and fatigued.
+
+The afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they
+arrived at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck
+across a common.  On the border of this common, and close to the
+hedge which divided it from the cultivated fields, a caravan was
+drawn up to rest; upon which, by reason of its situation, they came
+so suddenly that they could not have avoided it if they would.
+
+It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house
+upon wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and
+window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red,
+in which happily-contrasted colours the whole concern shone
+brilliant.  Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey
+or emaciated horse, for a pair of horses in pretty
+good condition were released from the shafts and grazing on the
+frouzy grass.  Neither was it a gipsy caravan, for at the open door
+(graced with a bright brass knocker) sat a Christian lady, stout
+and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet trembling
+with bows.  And that it was not an unprovided or destitute caravan
+was clear from this lady's occupation, which was the very pleasant
+and refreshing one of taking tea.  The tea-things, including a
+bottle of rather suspicious character and a cold knuckle of ham,
+were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and there,
+as if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat
+this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect.
+
+It happened that at that moment the lady of the caravan had her cup
+(which, that everything about her might be of a stout and
+comfortable kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having
+her eyes lifted to the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavour of
+the tea, not unmingled possibly with just the slightest
+dash or gleam of something out of the suspicious bottle--but this
+is mere speculation and not distinct matter of history--it
+happened that being thus agreeably engaged, she did not see the
+travellers when they first came up.  It was not until she was in
+the act of getting down the cup, and drawing a long breath after
+the exertion of causing its contents to disappear, that the lady of
+the caravan beheld an old man and a young child walking slowly by,
+and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of modest but hungry
+admiration.
+
+'Hey!' cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of
+her lap and swallowing the same before wiping her lips.  'Yes, to
+be sure--Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?'
+
+'Won what, ma'am?' asked Nell.
+
+'The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child--the plate that was
+run for on the second day.'
+
+'On the second day, ma'am?'
+
+'Second day!  Yes, second day,' repeated the lady with an air of
+impatience.  'Can't you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when
+you're asked the question civilly?'
+
+'I don't know, ma'am.'
+
+'Don't know!' repeated the lady of the caravan; 'why, you were
+there.  I saw you with my own eyes.'
+
+Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady
+might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin;
+but what followed tended to reassure her.
+
+'And very sorry I was,' said the lady of the caravan, 'to see you
+in company with a Punch; a low, practical, wulgar wretch, that
+people should scorn to look at.'
+
+'I was not there by choice,' returned the child; 'we didn't know
+our way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel
+with them.  Do you--do you know them, ma'am?'
+
+'Know 'em, child!' cried the lady of the caravan in a sort of
+shriek.  'Know them!  But you're young and inexperienced, and
+that's your excuse for asking sich a question.  Do I look as if I
+know'd 'em, does the caravan look as if it know'd 'em?'
+
+'No, ma'am, no,' said the child, fearing she had committed some
+grievous fault.  'I beg your pardon.'
+
+It was granted immediately, though the lady still appeared much
+ruffled and discomposed by the degrading supposition.  The child
+then explained that they had left the races on the first day, and
+were travelling to the next town on that road, where they purposed
+to spend the night.  As the countenance of the stout lady began to
+clear up, she ventured to inquire how far it was.  The reply--which
+the stout lady did not come to, until she had thoroughly explained
+that she went to the races on the first day in a gig, and as an
+expedition of pleasure, and that her presence there had no
+connexion with any matters of business or profit--was, that the
+town was eight miles off.
+
+This discouraging information a little dashed the child, who could
+scarcely repress a tear as she glanced along the darkening road.
+Her grandfather made no complaint, but he sighed heavily as he
+leaned upon his staff, and vainly tried to pierce the dusty
+distance.
+
+The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea
+equipage together preparatory to clearing the table, but noting the
+child's anxious manner she hesitated and stopped.  The child
+curtseyed, thanked her for her information, and giving her hand to
+the old man had already got some fifty yards or so away, when the
+lady of the caravan called to her to return.
+
+'Come nearer, nearer still,' said she, beckoning to her to ascend
+the steps.  'Are you hungry, child?'
+
+'Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it IS a long way.'
+
+'Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea,' rejoined her
+new acquaintance.  'I suppose you are agreeable to that, old
+gentleman?'
+
+The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her.  The
+lady of the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but
+the drum proving an inconvenient table for two, they descended
+again, and sat upon the grass, where she handed down to them the
+tea-tray, the bread and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short
+everything of which she had partaken herself, except the bottle
+which she had already embraced an opportunity of slipping into her
+pocket.
+
+'Set 'em out near the hind wheels, child, that's the best place,'
+said their friend, superintending the arrangements from above.
+'Now hand up the teapot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of
+fresh tea, and then both of you eat and drink as much as you can,
+and don't spare anything; that's all I ask of you.'
+
+They might perhaps have carried out the lady's wish, if it had been
+less freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all.
+But as this direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or
+uneasiness, they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.
+
+While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted
+on the earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large
+bonnet trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured
+tread and very stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to
+time with an air of calm delight, and deriving particular
+gratification from the red panels and the brass knocker.  When she
+had taken this gentle exercise for some time, she sat down upon the
+steps and called 'George'; whereupon a man in a carter's frock, who
+had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as to see
+everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs
+that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting attitude, supporting
+on his legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone bottle, and
+bearing in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.
+
+'Yes, Missus,' said George.
+
+'How did you find the cold pie, George?'
+
+'It warn't amiss, mum.'
+
+'And the beer,' said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of
+being more interested in this question than the last; 'is it
+passable, George?'
+
+'It's more flatterer than it might be,' George returned, 'but it
+an't so bad for all that.'
+
+To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting
+in quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and
+then smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head.  No
+doubt with the same amiable desire, he immediately resumed his
+knife and fork, as a practical assurance that the beer had wrought
+no bad effect upon his appetite.
+
+The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time, and
+then said,
+
+'Have you nearly finished?'
+
+'Wery nigh, mum.'  And indeed, after scraping the dish all round
+with his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth,
+and after taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that,
+by degrees almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went further
+and further back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the
+ground, this gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came
+forth from his retreat.
+
+'I hope I haven't hurried you, George,' said his mistress, who
+appeared to have a great sympathy with his late pursuit.
+
+'If you have,' returned the follower, wisely reserving himself
+for any favourable contingency that might occur, 'we must make up
+for it next time, that's all.'
+
+'We are not a heavy load, George?'
+
+'That's always what the ladies say,' replied the man, looking a
+long way round, as if he were appealing to Nature in general
+against such monstrous propositions.  'If you see a woman a
+driving, you'll always perceive that she never will keep her whip
+still; the horse can't go fast enough for her.  If cattle have got
+their proper load, you never can persuade a woman that they'll not
+bear something more.  What is ' the cause of this here?'
+
+'Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if
+we took them with us?' asked his mistress, offering no reply to the
+philosophical inquiry, and pointing to Nell and the old man, who
+were painfully preparing to resume their journey on foot.
+
+'They'd make a difference in course,' said George doggedly.
+
+'Would they make much difference?' repeated his mistress.  'They
+can't be very heavy.'
+
+'The weight o' the pair, mum,' said George, eyeing them with the
+look of a man who was calculating within half an ounce or so,
+'would be a trifle under that of Oliver Cromwell."
+
+Nell was very much surprised that the man should be so accurately
+acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read of in books as
+having lived considerably before their time, but speedily forgot
+the subject in the joy of hearing that they were to go forward in
+the caravan, for which she thanked its lady with unaffected
+earnestness.  She helped with great readiness and alacrity to put
+away the tea-things and other matters that were lying about, and,
+the horses being by that time harnessed, mounted into the vehicle,
+followed by her delighted grandfather.  Their patroness then shut
+the door and sat herself down by her drum at an open window; and,
+the steps being struck by George and stowed under the carriage,
+away they went, with a great noise of flapping and creaking and
+straining, and the bright brass knocker, which nobody ever knocked
+at, knocking one perpetual double knock of its own accord as they
+jolted heavily along.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27
+
+
+When they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance,
+Nell ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more
+closely.  One half of it--that moiety in which the comfortable
+proprietress was then seated--was carpeted, and so partitioned off
+at the further end as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed
+after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which was shaded, like
+the little windows, with fair white curtains, and looked
+comfortable enough, though by what kind of gymnastic exercise the
+lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it, was an
+unfathomable mystery.  The other half served for a kitchen, and was
+fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof.
+It held also a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of
+water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery.  These
+latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which, in that portion of
+the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were
+ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle
+and a couple of well-thumbed tambourines.
+
+The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride and
+poetry of the musical instruments, and little Nell and her
+grandfather sat at the other in all the humility of the kettle and
+saucepans, while the machine jogged on and shifted the darkening
+prospect very slowly.  At first the two travellers spoke little,
+and only in whispers, but as they grew more familiar with the place
+they ventured to converse with greater freedom, and talked about
+the country through which they were passing, and the different
+objects that presented themselves, until the old man fell asleep;
+which the lady of the caravan observing, invited Nell to come and
+sit beside her.
+
+'Well, child,' she said, 'how do you like this way of travelling?'
+
+Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed, to which
+the lady assented in the case of people who had their spirits.  For
+herself, she said, she was troubled with a lowness in that respect
+which required a constant stimulant; though whether the aforesaid
+stimulant was derived from the suspicious bottle of which mention
+has been already made or from other sources, she did not say.
+
+'That's the happiness of you young people,' she continued.  'You
+don't know what it is to be low in your feelings.  You always have
+your appetites too, and what a comfort that is.'
+
+Nell thought that she could sometimes dispense with her own
+appetite very conveniently; and thought, moreover, that there was
+nothing either in the lady's personal appearance or in her manner
+of taking tea, to lead to the conclusion that her natural relish
+for meat and drink had at all failed her.  She silently assented,
+however, as in duty bound, to what the lady had said, and waited
+until she should speak again.
+
+Instead of speaking, however, she sat looking at the child for a
+long time in silence, and then getting up, brought out from a
+corner a large roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid
+upon the floor and spread open with her foot until it nearly
+reached from one end of the caravan to the other.
+
+'There, child,' she said, 'read that.'
+
+Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the
+inscription, 'Jarley's WAX-WORK.'
+
+'Read it again,' said the lady, complacently.
+
+'Jarley's Wax-Work,' repeated Nell.
+
+'That's me,' said the lady.  'I am Mrs Jarley.'
+
+Giving the child an encouraging look, intended to reassure her and
+let her know, that, although she stood in the presence of the
+original Jarley, she must not allow herself to be utterly
+overwhelmed and borne down, the lady of the caravan unfolded
+another scroll, whereon was the inscription, 'One hundred figures
+the full size of life,' and then another scroll, on which was
+written, 'The only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the
+world,' and then several smaller scrolls with such inscriptions as
+'Now exhibiting within'--'The genuine and only Jarley'--'Jarley's
+unrivalled collection'--'Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and
+Gentry'--'The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.'  When she
+had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the
+astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in
+the shape of hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of
+parodies on popular melodies, as 'Believe me if all Jarley's
+wax-work so rare'--'I saw thy show in youthful prime'--'Over the
+water to Jarley;' while, to consult all tastes, others were
+composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious spirits, as
+a parody on the favourite air of 'If I had a donkey,' beginning
+
+
+If I know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go
+To see Mrs JARLEY'S wax-work show,
+Do you think I'd acknowledge him?   Oh no no!
+Then run to Jarley's--
+
+
+--besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues
+between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of
+Canterbury and a dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all
+having the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to
+Jarley's, and that children and servants were admitted at
+half-price.  When she had brought all these testimonials of her
+important position in society to bear upon her young companion, Mrs
+Jarley rolled them up, and having put them carefully away, sat down
+again, and looked at the child in triumph.
+
+'Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,' said Mrs
+Jarley, 'after this.'
+
+'I never saw any wax-work, ma'am,' said Nell.  'Is it funnier than Punch?'
+
+'Funnier!' said Mrs Jarley in a shrill voice.  'It is not funny at all.'
+
+'Oh!' said Nell, with all possible humility.
+
+'It isn't funny at all,' repeated Mrs Jarley.  'It's calm and--
+what's that word again--critical? --no--classical, that's it--
+it's calm and classical.  No low beatings and knockings about, no
+jokings and squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the
+same, with a constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility;
+and so like life, that if wax-work only spoke and walked about,
+you'd hardly know the difference.  I won't go so far as to say,
+that, as it is, I've seen wax-work quite like life, but I've
+certainly seen some life that was exactly like wax-work.'
+
+'Is it here, ma'am?' asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by
+this description.
+
+'Is what here, child?'
+
+'The wax-work, ma'am.'
+
+'Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of?  How could such
+a collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of
+one little cupboard and a few boxes?  It's gone on in the other
+wans to the assembly-rooms, and there it'll be exhibited the day
+after to-morrow.  You are going to the same town, and you'll see it
+I dare say.  It's natural to expect that you'll see
+it, and I've no doubt you will.  I suppose you couldn't stop away
+if you was to try ever so much.'
+
+'I shall not be in the town, I think, ma'am,' said the child.
+
+'Not there!' cried Mrs Jarley.  'Then where will you be?'
+
+'I--I--don't quite know.  I am not certain.'
+
+'You don't mean to say that you're travelling about the country
+without knowing where you're going to?' said the lady of the
+caravan.  'What curious people you are!  What line are you in?  You
+looked to me at the races, child, as if you were quite out of your
+element, and had got there by accident.'
+
+'We were there quite by accident,' returned Nell, confused by this
+abrupt questioning.  'We are poor people, ma'am, and are only
+wandering about.  We have nothing to do;--I wish we had.'
+
+'You amaze me more and more,' said Mrs Jarley, after remaining for
+some time as mute as one of her own figures.  'Why, what do you
+call yourselves?  Not beggars?'
+
+'Indeed, ma'am, I don't know what else we are,' returned the child.
+
+'Lord bless me,' said the lady of the caravan.  'I never heard of
+such a thing.  Who'd have thought it!'
+
+She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell
+feared she felt her having been induced to bestow her protection
+and conversation upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her
+dignity that nothing could repair.  This persuasion was rather
+confirmed than otherwise by the tone in which she at length broke
+silence and said,
+
+'And yet you can read.  And write too, I shouldn't wonder?'
+
+'Yes, ma'am,' said the child, fearful of giving new offence by the
+confession.
+
+'Well, and what a thing that is,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'I can't!'
+
+Nell said 'indeed' in a tone which might imply, either that she was
+reasonably surprised to find the genuine and only Jarley, who was
+the delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the peculiar pet of the
+Royal Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she
+presumed so great a lady could scarcely stand in need of such
+ordinary accomplishments.  In whatever way Mrs Jarley received the
+response, it did not provoke her to further questioning, or tempt
+her into any more remarks at the time, for she relapsed into a
+thoughtful silence, and remained in that state so long that Nell
+withdrew to the other window and rejoined her grandfather, who was
+now awake.
+
+At length the lady of the caravan shook off her fit of meditation,
+and, summoning the driver to come under the window at which she was
+seated, held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice,
+as if she were asking his advice on an important point, and
+discussing the pros and cons of some very weighty matter.  This
+conference at length concluded, she drew in her head again, and
+beckoned Nell to approach.
+
+'And the old gentleman too,' said Mrs Jarley; 'for I want to have
+a word with him.  Do you want a good situation for your
+grand-daughter, master?  If you do, I can put her in the way of
+getting one.  What do you say?'
+
+'I can't leave her,' answered the old man.  'We can't separate.
+What would become of me without her?'
+
+'I should have thought you were old enough to take care of
+yourself, if you ever will be,' retorted Mrs Jarley sharply.
+
+'But he never will be,' said the child in an earnest whisper.  'I
+fear he never will be again.  Pray do not speak harshly to him.  We
+are very thankful to you,' she added aloud; 'but neither of us
+could part from the other if all the wealth of the world were
+halved between us.'
+
+Mrs Jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her
+proposal, and looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell's hand
+and detained it in his own, as if she could have very well
+dispensed with his company or even his earthly existence.  After an
+awkward pause, she thrust her head out of the window again, and had
+another conference with the driver upon some point on which they
+did not seem to agree quite so readily as on their former topic of
+discussion; but they concluded at last, and she addressed the
+grandfather again.
+
+'If you're really disposed to employ yourself,' said Mrs Jarley,
+'there would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust
+the figures, and take the checks, and so forth.  What I want your
+grand-daughter for, is to point 'em out to the company; they would
+be soon learnt, and she has a way with her that people wouldn't
+think unpleasant, though she does come after me; for I've been
+always accustomed to go round with visitors myself, which I should
+keep on doing now, only that my spirits make a little ease
+absolutely necessary.  It's not a common offer, bear in mind,' said
+the lady, rising into the tone and manner in
+which she was accustomed to address her audiences; 'it's Jarley's
+wax-work, remember.  The duty's very light and genteel, the company
+particularly select, the exhibition takes place in assembly-rooms,
+town-halls, large rooms at inns, or auction galleries.  There is
+none of your open-air wagrancy at Jarley's, recollect; there is no
+tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley's, remember.  Every expectation
+held out in the handbills is realised to the utmost, and the whole
+forms an effect of imposing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in this
+kingdom.  Remember that the price of admission is only sixpence,
+and that this is an opportunity which may never occur again!'
+
+Descending from the sublime when she had reached this point, to the
+details of common life, Mrs Jarley remarked that with reference to
+salary she could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had
+sufficiently tested Nell's abilities, and narrowly watched her in
+the performance of her duties.  But board and lodging, both for her
+and her grandfather, she bound herself to provide, and she
+furthermore passed her word that the board should always be good in
+quality, and in quantity plentiful.
+
+Nell and her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so
+engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down
+the caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with
+uncommon dignity and self-esteem.  Nor will this appear so slight
+a circumstance as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered
+that the caravan was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none
+but a person of great natural stateliness and acquired grace could
+have forborne to stagger.
+
+'Now, child?' cried Mrs Jarley, coming to a halt as Nell turned
+towards her.
+
+'We are very much obliged to you, ma'am,' said Nell, 'and
+thankfully accept your offer.'
+
+'And you'll never be sorry for it,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'I'm
+pretty sure of that.  So as that's all settled, let us have a bit
+of supper.'
+
+In the meanwhile, the caravan blundered on as if it too had been
+drinking strong beer and was drowsy, and came at last upon the
+paved streets of a town which were clear of passengers, and quiet,
+for it was by this time near midnight, and the townspeople were all
+abed.  As it was too late an hour to repair to the exhibition room,
+they turned aside into a piece of waste ground that lay just within
+the old town-gate, and drew up there for the night, near to another
+caravan, which, notwithstanding that it bore on the lawful panel
+the great name of Jarley, and was employed besides in conveying
+from place to place the wax-work which was its country's pride,
+was designated by a grovelling stamp-office as a 'Common Stage
+Waggon,' and numbered too--seven thousand odd hundred--as though
+its precious freight were mere flour or coals!
+
+This ill-used machine being empty (for it had deposited its burden
+at the place of exhibition, and lingered here until its services
+were again required) was assigned to the old man as his
+sleeping-place for the night; and within its wooden walls, Nell
+made him up the best bed she could, from the materials at hand.
+For herself, she was to sleep in Mrs Jarley's own travelling-
+carriage, as a signal mark of that lady's favour and confidence.
+
+She had taken leave of her grandfather and was returning to the
+other waggon, when she was tempted by the coolness of the night to
+linger for a little while in the air.  The moon was shining down
+upon the old gateway of the town, leaving the low archway very
+black and dark; and with a mingled sensation of curiosity and fear,
+she slowly approached the gate, and stood still to look up at it,
+wondering to see how dark, and grim, and old, and cold, it looked.
+
+There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or
+been carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what
+strange people it must have looked down upon when it stood there,
+and how many hard struggles might have taken place, and how many
+murders might have been done, upon that silent spot, when there
+suddenly emerged from the black shade of the arch, a man.  The
+instant he appeared, she recognised him--Who could have failed to
+recognise, in that instant, the ugly misshapen Quilp!
+
+The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on
+one side of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of
+the earth.  But there he was.  The child withdrew into a dark
+corner, and saw him pass close to her.  He had a stick in his hand,
+and, when he had got clear of the shadow of the gateway, he leant
+upon it, looked back--directly, as it seemed, towards where she
+stood--and beckoned.
+
+To her?  oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an
+extremity of fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come
+from her hiding-place and fly, before he should draw nearer,
+there issued slowly forth from the arch another figure--that of a
+boy--who carried on his back a trunk.
+
+'Faster, sirrah!' cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and
+showing in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come
+down from its niche and was casting a backward glance at its old
+house, 'faster!'
+
+'It's a dreadful heavy load, Sir,' the boy pleaded.  'I've come on
+very fast, considering.'
+
+'YOU have come fast, considering!' retorted Quilp; 'you creep, you
+dog, you crawl, you measure distance like a worm.  There are the
+chimes now, half-past twelve.'
+
+He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a
+suddenness and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour
+that London coach passed the corner of the road.  The boy replied,
+at one.
+
+'Come on then,' said Quilp, 'or I shall be too late.  Faster--do
+you hear me?  Faster.'
+
+The boy made all the speed he could, and Quilp led onward,
+constantly turning back to threaten him, and urge him to greater
+haste.  Nell did not dare to move until they were out of sight and
+hearing, and then hurried to where she had left her grandfather,
+feeling as if the very passing of the dwarf so near him must have
+filled him with alarm and terror.  But he was sleeping soundly, and
+she softly withdrew.
+
+As she was making her way to her own bed, she determined to say
+nothing of this adventure, as upon whatever errand the dwarf had
+come (and she feared it must have been in search of them) it was
+clear by his inquiry about the London coach that he was on his way
+homeward, and as he had passed through that place, it was but
+reasonable to suppose that they were safer from his inquiries
+there, than they could be elsewhere.  These reflections did not
+remove her own alarm, for she had been too much terrified to be
+easily composed, and felt as if she were hemmed in by a legion of
+Quilps, and the very air itself were filled with them.
+
+The delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the patronised of
+Royalty had, by some process of self-abridgment known only to
+herself, got into her travelling bed, where she was snoring
+peacefully, while the large bonnet, carefully disposed upon the
+drum, was revealing its glories by the light of a dim lamp that
+swung from the roof.  The child's bed was already made upon the
+floor, and it was a great comfort to her to hear the steps removed
+as soon as she had entered, and to know that all easy communication
+between persons outside and the brass knocker was by this means
+effectually prevented.  Certain guttural sounds, too, which from
+time to time ascended through the floor of the caravan, and a
+rustling of straw in the same direction, apprised her that the
+driver was couched upon the ground beneath, and gave her an
+additional feeling of security.
+
+Notwithstanding these protections, she could get none but broken
+sleep by fits and starts all night, for fear of Quilp, who
+throughout her uneasy dreams was somehow connected with the
+wax-work, or was wax-work himself, or was Mrs Jarley and wax-work
+too, or was himself, Mrs Jarley, wax-work, and a barrel organ all
+in one, and yet not exactly any of them either.  At length, towards
+break of day, that deep sleep came upon her which succeeds to
+weariness and over-watching, and which has no consciousness
+but one of overpowering and irresistible enjoyment.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 28
+
+
+Sleep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she
+awoke, Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and
+actively engaged in preparing breakfast.  She received Nell's
+apology for being so late with perfect good humour, and said that
+she should not have roused her if she had slept on until noon.
+
+'Because it does you good,' said the lady of the caravan, 'when
+you're tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue
+quite off; and that's another blessing of your time of life--you
+can sleep so very sound.'
+
+'Have you had a bad night, ma'am?' asked Nell.
+
+'I seldom have anything else, child,' replied Mrs Jarley, with the
+air of a martyr.  'I sometimes wonder how I bear it.'
+
+Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the
+caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night,
+Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake.
+However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal
+account of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down
+with her grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast.  The meal
+finished, Nell assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them
+in their proper places, and these household duties performed, Mrs
+Jarley arrayed herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the
+purpose of making a progress through the streets of the town.
+
+'The wan will come on to bring the boxes,' said Mrs Jarley, and you
+had better come in it, child.  I am obliged to walk, very much
+against my will; but the people expect it of me, and public
+characters can't be their own masters and mistresses in such
+matters as these.  How do I look, child?'
+
+Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking
+a great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making
+several abortive attempts to obtain a full view of her own back,
+was at last satisfied with her appearance, and went forth
+majestically.
+
+The caravan followed at no great distance.  As it went jolting
+through the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in
+what kind of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at
+every turn the dreaded face of Quilp.  It was a pretty large town,
+with an open square which they were crawling slowly across, and in
+the middle of which was the Town-Hall, with a clock-tower and a
+weather-cock.  There were houses of stone, houses of red brick,
+houses of yellow brick, houses of lath and plaster; and houses of
+wood, many of them very old, with withered faces carved upon the
+beams, and staring down into the street.  These had very little
+winking windows, and low-arched doors, and, in some of the narrower
+ways, quite overhung the pavement.  The streets were very clean,
+very sunny, very empty, and very dull.  A few idle men lounged
+about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the tradesmen's
+doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an
+alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on
+going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if
+perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot
+bright pavement for minutes afterwards.  Nothing seemed to be going
+on but the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy
+hands, and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too
+slow.  The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with
+moist sugar in the grocer's shop, forgot their wings and briskness,
+and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.
+
+Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at
+last at the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an
+admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an
+important item of the curiosities, and were fully impressed with
+the belief that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax.  The
+chests were taken out with all convenient despatch, and taken in to
+be unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by George and another man
+in velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented with turnpike
+tickets, were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of red
+festoons and other ornamental devices in upholstery work) to the
+best advantage in the decoration of the room.
+
+They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were.
+As the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the
+envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred
+herself to assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her
+grandfather also was of great service.  The two men being well used
+to it, did a great deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out
+the tin tacks from a linen pocket like a toll-collector's which she
+wore for the purpose, and encouraged her assistants to renewed
+exertion.
+
+While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose
+and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight
+in the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all
+over, but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare--
+dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg,
+and a pair of pumps in the winter of their existence--looked in at
+the door and smiled affably.  Mrs Jarley's back being then towards
+him, the military gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her
+myrmidons were not to apprise her of his presence, and stealing up
+close behind her, tapped her on the neck, and cried playfully
+'Boh!'
+
+'What, Mr Slum!' cried the lady of the wax-work.  'Lot! who'd have
+thought of seeing you here!'
+
+''Pon my soul and honour,' said Mr Slum, 'that's a good remark.
+'Pon my soul and honour that's a wise remark.  Who would have
+thought it!  George, my faithful feller, how are you?'
+
+George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing
+that he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering
+lustily all the time.
+
+'I came here,' said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley--
+''pon my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for.  It
+would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad.  I wanted a little
+inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and--
+'Pon my soul and honour,' said the military gentleman, checking
+himself and looking round the room, 'what a devilish classical
+thing this is! by Gad, it's quite Minervian.'
+
+'It'll look well enough when it comes to be finished,' observed Mrs Jarley.
+
+'Well enough!' said Mr Slum.  'Will you believe me when I say it's
+the delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've
+exercised my pen upon this charming theme?  By the way--any
+orders?  Is there any little thing I can do for you?'
+
+'It comes so very expensive, sir,' replied Mrs Jarley, 'and I
+really don't think it does much good.'
+
+'Hush!  No, no!' returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand.  'No fibs.
+I'll not hear it.  Don't say it don't do good.  Don't say it.  I
+know better!'
+
+'I don't think it does,' said Mrs Jarley.
+
+'Ha, ha!' cried Mr Slum, 'you're giving way, you're coming down.
+Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask
+the old lottery-office-keepers--ask any man among 'em what my
+poetry has done for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of
+Slum.  If he's an honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and
+blesses the name of Slum--mark that!  You are acquainted with
+Westminster Abbey, Mrs Jarley?'
+
+'Yes, surely.'
+
+'Then upon my soul and honour, ma'am, you'll find in a certain
+angle of that dreary pile, called Poets' Corner, a few smaller
+names than Slum,' retorted that gentleman, tapping himself
+expressively on the forehead to imply that there was some slight
+quantity of brain behind it.  'I've got a little trifle here, now,'
+said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which was full of scraps of paper,
+'a little trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the moment, which
+I should say was exactly the thing you wanted to set this place on
+fire with.  It's an acrostic--the name at this moment is Warren,
+and the idea's a convertible one, and a positive inspiration for
+Jarley.  Have the acrostic.'
+
+'I suppose it's very dear,' said Mrs Jarley.
+
+'Five shillings,' returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a
+toothpick.  'Cheaper than any prose.'
+
+'I couldn't give more than three,' said Mrs Jarley.
+
+'--And six,' retorted Slum.  'Come.  Three-and-six.'
+
+Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet's insinuating manner, and
+Mr Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a
+three-and-sixpenny one.  Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the
+acrostic, after taking a most affectionate leave of his patroness,
+and promising to return, as soon as he possibly could, with a fair
+copy for the printer.
+
+As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the
+preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed
+shortly after his departure.  When the festoons were all put up as
+tastily as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered,
+and there were displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from
+the floor, running round the room and parted from the rude public
+by a crimson rope breast high, divers sprightly effigies of
+celebrated characters, singly and in groups, clad in glittering
+dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or less
+unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and
+their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of their legs
+and arms very strongly developed, and all their countenances
+expressing great surprise.  All the gentlemen were very
+pigeon-breasted and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies
+were miraculous figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen
+were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary
+earnestness at nothing.
+
+When Nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight,
+Mrs Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and
+the child, and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre,
+formally invested Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for
+pointing out the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her
+in her duty.
+
+'That,' said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a
+figure at the beginning of the platform, 'is an unfortunate Maid of
+Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her
+finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday.  Observe the blood
+which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of
+the period, with which she is at work.'
+
+All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and
+the needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.
+
+'That, ladies and gentlemen,' said Mrs Jarley, 'is jasper
+Packlemerton of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen
+wives, and destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet
+when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and
+virtue.  On being brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry
+for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let
+'em off so easy, and hoped all Christian husbands would pardon him
+the offence.  Let this be a warning to all young ladies to be
+particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice.
+Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling,
+and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared when
+committing his barbarous murders.'
+
+When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without
+faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the
+thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of
+dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the
+woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and
+other historical characters and interesting but misguided
+individuals.  And so well did Nell profit by her instructions, and
+so apt was she to remember them, that by the time they had been
+shut up together for a couple of hours, she was in full possession
+of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly competent
+to the enlightenment of visitors.
+
+Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy
+result, and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the
+remaining arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage
+had been already converted into a grove of green-baize hung with
+the inscription she had already seen (Mr Slum's productions), and
+a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley
+herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company
+with his Majesty King George the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary
+Queen of Scots, an anonymous gentleman of the Quaker persuasion,
+and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the bill for the
+imposition of the window duty.  The preparations without doors had
+not been neglected either; a nun of great personal attractions was
+telling her beads on the little portico over the door; and a
+brigand with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest
+possible complexion, was at that moment going round the town in a
+cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.
+
+It now only remained that Mr Slum's compositions should be
+judiciously distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find
+their way to all private houses and tradespeople; and that the
+parody commencing 'If I know'd a donkey,' should be confined to the
+taverns, and circulated only among the lawyers' clerks and choice
+spirits of the place.  When this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had
+waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill
+composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly proved that
+wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged the
+sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable lady sat down
+to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing
+campaign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 29
+
+
+Unquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius.  In the midst of
+the various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition,
+little Nell was not forgotten.  The light cart in which the Brigand
+usually made his perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and
+streamers, and the Brigand placed therein, contemplating the
+miniature of his beloved as usual, Nell was accommodated with a
+seat beside him, decorated with artificial flowers, and in this
+state and ceremony rode slowly through the town every morning,
+dispersing handbills from a basket, to the sound of drum and
+trumpet.  The beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and
+timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country
+place.  The Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest in
+the streets, became a mere secondary consideration, and to be
+important only as a part of the show of which she was the chief
+attraction.  Grown-up folks began to be interested in the
+bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in
+love, and constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples, directed
+in small-text, at the wax-work door.
+
+This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest
+Nell should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone
+again, and kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the
+figures every half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring
+audiences.  And these audiences were of a very superior
+description, including a great many young ladies' boarding-schools,
+whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at great pains to conciliate, by
+altering the face and costume of Mr Grimaldi as clown to represent
+Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when engaged in the composition of
+his English Grammar, and turning a murderess of great renown into
+Mrs Hannah More--both of which likenesses were admitted by Miss
+Monflathers, who was at the head of the head Boarding and Day
+Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private
+View with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from
+their extreme correctness.  Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and
+without his boots, represented the poet Cowper with perfect
+exactness; and Mary Queen of Scots in a dark wig, white
+shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a complete image of Lord
+Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when they saw it.  Miss
+Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took occasion to
+reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select:
+observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite
+incompatible with wax-work honours, and adding something about a
+Dean and Chapter, which Mrs Jarley did not understand.
+
+Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the
+lady of the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not
+only a peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for
+making everybody about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it
+may be remarked, is, even in persons who live in much finer places
+than caravans, a far more rare and uncommon one than the first, and
+is not by any means its necessary consequence.  As her popularity
+procured her various little fees from the visitors on which her
+patroness never demanded any toll, and as her grandfather too was
+well-treated and useful, she had no cause of anxiety in connexion
+with the wax-work, beyond that which sprung from her recollection
+of Quilp, and her fears that he might return and one day suddenly
+encounter them.
+
+Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was
+constantly haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure.
+She slept, for their better security, in the room where the
+wax-work figures were, and she never retired to this place at night
+but she tortured herself--she could not help it--with imagining
+a resemblance, in some one or other of their death-like faces, to
+the dwarf, and this fancy would sometimes so gain upon her that she
+would almost believe he had removed the figure and stood within the
+clothes.  Then there were so many of them with their great glassy
+eyes--and, as they stood one behind the other all about her bed,
+they looked so like living creatures, and yet so unlike in their
+grim stillness and silence, that she had a kind of terror of them
+for their own sakes, and would often lie watching their dusky
+figures until she was obliged to rise and light a candle, or go and
+sit at the open window and feel a companionship in the bright
+stars.  At these times, she would recall the old house and the
+window at which she used to sit alone; and then she would think of
+poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into her eyes,
+and she would weep and smile together.
+
+Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to
+her grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of
+their former life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the
+change in their condition and of their late helplessness and
+destitution.  When they were wandering about, she seldom thought of
+this, but now she could not help considering what would become of
+them if he fell sick, or her own strength were to fail her.  He was
+very patient and willing, happy to execute any little task, and
+glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state, with no
+prospect of improvement--a mere child--a poor, thoughtless,
+vacant creature--a harmless fond old man, susceptible of tender
+love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions,
+but alive to nothing more.  It made her very sad to know that this
+was so--so sad to see it that sometimes when he sat idly by,
+smiling and nodding to her when she looked round, or when he
+caressed some little child and carried it to and fro, as he was
+fond of doing by the hour together, perplexed by its simple
+questions, yet patient under his own infirmity, and seeming almost
+conscious of it too, and humbled even before the mind of an infant--
+so sad it made her to see him thus, that she would burst into
+tears, and, withdrawing into some secret place, fall down upon her
+knees and pray that he might be restored.
+
+But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this
+condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her
+solitary meditations on his altered state, though these were trials
+for a young heart.  Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to
+come.
+
+One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather
+went out to walk.  They had been rather closely confined for some
+days, and the weather being warm, they strolled a long distance.
+Clear of the town, they took a footpath which struck through some
+pleasant fields, judging that it would terminate in the road they
+quitted and enable them to return that way.  It made, however, a
+much wider circuit than they had supposed, and thus they were
+tempted onward until sunset, when they reached the track of which
+they were in search, and stopped to rest.
+
+It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark
+and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up
+masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed
+here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon
+the earth.  The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun
+went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds
+coming up against it, menaced thunder and lightning.  Large drops
+of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing
+onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over
+all the sky.  Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder,
+then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour
+seemed to have gathered in an instant.
+
+Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and
+the child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in
+which they could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst
+forth in earnest, and every moment increased in violence.  Drenched
+with the pelting rain, confused by the deafening thunder, and
+bewildered by the glare of the forked lightning, they would have
+passed a solitary house without being aware of its vicinity, had
+not a man, who was standing at the door, called lustily to them to
+enter.
+
+'Your ears ought to be better than other folks' at any rate, if you
+make so little of the chance of being struck blind,' he said,
+retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the
+jagged lightning came again.  'What were you going past for, eh?'
+he added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to
+a room behind.
+
+'We didn't see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,' Nell
+replied.
+
+'No wonder,' said the man, 'with this lightning in one's eyes,
+by-the-by.  You had better stand by the fire here, and dry
+yourselves a bit.  You can call for what you like if you want
+anything.  If you don't want anything, you are not obliged to give
+an order.  Don't be afraid of that.  This is a public-house, that's
+all.  The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.'
+
+'Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?' asked Nell.
+
+'I thought everybody knew that,' replied the landlord.  'Where have
+you come from, if you don't know the Valiant Soldier as well as the
+church catechism?  This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves--
+Jem Groves--honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral
+character, and has a good dry skittle-ground.  If any man has got
+anything to say again Jem Groves, let him say it TO Jem Groves, and
+Jem Groves can accommodate him with a customer on any terms from
+four pound a side to forty.
+
+With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to
+intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred
+scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at
+society in general from a black frame over the chimney-piece; and,
+applying a half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips,
+drank Jem Groves's health.
+
+The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the
+room, for a barrier against the heat of the fire.  It seemed as if
+somebody on the other side of this screen had been insinuating
+doubts of Mr Groves's prowess, and had thereby given rise to these
+egotistical expressions, for Mr Groves wound up his defiance by
+giving a loud knock upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a
+reply from the other side.
+
+'There an't many men,' said Mr Groves, no answer being returned,
+'who would ventur' to cross Jem Groves under his own roof.  There's
+only one man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that
+man's not a hundred mile from here neither.  But he's worth a dozen
+men, and I let him say of me whatever he likes in consequence--he
+knows that.'
+
+In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice
+bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.'  And the same
+voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in
+brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was
+made of.'
+
+'Nell, they're--they're playing cards,' whispered the old man,
+suddenly interested.  'Don't you hear them?'
+
+'Look sharp with that candle,' said the voice; 'it's as much as I
+can do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter
+closed as quick as you can, will you?  Your beer will be the worse
+for to-night's thunder I expect. --Game!  Seven-and-sixpence to
+me, old Isaac.  Hand over.'
+
+'Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?' whispered the old man again,
+with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.
+
+'I haven't seen such a storm as this,' said a sharp cracked voice
+of most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had
+died away, 'since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen
+times running on the red.  We all said he had the Devil's luck and
+his own, and as it was the kind of night for the Devil to be out
+and busy, I suppose he was looking over his shoulder, if anybody
+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.'
+
+'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
+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.
+'I wonder who is more anxious 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
+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
+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, and, 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
+her.  The men were very ill-looking.  They might get their living
+by robbing and murdering travellers.  Who could tell?
+
+Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for
+a little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of
+the night gave rise.  Here was the old passion awakened again in
+her grandfather's breast, and to what further distraction it might
+tempt him Heaven only knew.  What fears their absence might have
+occasioned already!  Persons might be seeking for them even then.
+Would they be forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again!  Oh!
+why had they stopped in that strange place?  It would have been
+better, under any circumstances, to have gone on!
+
+At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep,
+troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a
+start and in great terror.  A deeper slumber followed this--and
+then--What!  That figure in the room.
+
+A figure was there.  Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the
+light when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the
+bed and the dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its
+way with noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed.  She had no
+voice to cry for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching
+it.
+
+On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the bed's head.  The
+breath so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those
+wandering hands should light upon her face.  Back again it stole to
+the window--then turned its head towards her.
+
+The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the
+room, but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how
+the eyes looked and the ears listened.  There it remained,
+motionless as she.  At length, still keeping the face towards her,
+it busied its hands in something, and she heard the chink of money.
+
+Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and
+replacing the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon
+its hands and knees, and crawled away.  How slowly it seemed to
+move, now that she could hear but not see it, creeping along the
+floor!  It reached the door at last, and stood upon its feet.  The
+steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it was gone.
+
+The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being
+by herself in that room--to have somebody by--not to be alone--
+and then her power of speech would be restored.  With no
+consciousness of having moved, she gained the door.
+
+There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.
+
+She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the
+darkness without being seized, but her blood curdled at the
+thought.  The figure stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly,
+but of necessity; for going back into the room was hardly less
+terrible than going on.
+
+The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing
+streams from the thatched roof.  Some summer insect, with no escape
+into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the
+walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs.  The
+figure moved again.  The child involuntarily did the same.  Once in
+her grandfather's room, she would be safe.
+
+It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she
+longed so ardently to reach.  The child, in the agony of being so
+near, had almost darted forward with the design of bursting into
+the room and closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.
+
+The idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if it entered there, and
+had a design upon the old man's life!  She turned faint and sick.
+It did.  It went in.  There was a light inside.  The figure was now
+within the chamber, and she, still dumb--quite dumb, and almost
+senseless--stood looking on.
+
+The door was partly open.  Not knowing what she meant to do, but
+meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward
+and looked in.
+
+What sight was that which met her view!
+
+The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty.  And at a
+table sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his
+white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his
+eyes unnaturally bright--counting the money of which his hands had
+robbed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 31
+
+
+With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she
+had approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and
+groped her way back to her own chamber.  The terror she had lately
+felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her.  No
+strange robber, no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his
+guests, or stealing to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no
+nightly prowler, however terrible and cruel, could have awakened in
+her bosom half the dread which the recognition of her silent
+visitor inspired.  The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost
+into her room and acting the thief while he supposed her fast
+asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the
+ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse--immeasurably
+worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon--
+than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested.  If he should
+return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if,
+distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come
+back to seek for more--a vague awe and horror surrounded the idea
+of his slinking in again with stealthy tread, and turning his face
+toward the empty bed, while she shrank down close at his feet to
+avoid his touch, which was almost insupportable.  She sat and
+listened.  Hark!  A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was
+slowly opening.  It was but imagination, yet imagination had all
+the terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would
+have come and gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was
+always coming, and never went away.
+
+The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror.
+She had no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose
+love for her this disease of the brain had been engendered; but the
+man she had seen that night, wrapt in the game of chance, lurking
+in her room, and counting the money by the glimmering light, seemed
+like another creature in his shape, a monstrous distortion of his
+image, a something to recoil from, and be the more afraid of,
+because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as he
+did.  She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion,
+save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him.
+She had wept to see him dull and quiet.  How much greater cause she
+had for weeping now!
+
+The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the
+phantom in her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt
+it would be a relief to hear the old man's voice, or, if he were
+asleep, even to see him, and banish some of the fears that
+clustered round his image.  She stole down the stairs and passage
+again.  The door was still ajar as she had left it, and the candle
+burning as before.
+
+She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were
+waking, that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see
+if his were still alight.  Looking into the room, she saw him lying
+calmly on his bed, and so took courage to enter.
+
+Fast asleep.  No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no
+wild desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace.  This was not the
+gambler, or the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and
+jaded man whose face had so often met her own in the grey morning
+light; this was her dear old friend, her harmless fellow-
+traveller, her good, kind grandfather.
+
+She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she
+had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.
+
+'God bless him!' said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid
+cheek.  'I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they
+found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky.
+He has only me to help him.  God bless us both!'
+
+Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come,
+and, gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of
+that long, long, miserable night.
+
+At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep.
+She was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed;
+and, as soon as she was dressed, prepared to go down
+to her grandfather.  But first she searched her pocket and found
+that her money was all gone--not a sixpence remained.
+
+The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their
+road.  The child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to
+expect that she would tell him of her loss.  She felt she must do
+that, or he might suspect the truth.
+
+'Grandfather,' she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked
+about a mile in silence, 'do you think they are honest people at
+the house yonder?'
+
+'Why?' returned the old man trembling.  'Do I think them honest--
+yes, they played honestly.'
+
+'I'll tell you why I ask,' rejoined Nell.  'I lost some money last
+night--out of my bedroom, I am sure.  Unless it was taken by
+somebody in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make
+me laugh heartily if I could but know it--'
+
+'Who would take money in jest?' returned the old man in a hurried manner. 
+'Those who take money, take it to keep.  Don't talk of jest.'
+
+'Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,' said the child, whose
+last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply.
+
+'But is there no more, Nell?' said the old man; 'no more anywhere?
+Was it all taken--every farthing of it--was there nothing left?'
+
+'Nothing,' replied the child.
+
+'We must get more,' said the old man, 'we must earn it, Nell, hoard
+it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow.  Never mind this
+loss.  Tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it.  Don't ask
+how;--we may regain it, and a great deal more;--but tell nobody,
+or trouble may come of it.  And so they took it out of thy room,
+when thou wert asleep!' he added in a compassionate tone, very
+different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken
+until now.  'Poor Nell, poor little Nell!'
+
+The child hung down her head and wept.  The sympathising tone in
+which he spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that.  It was not
+the lightest part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.
+
+'Not a word about it to any one but me,' said the old man, 'no, not
+even to me,' he added hastily, 'for it can do no good.  All the
+losses that ever were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling.
+Why should they be, when we will win them back?'
+
+'Let them go,' said the child looking up.  'Let them go, once and
+for ever, and I would never shed another tear if every penny had
+been a thousand pounds.'
+
+'Well, well,' returned the old man, checking himself as some
+impetuous answer rose to his lips, 'she knows no better.  I ought
+to be thankful of it.'
+
+'But listen to me,' said the child earnestly, 'will you listen to me?'
+
+'Aye, aye, I'll listen,' returned the old man, still without
+looking at her; 'a pretty voice.  It has always a sweet sound to
+me.  It always had when it was her mother's, poor child.'
+
+'Let me persuade you, then--oh, do let me persuade you,' said the
+child, 'to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune
+but the fortune we pursue together.'
+
+'We pursue this aim together,' retorted her grandfather, still
+looking away and seeming to confer with himself.  'Whose image
+sanctifies the game?'
+
+'Have we been worse off,' resumed the child, 'since you forgot
+these cares, and we have been travelling on together?  Have we not
+been much better and happier without a home to shelter us, than
+ever we were in that unhappy house, when they were on your mind?'
+
+'She speaks the truth,' murmured the old man in the same tone as
+before.  'It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it
+is.'
+
+'Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we
+turned our backs upon it for the last time,' said Nell, 'only
+remember what we have been since we have been free of all those
+miseries--what peaceful days and quiet nights we have had--what
+pleasant times we have known--what happiness we have enjoyed.  If
+we have been tired or hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and
+slept the sounder for it.  Think what beautiful things we have
+seen, and how contented we have felt.  And why was this blessed
+change?'
+
+He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him
+no more just then, for he was busy.  After a time he kissed her
+cheek, still motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far
+before him, and sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow
+upon the ground, as if he were painfully trying to collect his
+disordered thoughts.  Once she saw tears in his eyes.  When he had
+gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his as he was
+accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his
+late manner; and so, by degrees so fine that the child could not
+trace them, he settled down into his usual quiet way, and suffered
+her to lead him where she would.
+
+When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous
+collection, they found, as Nell had anticipated, that Mrs Jarley
+was not yet out of bed, and that, although she had suffered some
+uneasiness on their account overnight, and had indeed sat up for
+them until past eleven o'clock, she had retired in the persuasion,
+that, being overtaken by storm at some distance from home, they had
+sought the nearest shelter, and would not return before morning.
+Nell immediately applied herself with great assiduity to the
+decoration and preparation of the room, and had the satisfaction of
+completing her task, and dressing herself neatly, before the
+beloved of the Royal Family came down to breakfast.
+
+'We haven't had,' said Mrs Jarley when the meal was over, 'more
+than eight of Miss Monflathers's young ladies all the time we've
+been here, and there's twenty-six of 'em, as I was told by the cook
+when I asked her a question or two and put her on the free-list.
+We must try 'em with a parcel of new bills, and you shall take it,
+my dear, and see what effect that has upon 'em.'
+
+The proposed expedition being one of paramount importance, Mrs
+Jarley adjusted Nell's bonnet with her own hands, and declaring
+that she certainly did look very pretty, and reflected credit on
+the establishment, dismissed her with many commendations, and
+certain needful directions as to the turnings on the right which
+she was to take, and the turnings on the left which she was to
+avoid.  Thus instructed, Nell had no difficulty in finding out Miss
+Monflathers's Boarding and Day Establishment, which was a large
+house, with a high wall, and a large garden-gate with a large brass
+plate, and a small grating through which Miss Monflathers's
+parlour-maid inspected all visitors before admitting them; for
+nothing in the shape of a man--no, not even a milkman--was
+suffered, without special license, to pass that gate.  Even the
+tax-gatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a
+broad-brimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating.  More
+obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of Miss
+Monflathers's frowned on all mankind.  The very butcher respected
+it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the
+bell.
+
+As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges
+with a creaking noise, and, forth from the solemn grove beyond,
+came a long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books
+in their hands, and some with parasols likewise.  And last of the
+goodly procession came Miss Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol
+of lilac silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally
+envious of the other, and devoted unto Miss Monflathers.
+
+Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with
+downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss
+Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she
+curtseyed and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss
+Monflathers commanded that the line should halt.
+
+'You're the wax-work child, are you not?' said Miss Monflathers.
+
+'Yes, ma'am,' replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies
+had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes
+were fixed.
+
+'And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child,' said
+Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no
+opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the
+young ladies, 'to be a wax-work child at all?'
+
+Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not
+knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than
+before.
+
+'Don't you know,' said Miss Monflathers, 'that it's very naughty
+and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and
+benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused
+from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation?'
+
+The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this
+home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that
+there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard.  Then they
+smiled and glanced at Miss Monflathers, and then, their eyes
+meeting, they exchanged looks which plainly said that each
+considered herself smiler in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and
+regarded the other as having no right to smile, and that her so
+doing was an act of presumption and impertinence.
+
+'Don't you feel how naughty it is of you,' resumed Miss
+Monflathers, 'to be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud
+consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers,
+the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the
+constant contemplation of the steam-engine; and of earning a
+comfortable and independent subsistence of from two-and-ninepence
+to three shillings per week?  Don't you know that the harder you
+are at work, the happier you are?'
+
+'"How doth the little--"' murmured one of the teachers, in
+quotation from Doctor Watts.
+
+'Eh?' said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round.  'Who said
+that?'
+
+Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who
+had, whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace;
+by that means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.
+
+'The little busy bee,' said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up,
+'is applicable only to genteel children.
+
+"In books, or work, or healthful play"
+
+is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means
+painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery.  In such
+cases as these,' pointing to Nell, with her parasol, 'and in the
+case of all poor people's children, we should read it thus:
+
+
+"In work, work, work.  In work alway
+Let my first years be past,
+That I may give for ev'ry day
+Some good account at last."'
+
+
+A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but
+from all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss
+Monflathers improvising after this brilliant style; for although
+she had been long known as a politician, she had never appeared
+before as an original poet.  Just then somebody happened to
+discover that Nell was crying, and all eyes were again turned
+towards her.
+
+There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her
+handkerchief to brush them away, she happened to let it fall.
+Before she could stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about
+fifteen or sixteen, who had been standing a little apart from the
+others, as though she had no recognised place among them, sprang
+forward and put it in her hand.  She was gliding timidly away
+again, when she was arrested by the governess.
+
+'It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,' said Miss Monflathers
+predictively.  'Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.'
+
+It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and
+Miss Edwards herself admitted that it was.
+
+'Is it not,' said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to
+take a severer view of the offender, 'a most remarkable thing, Miss
+Edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which
+always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most
+extraordinary thing that all I say and do will not wean you from
+propensities which your original station in life have unhappily
+rendered habitual to you, you extremely vulgar-minded girl?'
+
+'I really intended no harm, ma'am,' said a sweet voice.  'It was a
+momentary impulse, indeed.'
+
+'An impulse!' repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully.  'I wonder that
+you presume to speak of impulses to me'--both the teachers assented--
+'I am astonished'--both the teachers were astonished--'I suppose
+it is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every
+grovelling and debased person that comes in your way'--both the
+teachers supposed so too.
+
+'But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,' resumed the governess in
+a tone of increased severity, 'that you cannot be permitted--if it
+be only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in
+this establishment--that you cannot be permitted, and that you
+shall not be permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in
+this exceedingly gross manner.  If you have no reason to feel a
+becoming pride before wax-work children, there are young ladies
+here who have, and you must either defer to those young ladies or
+leave the establishment, Miss Edwards.'
+
+This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the
+school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learnt, for
+nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down
+and rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the
+dwellers in the house.  The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for
+they were better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in
+their stations with much more respect.  The teachers were
+infinitely superior, for they had paid to go to school in their
+time, and were paid now.  The pupils cared little for a companion
+who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to come
+with post-horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and
+wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear
+her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and
+nothing to display.  But why was Miss Monflathers always vexed and
+irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass?
+
+Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers's cap, and the
+brightest glory of Miss Monflathers's school, was a baronet's
+daughter--the real live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by
+some extraordinary reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only
+plain in features but dull in intellect, while the poor apprentice
+had both a ready wit, and a handsome face and figure.  It seems
+incredible.  Here was Miss Edwards, who only paid a small premium
+which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and excelling
+the baronet's daughter, who learned all the extras (or was taught
+them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to double that of any
+other young lady's in the school, making no account of the honour
+and reputation of her pupilage.  Therefore, and because she was a
+dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss Edwards,
+and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had
+compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as
+we have already seen.
+
+'You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,' said Miss
+Monflathers.  'Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and
+not to leave it without permission.'
+
+The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in
+nautical phrase, 'brought to' by a subdued shriek from Miss
+Monflathers.
+
+'She has passed me without any salute!' cried the governess,
+raising her eyes to the sky.  'She has actually passed me without
+the slightest acknowledgment of my presence!'
+
+The young lady turned and curtsied.  Nell could see that she raised
+her dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their
+expression, and that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one
+of mute but most touching appeal against this ungenerous usage.
+Miss Monflathers only tossed her head in reply, and the great gate
+closed upon a bursting heart.
+
+'As for you, you wicked child,' said Miss Monflathers, turning to
+Nell, 'tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty
+of sending to me any more, I will write to the legislative
+authorities and have her put in the stocks, or compelled to do
+penance in a white sheet; and you may depend upon it that you shall
+certainly experience the treadmill if you dare to come here again.
+Now ladies, on.'
+
+The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols,
+and Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet's daughter to walk with
+her and smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers--
+who by this time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy--
+and left them to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little
+more for being obliged to walk together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 32
+
+
+Mrs Jarley's wrath on first learning that she had been threatened
+with the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description.
+The genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by
+children, and flouted by beadles!  The delight of the Nobility and
+Gentry shorn of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to
+wear, and arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification
+and humility!  And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who
+presumed, even in the dimmest and remotest distance of her
+imagination, to conjure up the degrading picture, 'I am a'most
+inclined,' said Mrs Jarley, bursting with the fulness of her anger
+and the weakness of her means of revenge, 'to turn atheist when I
+think of it!'
+
+But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on
+second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering
+glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into
+a chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them
+several times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had
+received.  This done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to
+drink; then laughed, then cried, then took a little sip herself,
+then laughed and cried again, and took a little more; and so, by
+degrees, the worthy lady went on, increasing in smiles and
+decreasing in tears, until at last she could not laugh enough at
+Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object of dire vexation,
+became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity.
+
+'For which of us is best off, I wonder,' quoth Mrs Jarley, 'she or
+me!  It's only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks
+of me in the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is
+a good deal funnier if we come to that.  Lord, what does it matter,
+after all!'
+
+Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had
+been greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of
+the philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind
+words, and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought
+of Miss Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her,
+all the days of her life.
+
+So ended Mrs Jarley's wrath, which subsided long before the going
+down of the sun.  Nell's anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind,
+and the checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so
+easily removed.
+
+That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and
+did not come back until the night was far spent.  Worn out as she
+was, and fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the
+minutes, until he returned--penniless, broken-spirited, and
+wretched, but still hotly bent upon his infatuation.
+
+'Get me money,' he said wildly, as they parted for the night.  'I
+must have money, Nell.  It shall be paid thee back with gallant
+interest one day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must
+be mine--not for myself, but to use for thee.  Remember, Nell, to
+use for thee!'
+
+What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him
+every penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on
+to rob their benefactress?  If she told the truth (so thought the
+child) he would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him
+with money, he would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the
+fire that burnt him up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery.
+Distracted by these thoughts, borne down by the weight of the
+sorrow which she dared not tell, tortured by a crowd of
+apprehensions whenever the old man was absent, and dreading alike
+his stay and his return, the colour forsook her cheek, her eye grew
+dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy.  All her old sorrows
+had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and doubts; by day
+they were ever present to her mind; by night they hovered round her
+pillow, and haunted her in dreams.
+
+It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should
+often revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught
+a hasty glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief
+action, dwelt in her memory like the kindnesses of years.  She
+would often think, if she had such a friend as that to whom to tell
+her griefs, how much lighter her heart would be--that if she were
+but free to hear that voice, she would be happier.  Then she would
+wish that she were something better, that she were not quite so
+poor and humble, that she dared address her without fearing a
+repulse; and then feel that there was an immeasurable distance
+between them, and have no hope that the young lady thought of her
+any more.
+
+It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had
+gone home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in
+London, and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but
+nobody said anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home,
+or whether she had any home to go to, whether she was still at the
+school, or anything about her.  But one evening, as Nell was
+returning from a lonely walk, she happened to pass the inn where
+the stage-coaches stopped, just as one drove up, and there was the
+beautiful girl she so well remembered, pressing forward to embrace
+a young child whom they were helping down from the roof.
+
+Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than
+Nell, whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five
+years, and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had
+been saving her poor means all that time.  Nell felt as if her
+heart would break when she saw them meet.  They went a little apart
+from the knot of people who had congregated about the coach, and
+fell upon each other's neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy.  Their
+plain and simple dress, the distance which the child had come
+alone, their agitation and delight, and the tears they shed, would
+have told their history by themselves.
+
+They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away,
+not so much hand in hand as clinging to each other.  'Are you sure
+you're happy, sister?' said the child as they passed where Nell was
+standing.  'Quite happy now,' she answered.  'But always?' said the
+child.  'Ah, sister, why do you turn away your face?'
+
+Nell could not help following at a little distance.  They went to
+the house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a
+bed-room for the child.  'I shall come to you early every morning,'
+she said, 'and we can be together all the day.-'-'Why not at
+night-time too?  Dear sister, would they be angry with you for
+that?'
+
+Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like
+those of the two sisters?  Why did she bear a grateful heart
+because they had met, and feel it pain to think that they would
+shortly part?  Let us not believe that any selfish reference--
+unconscious though it might have been--to her own trials awoke
+this sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys of others can
+strongly move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature, have one
+source of pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!
+
+By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's gentle
+light, the child, with a respect for the short and happy
+intercourse of these two sisters which forbade her to approach and
+say a thankful word, although she yearned to do so, followed them
+at a distance in their walks and rambles, stopping when they
+stopped, sitting on the grass when they sat down, rising when they
+went on, and feeling it a companionship and delight to be so near
+them.  Their evening walk was by a river's side.  Here, every
+night, the child was too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded;
+but feeling as if they were her friends, as if they had confidences
+and trusts together, as if her load were lightened and less hard to
+bear; as if they mingled their sorrows, and found mutual
+consolation.  It was a weak fancy perhaps, the childish fancy of a
+young and lonely creature; but night after night, and still the
+sisters loitered in the same place, and still the child followed
+with a mild and softened heart.
+
+She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that
+Mrs Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the
+effect that the stupendous collection would only remain in its
+present quarters one day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for
+all announcements connected with public amusements are well known
+to be irrevocable and most exact), the stupendous collection shut
+up next day.
+
+'Are we going from this place directly, ma'am?' said Nell.
+
+'Look here, child,' returned Mrs Jarley.  'That'll inform you.'
+And so saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it
+was stated, that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the
+wax-work door, and in consequence of crowds having been
+disappointed in obtaining admission, the Exhibition would be
+continued for one week longer, and would re-open next day.
+
+'For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers
+exhausted,' said Mrs Jarley, 'we come to the General Public, and
+they want stimulating.'
+
+Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself
+behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished
+effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open
+for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public.  But
+the first day's operations were by no means of a successful
+character, inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested
+a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen
+satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected by any
+impulses moving them to the payment of sixpence a head.  Thus,
+notwithstanding that a great many people continued to stare at the
+entry and the figures therein displayed; and remained there with
+great perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ
+played and to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were
+kind enough to recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition
+in the like manner, until the door-way was regularly blockaded by
+half the population of the town, who, when they went off duty, were
+relieved by the other half; it was not found that the treasury was
+any the richer, or that the prospects of the establishment were at
+all encouraging.
+
+In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made
+extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the
+popular curiosity.  Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the
+leads over the door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the
+figure shook its head paralytically all day long, to the great
+admiration of a drunken, but very Protestant, barber over the way,
+who looked upon the said paralytic motion as typical of the
+degrading effect wrought upon the human mind by the ceremonies of
+the Romish Church and discoursed upon that theme with great
+eloquence and morality.  The two carters constantly passed in and
+out of the exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting
+aloud that the sight was better worth the money than anything they
+had beheld in all their lives, and urging the bystanders, with
+tears in their eyes, not to neglect such a brilliant gratification.
+Mrs Jarley sat in the pay-place, chinking silver moneys from noon
+till night, and solemnly calling upon the crowd to take notice that
+the price of admission was only sixpence, and that the departure of
+the whole collection, on a short tour among the Crowned Heads of
+Europe, was positively fixed for that day week.
+
+'So be in time, be in time, be in time,' said Mrs Jarley at the
+close of every such address.  'Remember that this is Jarley's
+stupendous collection of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that
+it is the only collection in the world; all others being imposters
+and deceptions.  Be in time, be in time, be in time!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 33
+
+
+As the course of this tale requires that we should become
+acquainted, somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected
+with the domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more
+convenient place than the present is not likely to occur for that
+purpose, the historian takes the friendly reader by the hand, and
+springing with him into the air, and cleaving the same at a greater
+rate than ever Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar
+travelled through that pleasant region in company, alights with him
+upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.
+
+The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the
+residence of Mr Sampson Brass.
+
+In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close
+upon the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the
+dim glass with his coat sleeve--much to its improvement, for it is
+very dirty--in this parlour window in the days of its occupation
+by Sampson Brass, there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured
+by the sun, a curtain of faded green, so threadbare from long
+service as by no means to intercept the view of the little dark
+room, but rather to afford a favourable medium through which to
+observe it accurately.  There was not much to look at.  A rickety
+table, with spare bundles of papers, yellow and ragged from long
+carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a
+couple of stools set face to face on opposite sides of this crazy
+piece of furniture; a treacherous old chair by the fire-place,
+whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and helped to
+squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used as a depository for
+blank writs and declarations and other small forms of law, once the
+sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig which belonged
+to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or three common
+books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted
+hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with
+the tightness of desperation to its tacks--these, with the yellow
+wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and
+cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of
+Mr Sampson Brass.
+
+But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the
+plate, 'BRASS, Solicitor,' upon the door, and the bill, 'First
+floor to let to a single gentleman,' which was tied to the knocker.
+The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to
+the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest
+and more particular concern.
+
+Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in
+these pages.  The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper,
+secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of
+cost increaser, Miss Brass--a kind of amazon at common law, of
+whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description.
+
+Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts,
+of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it
+repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a
+distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts
+of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her.  In
+face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson--so
+exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted
+with Miss Brass's maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have
+assumed her brother's clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him,
+it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to
+determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady
+carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which,
+if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been
+mistaken for a beard.  These were, however, in all probability,
+nothing more than eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss
+Brass were quite free from any such natural impertinencies.  In
+complexion Miss Brass was sallow--rather a dirty sallow, so to
+speak--but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow
+which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose.  Her voice
+was exceedingly impressive--deep and rich in quality, and, once
+heard, not easily forgotten.  Her usual dress was a green gown, in
+colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to
+the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened
+behind by a peculiarly large and massive button.  Feeling, no
+doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss
+Brass wore no collar or kerchief except upon her head, which was
+invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of
+the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened
+to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress.
+
+Such was Miss Brass in person.  In mind, she was of a strong and
+vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with
+uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations
+upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively
+through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it
+commonly pursues its way.  Nor had she, like many persons of great
+intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where
+practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross,
+fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in
+short, transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a
+skin of parchment or mending a pen.  It is difficult to understand
+how, possessed of these combined attractions, she should remain
+Miss Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart against mankind,
+or whether those who might have wooed and won her, were deterred by
+fears that, being learned in the law, she might have too near her
+fingers' ends those particular statutes which regulate what are
+familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that she was
+still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her
+old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson.  And equally
+certain it is, by the way, that between these two stools a great
+many people had come to the ground.
+
+One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal
+process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if
+he were writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it
+was directed; and Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new
+pen preparatory to drawing out a little bill, which was her
+favourite occupation; and so they sat in silence for a long time,
+until Miss Brass broke silence.
+
+'Have you nearly done, Sammy?' said Miss Brass; for in her mild and
+feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened
+down.
+
+'No,' returned her brother.  'It would have been all done though,
+if you had helped at the right time.'
+
+'Oh yes, indeed,' cried Miss Sally; 'you want my help, don't you? --
+YOU, too, that are going to keep a clerk!'
+
+'Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my
+own wish, you provoking rascal!' said Mr Brass, putting his pen in
+his mouth, and grinning spitefully at his sister.  'What do you
+taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?'
+
+It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling
+a lady a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that
+he was so habituated to having her near him in a man's capacity,
+that he had gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though
+she were really a man.  And this feeling was so perfectly
+reciprocal, that not only did Mr Brass often call Miss Brass a
+rascal, or even put an adjective before the rascal, but Miss Brass
+looked upon it as quite a matter of course, and was as little moved
+as any other lady would be by being called an angel.
+
+'What do you taunt me, after three hours' talk last night, with
+going to keep a clerk for?' repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with
+the pen in his mouth, like some nobleman's or gentleman's crest.
+Is it my fault?'
+
+'All I know is,' said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted
+in nothing so much as irritating her brother, 'that if every one of
+your clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or
+not, you had better leave off business, strike yourself off the
+roll, and get taken in execution, as soon as you can.'
+
+'Have we got any other client like him?' said Brass.  'Have we got
+another client like him now--will you answer me that?'
+
+'Do you mean in the face!' said his sister.
+
+'Do I mean in the face!' sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to
+take up the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly.  'Look
+here--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp, Esquire--Daniel Quilp,
+Esquire--all through.  Whether should I take a clerk that he
+recommends, and says, "this is the man for you," or lose all this,
+eh?'
+
+Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on
+with her work.
+
+'But I know what it is,' resumed Brass after a short silence.
+'You're afraid you won't have as long a finger in the business as
+you've been used to have.  Do you think I don't see through that?'
+
+'The business wouldn't go on very long, I expect, without me,'
+returned his sister composedly.  'Don't you be a fool and provoke
+me, Sammy, but mind what you're doing, and do it.'
+
+Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister,
+sulkily bent over his writing again, and listened as she said:
+
+'If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he
+wouldn't be allowed to come.  You know that well enough, so don't
+talk nonsense.'
+
+Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely
+remarking, under his breath, that he didn't like that kind of
+joking, and that Miss Sally would be 'a much better fellow' if she
+forbore to aggravate him.  To this compliment Miss Sally replied,
+that she had a relish for the amusement, and had no intention to
+forego its gratification.  Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to
+pursue the subject any further, they both plied their pens at a
+great pace, and there the discussion ended.
+
+While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as
+by some person standing close against it.  As Mr Brass and Miss
+Sally looked up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly
+lowered from without, and Quilp thrust in his head.
+
+'Hallo!' he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and
+looking down into the room.  'is there anybody at home?  Is there
+any of the Devil's ware here?  Is Brass at a premium, eh?'
+
+'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy.  'Oh, very
+good, Sir!  Oh, very good indeed!  Quite eccentric!  Dear me, what
+humour he has!'
+
+'Is that my Sally?' croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass.
+'Is it Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword
+and scales?  Is it the Strong Arm of the Law?  Is it the Virgin of
+Bevis?'
+
+'What an amazing flow of spirits!' cried Brass.  'Upon my word,
+it's quite extraordinary!'
+
+'Open the door,' said Quilp, 'I've got him here.  Such a clerk for
+you, Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps.  Be quick and open
+the door, or if there's another lawyer near and he should happen to
+look out of window, he'll snap him up before your eyes, he will.'
+
+It is probable that the loss of the phoenix of clerks, even to a
+rival practitioner, would not have broken Mr Brass's heart; but,
+pretending great alacrity, he rose from his seat, and going to the
+door, returned, introducing his client, who led by the hand no less
+a person than Mr Richard Swiveller.
+
+'There she is,' said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and
+wrinkling up his eyebrows as he looked towards Miss Sally; 'there
+is the woman I ought to have married--there is the beautiful Sarah--
+there is the female who has all the charms of her sex and none of
+their weaknesses.  Oh Sally, Sally!'
+
+To this amorous address Miss Brass briefly responded 'Bother!'
+
+'Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,' said
+Quilp.  'Why don't she change it--melt down the brass, and take
+another name?'
+
+'Hold your nonsense, Mr Quilp, do,' returned Miss Sally, with a
+grim smile.  'I wonder you're not ashamed of yourself before a
+strange young man.'
+
+'The strange young man,' said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller
+forward, 'is too susceptible himself not to understand me well.
+This is Mr Swiveller, my intimate friend--a gentleman of good
+family and great expectations, but who, having rather involved
+himself by youthful indiscretion, is content for a time to fill the
+humble station of a clerk--humble, but here most enviable.  What
+a delicious atmosphere!'
+
+If Mr Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air
+breathed by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that
+dainty creature, he had doubtless good reason for what he said.
+But if he spoke of the delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass's
+office in a literal sense, he had certainly a peculiar taste, as it
+was of a close and earthy kind, and, besides being frequently
+impregnated with strong whiffs of the second-hand wearing apparel
+exposed for sale in Duke's Place and Houndsditch, had a decided
+flavour of rats and mice, and a taint of mouldiness.  Perhaps some
+doubts of its pure delight presented themselves to Mr Swiveller, as
+he gave vent to one or two short abrupt sniffs, and looked
+incredulously at the grinning dwarf.
+
+'Mr Swiveller,' said Quilp, 'being pretty well accustomed to the
+agricultural pursuits of sowing wild oats, Miss Sally, prudently
+considers that half a loaf is better than no bread.  To be out of
+harm's way he prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he
+accepts your brother's offer.  Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.'
+
+'I am very glad, Sir,' said Mr Brass, 'very glad indeed.  Mr
+Swiveller, Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship.  You
+may be very proud, Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.'
+
+Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to
+give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing
+of friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties
+appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass,
+at whom he stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the
+watchful dwarf beyond measure.  As to the divine Miss Sally
+herself, she rubbed her hands as men of business do, and took a few
+turns up and down the office with her pen behind her ear.
+
+'I suppose,' said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend,
+'that Mr Swiveller enters upon his duties at once?  It's Monday
+morning.'
+
+'At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,' returned Brass.
+
+'Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,'
+said Quilp; 'she'll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his
+Blackstone, his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer's Best
+Companion.'
+
+'He is exceedingly eloquent,' said Brass, like a man abstracted,
+and looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in
+his pockets; 'he has an extraordinary flow of language.  Beautiful,
+really.'
+
+'With Miss Sally,' Quilp went on, 'and the beautiful fictions of
+the law, his days will pass like minutes.  Those charming creations
+of the poet, John Doe and Richard Roe, when they first dawn upon
+him, will open a new world for the enlargement of his mind and the
+improvement of his heart.'
+
+'Oh, beautiful, beautiful!  Beau-ti-ful indeed!' cried Brass.
+'It's a treat to hear him!'
+
+'Where will Mr Swiveller sit?' said Quilp, looking round.
+
+'Why, we'll buy another stool, sir,' returned Brass.  'We hadn't
+any thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were
+kind enough to suggest it, and our accommodation's not extensive.
+We'll look about for a second-hand stool, sir.  In the meantime, if
+Mr Swiveller will take my seat, and try his hand at a fair copy of
+this ejectment, as I shall be out pretty well all the morning--'
+
+'Walk with me,' said Quilp.  'I have a word or two to say to you on
+points of business.  Can you spare the time?'
+
+'Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir?  You're joking, sir,
+you're joking with me,' replied the lawyer, putting on his hat.
+'I'm ready, sir, quite ready.  My time must be fully occupied
+indeed, sir, not to leave me time to walk with you.  It's not
+everybody, sir, who has an opportunity of improving himself by the
+conversation of Mr Quilp.'
+
+The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a
+short dry cough, turned upon his heel to bid adieu to Miss Sally.
+After a very gallant parting on his side, and a very cool and
+gentlemanly sort of one on hers, he nodded to Dick Swiveller, and
+withdrew with the attorney.
+
+Dick stood at the desk in a state of utter stupefaction, staring
+with all his might at the beauteous Sally, as if she had been some
+curious animal whose like had never lived.  When the dwarf got into
+the street, he mounted again upon the window-sill, and looked into
+the office for a moment with a grinning face, as a man might peep
+into a cage.  Dick glanced upward at him, but without any token of
+recognition; and long after he had disappeared, still stood gazing
+upon Miss Sally Brass, seeing or thinking of nothing else, and
+rooted to the spot.
+
+Miss Brass being by this time deep in the bill of costs, took no
+notice whatever of Dick, but went scratching on, with a noisy pen,
+scoring down the figures with evident delight, and working like a
+steam-engine.  There stood Dick, gazing now at the green gown, now
+at the brown head-dress, now at the face, and now at the rapid pen,
+in a state of stupid perplexity, wondering how he got into the
+company of that strange monster, and whether it was a dream and he
+would ever wake.  At last he heaved a deep sigh, and began slowly
+pulling off his coat.
+
+Mr Swiveller pulled off his coat, and folded it up with great
+elaboration, staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue
+jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally
+ordered for aquatic expeditions, but had brought with him that
+morning for office purposes; and, still keeping his eye upon her,
+suffered himself to drop down silently upon Mr Brass's stool.  Then
+he underwent a relapse, and becoming powerless again, rested his
+chin upon his hand, and opened his eyes so wide, that it appeared
+quite out of the question that he could ever close them any more.
+
+When he had looked so long that he could see nothing, Dick took his
+eyes off the fair object of his amazement, turned over the leaves
+of the draft he was to copy, dipped his pen into the inkstand, and
+at last, and by slow approaches, began to write.  But he had not
+written half-a-dozen words when, reaching over to the inkstand to
+take a fresh dip, he happened to raise his eyes.  There was the
+intolerable brown head-dress--there was the green gown--there, in
+short, was Miss Sally Brass, arrayed in all her charms, and more
+tremendous than ever.
+
+This happened so often, that Mr Swiveller by degrees began to feel
+strange influences creeping over him--horrible desires to
+annihilate this Sally Brass--mysterious promptings to knock her
+head-dress off and try how she looked without it.  There was a very
+large ruler on the table; a large, black, shining ruler.  Mr
+Swiveller took it up and began to rub his nose with it.
+
+From rubbing his nose with the ruler, to poising it in his hand and
+giving it an occasional flourish after the tomahawk manner, the
+transition was easy and natural.  In some of these flourishes it
+went close to Miss Sally's head; the ragged edges of the head-
+dress fluttered with the wind it raised; advance it but an inch,
+and that great brown knot was on the ground: yet still the
+unconscious maiden worked away, and never raised her eyes.
+
+Well, this was a great relief.  It was a good thing to write
+doggedly and obstinately until he was desperate, and then snatch up
+the ruler and whirl it about the brown head-dress with the
+consciousness that he could have it off if he liked.  It was a good
+thing to draw it back, and rub his nose very hard with it, if he
+thought Miss Sally was going to look up, and to recompense himself
+with more hardy flourishes when he found she was still absorbed.
+By these means Mr Swiveller calmed the agitation of his feelings,
+until his applications to the ruler became less fierce and
+frequent, and he could even write as many as half-a-dozen
+consecutive lines without having recourse to it--which was a
+great victory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 34
+
+
+In course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so,
+of diligent application, Miss Brass arrived at the conclusion of
+her task, and recorded the fact by wiping her pen upon the green
+gown, and taking a pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which
+she carried in her pocket.  Having disposed of this temperate
+refreshment, she arose from her stool, tied her papers into a
+formal packet with red tape, and taking them under her arm, marched
+out of the office.
+
+Mr Swiveller had scarcely sprung off his seat and commenced the
+performance of a maniac hornpipe, when he was interrupted, in the
+fulness of his joy at being again alone, by the opening of the
+door, and the reappearance of Miss Sally's head.
+
+'I am going out,' said Miss Brass.
+
+'Very good, ma'am,' returned Dick.  'And don't hurry yourself on my
+account to come back, ma'am,' he added inwardly.
+
+'If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say
+that the gentleman who attends to that matter isn't in at present,
+will you?' said Miss Brass.
+
+'I will, ma'am,' replied Dick.
+
+'I shan't be very long,' said Miss Brass, retiring.
+
+'I'm sorry to hear it, ma'am,' rejoined Dick when she had shut the
+door.  'I hope you may be unexpectedly detained, ma'am.  If you
+could manage to be run over, ma'am, but not seriously, so much the
+better.'
+
+Uttering these expressions of good-will with extreme gravity, Mr
+Swiveller sat down in the client's chair and pondered; then took a
+few turns up and down the room and fell into the chair again.
+
+'So I'm Brass's clerk, am I?' said Dick.  'Brass's clerk, eh?  And
+the clerk of Brass's sister--clerk to a female Dragon.  Very good,
+very good!  What shall I be next?  Shall I be a convict in a felt
+hat and a grey suit, trotting about a dockyard with my number
+neatly embroidered on my uniform, and the order of the garter on my
+leg, restrained from chafing my ankle by a twisted belcher
+handkerchief?  Shall I be that?  Will that do, or is it too
+genteel?  Whatever you please, have it your own way, of course.'
+
+As he was entirely alone, it may be presumed that, in these
+remarks, Mr Swiveller addressed himself to his fate or destiny,
+whom, as we learn by the precedents, it is the custom of heroes to
+taunt in a very bitter and ironical manner when they find
+themselves in situations of an unpleasant nature.  This is the more
+probable from the circumstance of Mr Swiveller directing his
+observations to the ceiling, which these bodily personages are
+usually supposed to inhabit--except in theatrical cases, when they
+live in the heart of the great chandelier.
+
+'Quilp offers me this place, which he says he can insure me,'
+resumed Dick after a thoughtful silence, and telling off the
+circumstances of his position, one by one, upon his fingers; 'Fred,
+who, I could have taken my affidavit, would not have heard of such
+a thing, backs Quilp to my astonishment, and urges me to take it
+also--staggerer, number one!  My aunt in the country stops the
+supplies, and writes an affectionate note to say that she has made
+a new will, and left me out of it--staggerer, number two.  No
+money; no credit; no support from Fred, who seems to turn steady
+all at once; notice to quit the old lodgings--staggerers, three,
+four, five, and six!  Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man
+can be considered a free agent.  No man knocks himself down; if his
+destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again.  Then
+I'm very glad that mine has brought all this upon itself, and I
+shall be as careless as I can, and make myself quite at home to
+spite it.  So go on my buck,' said Mr Swiveller, taking his leave
+of the ceiling with a significant nod, 'and let us see which of us
+will be tired first!'
+
+Dismissing the subject of his downfall with these reflections,
+which were no doubt very profound, and are indeed not altogether
+unknown in certain systems of moral philosophy, Mr Swiveller shook
+off his despondency and assumed the cheerful ease of an
+irresponsible clerk.
+
+As a means towards his composure and self-possession, he entered
+into a more minute examination of the office than he had yet had
+time to make; looked into the wig-box, the books, and ink-bottle;
+untied and inspected all the papers; carved a few devices on the
+table with a sharp blade of Mr Brass's penknife; and wrote his name
+on the inside of the wooden coal-scuttle.  Having, as it were,
+taken formal possession of his clerkship in virtue of these
+proceedings, he opened the window and leaned negligently out of it
+until a beer-boy happened to pass, whom he commanded to set down
+his tray and to serve him with a pint of mild porter, which he
+drank upon the spot and promptly paid for, with the view of
+breaking ground for a system of future credit and opening a
+correspondence tending thereto, without loss of time.  Then, three
+or four little boys dropped in, on legal errands from three or four
+attorneys of the Brass grade: whom Mr Swiveller received and
+dismissed with about as professional a manner, and as correct and
+comprehensive an understanding of their business, as would have
+been shown by a clown in a pantomime under similar circumstances.
+These things done and over, he got upon his stool again and tried
+his hand at drawing caricatures of Miss Brass with a pen and ink,
+whistling very cheerfully all the time.
+
+He was occupied in this diversion when a coach stopped near the
+door, and presently afterwards there was a loud double-knock.  As
+this was no business of Mr Swiveller's, the person not ringing the
+office bell, he pursued his diversion with perfect composure,
+notwithstanding that he rather thought there was nobody else in the
+house.
+
+In this, however, he was mistaken; for, after the knock had been
+repeated with increased impatience, the door was opened, and
+somebody with a very heavy tread went up the stairs and into the
+room above.  Mr Swiveller was wondering whether this might be
+another Miss Brass, twin sister to the Dragon, when there came a
+rapping of knuckles at the office door.
+
+'Come in!' said Dick.  'Don't stand upon ceremony.  The business
+will get rather complicated if I've many more customers.  Come in!'
+
+'Oh, please,' said a little voice very low down in the doorway,
+'will you come and show the lodgings?'
+
+Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a
+dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but
+her face and feet.  She might as well have been dressed in a
+violin-case.
+
+'Why, who are you?' said Dick.
+
+To which the only reply was, 'Oh, please will you come and show the
+lodgings?'
+
+There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and
+manner.  She must have been at work from her cradle.  She seemed as
+much afraid of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.
+
+'I hav'n't got anything to do with the lodgings,' said Dick.  'Tell
+'em to call again.'
+
+'Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,' returned the
+girl; 'It's eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and
+linen.  Boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is
+eightpence a day.'
+
+'Why don't you show 'em yourself?  You seem to know all about 'em,'
+said Dick.
+
+'Miss Sally said I wasn't to, because people wouldn't believe the
+attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.'
+
+'Well, but they'll see how small you are afterwards, won't they?'
+said Dick.
+
+'Ah!  But then they'll have taken 'em for a fortnight certain,'
+replied the child with a shrewd look; 'and people don't like moving
+when they're once settled.'
+
+'This is a queer sort of thing,' muttered Dick, rising.  'What do
+you mean to say you are--the cook?'
+
+'Yes, I do plain cooking;' replied the child.  'I'm housemaid too;
+I do all the work of the house.'
+
+'I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,'
+thought Dick.  And he might have thought much more, being in a
+doubtful and hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her
+request, and certain mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and
+staircase seemed to give note of the applicant's impatience.
+Richard Swiveller, therefore, sticking a pen behind each ear, and
+carrying another in his mouth as a token of his great importance
+and devotion to business, hurried out to meet and treat with the
+single gentleman.
+
+He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were
+occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman's
+trunk, which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and
+exceedingly heavy withal, it was no easy matter for the united
+exertions of the single gentleman and the coachman to convey up the
+steep ascent.  But there they were, crushing each other, and
+pushing and pulling with all their might, and getting the trunk
+tight and fast in all kinds of impossible angles, and to pass them
+was out of the question; for which sufficient reason, Mr Swiveller
+followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair
+against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus taken by storm.
+
+To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word,
+but when the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon
+it and wiped his bald head and face with his handkerchief.  He was
+very warm, and well he might be; for, not to mention the exertion
+of getting the trunk up stairs, he was closely muffled in winter
+garments, though the thermometer had stood all day at eighty-one in
+the shade.
+
+'I believe, sir,' said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his
+mouth, 'that you desire to look at these apartments.  They are very
+charming apartments, sir.  They command an uninterrupted view of--
+of over the way, and they are within one minute's walk of--of the
+corner of the street.  There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in
+the immediate vicinity, and the contingent advantages are
+extraordinary.'
+
+'What's the rent?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'One pound per week,' replied Dick, improving on the terms.
+
+'I'll take 'em.'
+
+'The boots and clothes are extras,' said Dick; 'and the fires in
+winter time are--'
+
+'Are all agreed to,' answered the single gentleman.
+
+'Two weeks certain,' said Dick, 'are the--'
+
+'Two weeks!' cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from
+top to toe.  'Two years.  I shall live here for two years.  Here.
+Ten pounds down.  The bargain's made.'
+
+'Why you see,' said Dick, 'my name is not Brass, and--'
+
+'Who said it was?  My name's not Brass.  What then?'
+
+'The name of the master of the house is,' said Dick.
+
+'I'm glad of it,' returned the single gentleman; 'it's a good name
+for a lawyer.  Coachman, you may go.  So may you, Sir.'
+
+Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding
+roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him
+almost as hard as he had looked at Miss Sally.  The single
+gentleman, however, was not in the slightest degree affected by
+this circumstance, but proceeded with perfect composure to unwind
+the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then to pull off his
+boots.  Freed of these encumbrances, he went on to divest himself
+of his other clothing, which he folded up, piece by piece, and
+ranged in order on the trunk.  Then, he pulled down the
+window-blinds, drew the curtains, wound up his watch, and, quite
+leisurely and methodically, got into bed.
+
+'Take down the bill,' were his parting words, as he looked out from
+between the curtains; 'and let nobody call me till I ring the
+bell.'
+
+With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately.
+
+'This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!' said Mr
+Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand.
+'She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like
+professional gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing
+mysteriously from under ground; strangers walking in and going to
+bed without leave or licence in the middle of the day!  If he
+should be one of the miraculous fellows that turn up now and then,
+and has gone to sleep for two years, I shall be in a pleasant
+situation.  It's my destiny, however, and I hope Brass may like it.
+I shall be sorry if he don't.  But it's no business of mine--I
+have nothing whatever to do with it!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 35
+
+
+Mr Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with
+much complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring
+after the ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a
+good and lawful note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of
+England, increased his good-humour considerably.  Indeed he so
+overflowed with liberality and condescension, that, in the fulness
+of his heart, he invited Mr Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch
+with him at that remote and indefinite period which is currently
+denominated 'one of these days,' and paid him many handsome
+compliments on the uncommon aptitude for business which his conduct
+on the first day of his devotion to it had so plainly evinced.
+
+It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments
+kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful
+member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges
+in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be
+always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving
+himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic
+expressions.  And this had passed into such a habit with him, that,
+if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at his
+fingers' ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but
+in his face: which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and
+repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, but frowned above all
+the smooth speeches--one of nature's beacons, warning off those
+who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of that
+dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less
+treacherous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere.
+
+While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and
+inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and
+that of no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal
+practice had been to fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings,
+and to whet and sharpen her natural wisdom, she was not a little
+disappointed that the single gentleman had obtained the lodgings at
+such an easy rate, arguing that when he was seen to have set his
+mind upon them, he should have been at the least charged double or
+treble the usual terms, and that, in exact proportion as he pressed
+forward, Mr Swiveller should have hung back.  But neither the good
+opinion of Mr Brass, nor the dissatisfaction of Miss Sally, wrought
+any impression upon that young gentleman, who, throwing the
+responsibility of this and all other acts and deeds thereafter to
+be done by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was quite resigned and
+comfortable: fully prepared for the worst, and philosophically
+indifferent to the best.
+
+
+'Good morning, Mr Richard,' said Brass, on the second day of Mr
+Swiveller's clerkship.  'Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir,
+yesterday evening, in Whitechapel.  She's a rare fellow at a
+bargain, I can tell you, Mr Richard.  You'll find that a first-rate
+stool, Sir, take my word for it.'
+
+'It's rather a crazy one to look at,' said Dick.
+
+'You'll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may
+depend,' returned Mr Brass.  'It was bought in the open street just
+opposite the hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of
+two, it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the
+sun, that's all.'
+
+'I hope it hasn't got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,'
+said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson
+and the chaste Sally.  'One of the legs is longer than the others.'
+
+'Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,' retorted Brass.  'Ha, ha,
+ha!  We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that's another advantage
+of my sister's going to market for us.  Miss Brass, Mr Richard is
+the--'
+
+'Will you keep quiet?' interrupted the fair subject of these
+remarks, looking up from her papers.  'How am I to work if you keep
+on chattering?'
+
+'What an uncertain chap you are!' returned the lawyer.  'Sometimes
+you're all for a chat.  At another time you're all for work.  A man
+never knows what humour he'll find you in.'
+
+'I'm in a working humour now,' said Sally, 'so don't disturb me, if
+you please.  And don't take him,' Miss Sally pointed with the
+feather of her pen to Richard, 'off his business.  He won't do more
+than he can help, I dare say.'
+
+Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply,
+but was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only
+muttered something about aggravation and a vagabond; not
+associating the terms with any individual, but mentioning them as
+connected with some abstract ideas which happened to occur to him.
+They went on writing for a long time in silence after this--in
+such a dull silence that Mr Swiveller (who required excitement) had
+several times fallen asleep, and written divers strange words in an
+unknown character with his eyes shut, when Miss Sally at length
+broke in upon the monotony of the office by pulling out the little
+tin box, taking a noisy pinch of snuff, and then expressing her
+opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had 'done it.'
+
+'Done what, ma'am?' said Richard.
+
+'Do you know,' returned Miss Brass, 'that the lodger isn't up yet--
+that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed
+yesterday afternoon?'
+
+'Well, ma'am,' said Dick, 'I suppose he may sleep his ten pound
+out, in peace and quietness, if he likes.'
+
+'Ah!  I begin to think he'll never wake,' observed Miss Sally.
+
+'It's a very remarkable circumstance,' said Brass, laying down his
+pen; 'really, very remarkable.  Mr Richard, you'll remember, if
+this gentleman should be found to have hung himself to the
+bed-post, or any unpleasant accident of that kind should happen--
+you'll remember, Mr Richard, that this ten pound note was given to
+you in part payment of two years' rent?  You'll bear that in mind,
+Mr Richard; you had better make a note of it, sir, in case you
+should ever be called upon to give evidence.'
+
+Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance
+of profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.
+
+'We can never be too cautious,' said Mr Brass.  'There is a deal of
+wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness.  Did the
+gentleman happen to say, Sir--but never mind that at present, sir;
+finish that little memorandum first.'
+
+Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his
+stool, and was walking up and down the office.
+
+'Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?' said Brass, running his eye
+over the document.  'Very good.  Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman
+say anything else?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Are you sure, Mr Richard,' said Brass, solemnly, 'that the
+gentleman said nothing else?'
+
+'Devil a word, Sir,' replied Dick.
+
+'Think again, Sir,' said Brass; 'it's my duty, Sir, in the position
+in which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal
+profession--the first profession in this country, Sir, or in any
+other country, or in any of the planets that shine above us at
+night and are supposed to be inhabited--it's my duty, Sir, as an
+honourable member of that profession, not to put to you a leading
+question in a matter of this delicacy and importance.  Did the
+gentleman, Sir, who took the first floor of you yesterday
+afternoon, and who brought with him a box of property--a box of
+property--say anything more than is set down in this memorandum?'
+
+'Come, don't be a fool,' said Miss Sally.
+
+Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally
+again, and still said 'No.'
+
+'Pooh, pooh!  Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!' cried
+Brass, relaxing into a smile.  'Did he say anything about his
+property? --there!'
+
+'That's the way to put it,' said Miss Sally, nodding to her
+brother.
+
+'Did he say, for instance,' added Brass, in a kind of comfortable,
+cozy tone--'I don't assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask
+you, to refresh your memory--did he say, for instance, that he was
+a stranger in London--that it was not his humour or within his
+ability to give any references--that he felt we had a right to
+require them--and that, in case anything should happen to him, at
+any time, he particularly desired that whatever property he had
+upon the premises should be considered mine, as some slight
+recompense for the trouble and annoyance I should sustain--and
+were you, in short,' added Brass, still more comfortably and cozily
+than before, 'were you induced to accept him on my behalf, as a
+tenant, upon those conditions?'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied Dick.
+
+'Why then, Mr Richard,' said Brass, darting at him a supercilious
+and reproachful look, 'it's my opinion that you've mistaken your
+calling, and will never make a lawyer.'
+
+'Not if you live a thousand years,' added Miss Sally.  Whereupon
+the brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the
+little tin box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.
+
+Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller's dinner-time, which was
+at three o'clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming.  At the
+first stroke of the hour, the new clerk disappeared.  At the last
+stroke of five, he reappeared, and the office, as if by magic,
+became fragrant with the smell of gin and water and lemon-peel.
+
+'Mr Richard,' said Brass, 'this man's not up yet.  Nothing will
+wake him, sir.  What's to be done?'
+
+'I should let him have his sleep out,' returned Dick.
+
+'Sleep out!' cried Brass; 'why he has been asleep now, six-
+and-twenty hours.  We have been moving chests of drawers over his
+head, we have knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have
+made the servant-girl fall down stairs several times (she's a light
+weight, and it don't hurt her much,) but nothing wakes him.'
+
+'Perhaps a ladder,' suggested Dick, 'and getting in at the first-
+floor window--'
+
+'But then there's a door between; besides, the neighbours would be
+up in arms,' said Brass.
+
+'What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the
+trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?' suggested Dick.
+
+'That would be an excellent plan,' said Brass, 'if anybody would
+be--' and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller--'would be kind,
+and friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it.  I dare say it
+would not be anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.'
+
+Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly
+fall within Miss Sally's department.  As he said nothing further,
+and declined taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that
+they should go up stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken
+the sleeper by some less violent means, which, if they failed on
+this last trial, must positively be succeeded by stronger measures.
+Mr Swiveller, assenting, armed himself with his stool and the large
+ruler, and repaired with his employer to the scene of action, where
+Miss Brass was already ringing a hand-bell with all her might, and
+yet without producing the smallest effect upon their mysterious
+lodger.
+
+'There are his boots, Mr Richard!' said Brass.
+
+'Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,' quoth Richard
+Swiveller.  And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of
+boots as one would wish to see; as firmly planted on the ground as
+if their owner's legs and feet had been in them; and seeming, with
+their broad soles and blunt toes, to hold possession of their place
+by main force.
+
+'I can't see anything but the curtain of the bed,' said Brass,
+applying his eye to the keyhole of the door.  'Is he a strong man,
+Mr Richard?'
+
+Very,' answered Dick.
+
+It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to
+bounce out suddenly,' said Brass.  'Keep the stairs clear.  I
+should be more than a match for him, of course, but I'm the master
+of the house, and the laws of hospitality must be respected. --
+Hallo there!  Hallo, hallo!'
+
+While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole,
+uttered these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger's
+attention, and while Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller
+put his stool close against the wall by the side of the door, and
+mounting on the top and standing bolt upright, so that if the
+lodger did make a rush, he would most probably pass him in its
+onward fury, began a violent battery with the ruler upon the upper
+panels of the door.  Captivated with his own ingenuity, and
+confident in the strength of his position, which he had taken up
+after the method of those hardy individuals who open the pit and
+gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr Swiveller rained
+down such a shower of blows, that the noise of the bell was
+drowned; and the small servant, who lingered on the stairs below,
+ready to fly at a moment's notice, was obliged to hold her ears
+lest she should be rendered deaf for life.
+
+Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently
+open.  The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived
+into her own bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for
+personal courage, ran into the next street, and finding that nobody
+followed him, armed with a poker or other offensive weapon, put his
+hands in his pockets, walked very slowly all at once, and whistled.
+
+Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into
+as flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not
+unconcernedly, down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the
+door growling and cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the
+boots in his hand, seemed to have an intention of hurling them down
+stairs on speculation.  This idea, however, he abandoned.  He was
+turning into his room again, still growling vengefully, when his
+eyes met those of the watchful Richard.
+
+'Have YOU been making that horrible noise?' said the single
+gentleman.
+
+'I have been helping, sir,' returned Dick, keeping his eye upon
+him, and waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an
+indication of what the single gentleman had to expect if he
+attempted any violence.
+
+'How dare you then,' said the lodger, 'Eh?'
+
+To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the
+lodger held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of
+a gentleman to go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch,
+and whether the peace of an amiable and virtuous family was to
+weigh as nothing in the balance.
+
+'Is my peace nothing?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'Is their peace nothing, sir?' returned Dick.  'I don't wish to
+hold out any threats, sir--indeed the law does not allow of
+threats, for to threaten is an indictable offence--but if ever you
+do that again, take care you're not sat upon by the coroner and
+buried in a cross road before you wake.  We have been distracted
+with fears that you were dead, Sir,' said Dick, gently sliding to
+the ground, 'and the short and the long of it is, that we cannot
+allow single gentlemen to come into this establishment and sleep
+like double gentlemen without paying extra for it.'
+
+'Indeed!' cried the lodger.
+
+'Yes, Sir, indeed,' returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and
+saying whatever came uppermost; 'an equal quantity of slumber was
+never got out of one bed and bedstead, and if you're going to sleep
+in that way, you must pay for a double-bedded room.' .
+
+Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks,
+the lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with
+twinkling eyes.  He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared
+browner and more sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on.  As it
+was clear that he was a choleric fellow in some respects, Mr
+Swiveller was relieved to find him in such good humour, and, to
+encourage him in it, smiled himself.
+
+The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed
+his nightcap very much on one side of his bald head.  This gave him
+a rakish eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe
+it, charmed Mr Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of
+propitiation, he expressed his hope that the gentleman was going to
+get up, and further that he would never do so any more.
+
+'Come here, you impudent rascal!' was the lodger's answer as he
+re-entered his room.
+
+Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but
+reserving the ruler in case of a surprise.  He rather congratulated
+himself on his prudence when the single gentleman, without notice
+or explanation of any kind, double-locked the door.
+
+'Can you drink anything?' was his next inquiry.
+
+Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the
+pangs of thirst, but that he was still open to 'a modest quencher,'
+if the materials were at hand.  Without another word spoken on
+either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of
+temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on
+the table.
+
+Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him
+closely.  Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an
+egg; into another some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw
+steak from a neat tin case; into a fourth, he poured some water.
+Then, with the aid of a phosphorus-box and some matches, he
+procured a light and applied it to a spirit-lamp which had a place
+of its own below the temple; then, he shut down the lids of all the
+little chambers; then he opened them; and then, by some wonderful
+and unseen agency, the steak was done, the egg was boiled, the
+coffee was accurately prepared, and his breakfast was ready.
+
+'Hot water--' said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as
+much coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him--
+'extraordinary rum--sugar--and a travelling glass.  Mix for
+yourself.  And make haste.'
+
+Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on
+the table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which
+seemed to hold everything.  The lodger took his breakfast like a
+man who was used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of
+them.
+
+'The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?' said the lodger.
+
+Dick nodded.  The rum was amazing.
+
+'The woman of the house--what's she?'
+
+'A dragon,' said Dick.
+
+The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things
+in his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman,
+evinced no surprise, but merely inquired 'Wife or Sister?'--
+'Sister,' said Dick.--'So much the better,' said the single
+gentleman, 'he can get rid of her when he likes.'
+
+'I want to do as I like, young man,' he added after a short
+silence; 'to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in
+when I like, go out when I like--to be asked no questions and be
+surrounded by no spies.  In this last respect, servants are the
+devil.  There's only one here.'
+
+'And a very little one,' said Dick.
+
+'And a very little one,' repeated the lodger.  'Well, the place
+will suit me, will it?'
+
+'Yes,' said Dick.
+
+'Sharks, I suppose?' said the lodger.
+
+Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.
+
+'Let them know my humour,' said the single gentleman, rising.  'If
+they disturb me, they lose a good tenant.  If they know me to be
+that, they know enough.  If they try to know more, it's a notice to
+quit.  It's better to understand these things at once.  Good day.'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said Dick, halting in his passage to the door,
+which the lodger prepared to open.  'When he who adores thee has
+left but the name--'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'--But the name,' said Dick--'has left but the name--in case of
+letters or parcels--'
+
+'I never have any,' returned the lodger.
+
+'Or in the case anybody should call.'
+
+'Nobody ever calls on me.'
+
+'If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don't say it
+was my fault, Sir,' added Dick, still lingering.--'Oh blame
+not the bard--'
+
+'I'll blame nobody,' said the lodger, with such irascibility that
+in a moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked
+door between them.
+
+Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed,
+only routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller's abrupt exit.  As
+their utmost exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of
+the interview, however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence,
+which, though limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such
+quiet pantomime, had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down
+to the office to hear his account of the conversation.
+
+This Mr Swiveller gave them--faithfully as regarded the wishes and
+character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the
+great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for
+brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring,
+with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of
+every kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in
+particular that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever
+was required, as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them
+to understand that the cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of
+sirloin of beef, weighing about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two
+minutes and a quarter, as he had himself witnessed, and proved
+by his sense of taste; and further, that, however the effect was
+produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and bubble up when
+the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr Swiveller)
+was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or chemist,
+or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at some
+future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of
+Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks.
+
+There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to
+enlarge upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which,
+by reason of its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the
+heels of the temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner,
+awakened a slight degree of fever, and rendered necessary two or
+three other modest quenchers at the public-house in the course of
+the evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 36
+
+
+As the single gentleman after some weeks' occupation of his
+lodgings, still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either
+with Mr Brass or his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard
+Swiveller as his channel of communication; and as he proved himself
+in all respects a highly desirable inmate, paying for everything
+beforehand, giving very little trouble, making no noise, and
+keeping early hours; Mr Richard imperceptibly rose to an important
+position in the family, as one who had influence over this
+mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with him, for good or evil,
+when nobody else durst approach his person.
+
+If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller's approaches to the
+single gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small
+encouragement; but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic
+conference with the unknown, without quoting such expressions as
+'Swiveller, I know I can rely upon you,'--'I have no hesitation in
+saying, Swiveller, that I entertain a regard for you,'--'Swiveller,
+you are my friend, and will stand by me I am sure,' with many other
+short speeches of the same familiar and confiding kind, purporting
+to have been addressed by the single gentleman to himself, and to
+form the staple of their ordinary discourse, neither Mr Brass nor
+Miss Sally for a moment questioned the extent of his influence, but
+accorded to him their fullest and most unqualified belief.
+But quite apart from, and independent of, this source of
+popularity, Mr Swiveller had another, which promised to be equally
+enduring, and to lighten his position considerably.
+
+He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass.  Let not the light
+scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new
+tale of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass,
+however accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving
+kind.  That amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law
+from her earliest youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as
+it were, in her first running alone, and maintained a firm grasp
+upon them ever since; had passed her life in a kind of legal
+childhood.  She had been remarkable, when a tender prattler for an
+uncommon talent in counterfeiting the walk and manner of a bailiff:
+in which character she had learned to tap her little playfellows on
+the shoulder, and to carry them off to imaginary sponging-houses,
+with a correctness of imitation which was the surprise and delight
+of all who witnessed her performances, and which was only to be
+exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an execution into her
+doll's house, and taking an exact inventory of the chairs and
+tables.  These artless sports had naturally soothed and cheered the
+decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman (called
+'old Foxey' by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who
+encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding
+that he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter
+could not take out an attorney's certificate and hold a place upon
+the roll.  Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he
+had solemnly confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable
+auxiliary; and from the old gentleman's decease to the period of
+which we treat, Miss Sally Brass had been the prop and pillar of
+his business.
+
+It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one
+pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the
+world, otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a
+lady gifted with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and
+softer arts in which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked
+for.  Miss Sally's accomplishments were all of a masculine and
+strictly legal kind.  They began with the practice of an attorney
+and they ended with it.  She was in a state of lawful innocence, so
+to speak.  The law had been her nurse.  And, as bandy-legs or such
+physical deformities in children are held to be the consequence of
+bad nursing, so, if in a mind so beautiful any moral twist or
+handiness could be found, Miss Sally Brass's nurse was alone to
+blame.
+
+It was on this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full
+freshness as something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up
+the office with scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with
+inkstands and boxes of wafers, catching three oranges in one hand,
+balancing stools upon his chin and penknives on his nose, and
+constantly performing a hundred other feats with equal ingenuity;
+for with such unbendings did Richard, in Mr Brass's absence,
+relieve the tedium of his confinement.  These social qualities,
+which Miss Sally first discovered by accident, gradually made such
+an impression upon her, that she would entreat Mr Swiveller to
+relax as though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller, nothing loth,
+would readily consent to do.  By these means a friendship sprung up
+between them.  Mr Swiveller gradually came to look upon her as her
+brother Sampson did, and as he would have looked upon any other
+clerk.  He imparted to her the mystery of going the odd man or
+plain Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer, baked potatoes, or even a
+modest quencher, of which Miss Brass did not scruple to partake.
+He would often persuade her to undertake his share of writing in
+addition to her own; nay, he would sometimes reward her with a
+hearty slap on the back, and protest that she was a devilish good
+fellow, a jolly dog, and so forth; all of which compliments Miss
+Sally would receive in entire good part and with perfect
+satisfaction.
+
+One circumstance troubled Mr Swiveller's mind very much, and that
+was that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels
+of the earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface
+unless the single gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it
+and immediately disappear again.  She never went out, or came into
+the office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or
+looked out of any one of the windows, or stood at the street-door
+for a breath of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever.  Nobody
+ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her.
+Mr Brass had said once, that he believed she was a 'love-child'
+(which means anything but a child of love), and that was all the
+information Richard Swiveller could obtain.
+
+'It's of no use asking the dragon,' thought Dick one day, as he sat
+contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass.  'I suspect if I
+asked any questions on that head, our alliance would be at an end.
+I wonder whether she is a dragon by-the-bye, or something in the
+mermaid way.  She has rather a scaly appearance.  But mermaids are
+fond of looking at themselves in the glass, which she can't be.
+And they have a habit of combing their hair, which she hasn't.  No,
+she's a dragon.'
+
+'Where are you going, old fellow?' said Dick aloud, as Miss Sally
+wiped her pen as usual on the green dress, and uprose from her
+seat.
+
+'To dinner,' answered the dragon.
+
+'To dinner!' thought Dick, 'that's another circumstance.  I don't
+believe that small servant ever has anything to eat.'
+
+'Sammy won't be home,' said Miss Brass.  'Stop till I come back.
+I sha'n't be long.'
+
+Dick nodded, and followed Miss Brass--with his eyes to the door,
+and with his ears to a little back parlour, where she and her
+brother took their meals.
+
+'Now,' said Dick, walking up and down with his hands in his
+pockets, 'I'd give something--if I had it--to know how they use
+that child, and where they keep her.  My mother must have been a
+very inquisitive woman; I have no doubt I'm marked with a note of
+interrogation somewhere.  My feelings I smother, but thou hast been
+the cause of this anguish, my--upon my word,' said Mr Swiveller,
+checking himself and falling thoughtfully into the client's chair,
+'I should like to know how they use her!'
+
+After running on, in this way, for some time, Mr Swiveller softly
+opened the office door, with the intention of darting across the
+street for a glass of the mild porter.  At that moment he caught a
+parting glimpse of the brown head-dress of Miss Brass flitting down
+the kitchen stairs.  'And by Jove!' thought Dick, 'she's going to
+feed the small servant.  Now or never!'
+
+First peeping over the handrail and allowing the head-dress to
+disappear in the darkness below, he groped his way down, and
+arrived at the door of a back kitchen immediately after Miss Brass
+had entered the same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton.  It
+was a very dark miserable place, very low and very damp: the walls
+disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches.  The water was
+trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping
+up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation.  The grate,
+which was a wide one, was wound and screwed up tight, so as to hold
+no more than a little thin sandwich of fire.  Everything was locked
+up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe,
+were all padlocked.  There was nothing that a beetle could have
+lunched upon.  The pinched and meagre aspect of the place would
+have killed a chameleon.  He would have known, at the first
+mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and must have given up the
+ghost in despair.
+
+The small servant stood with humility in presence of Miss Sally,
+and hung her head.
+
+'Are you there?' said Miss Sally.
+
+'Yes, ma'am,' was the answer in a weak voice.
+
+'Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you'll be picking it,
+I know,' said Miss Sally.
+
+The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass took a key
+from her pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary
+waste of cold potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge.  This she
+placed before the small servant, ordering her to sit down before
+it, and then, taking up a great carving-knife, made a mighty show
+of sharpening it upon the carving-fork.
+
+'Do you see this?' said Miss Brass, slicing off about two square
+inches of cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it
+out on the point of the fork.
+
+The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to
+see every shred of it, small as it was, and answered, 'yes.'
+
+'Then don't you ever go and say,' retorted Miss Sally, 'that you
+hadn't meat here.  There, eat it up.'
+
+This was soon done.  'Now, do you want any more?' said Miss Sally.
+
+The hungry creature answered with a faint 'No.'  They were
+evidently going through an established form.
+
+'You've been helped once to meat,' said Miss Brass, summing up the
+facts; 'you have had as much as you can eat, you're asked if you
+want any more, and you answer, 'no!' Then don't you ever go and say
+you were allowanced, mind that.'
+
+With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away and locked the safe,
+and then drawing near to the small servant, overlooked her while
+she finished the potatoes.
+
+It was plain that some extraordinary grudge was working in Miss
+Brass's gentle breast, and that it was that which impelled her,
+without the smallest present cause, to rap the child with the blade
+of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her
+back, as if she found it quite impossible to stand so close to her
+without administering a few slight knocks.  But Mr Swiveller was
+not a little surprised to see his fellow-clerk, after walking
+slowly backwards towards the door, as if she were trying to
+withdraw herself from the room but could not accomplish it, dart
+suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant give her some
+hard blows with her clenched hand.  The victim cried, but in a
+subdued manner as if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss Sally,
+comforting herself with a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs, just
+as Richard had safely reached the office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 37
+
+
+The single gentleman among his other peculiarities--and he had a
+very plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new
+specimen--took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the
+exhibition of Punch.  If the sound of a Punch's voice, at ever so
+remote a distance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman,
+though in bed and asleep, would start up, and, hurrying on his
+clothes, make for the spot with all speed, and presently return at
+the head of a long procession of idlers, having in the midst the
+theatre and its proprietors.  Straightway, the stage would be set
+up in front of Mr Brass's house; the single gentleman would
+establish himself at the first floor window; and the entertainment
+would proceed, with all its exciting accompaniments of fife and
+drum and shout, to the excessive consternation of all sober
+votaries of business in that silent thoroughfare.  It might have
+been expected that when the play was done, both players and
+audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as bad as the
+play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of the
+puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to
+his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his
+private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the
+purport of which no human being could fathom.  But the secret of
+these discussions was of little importance.  It was sufficient to
+know that while they were proceeding, the concourse without still
+lingered round the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their
+fists, and imitated Punch with their tender voices; that the
+office-window was rendered opaque by flattened noses, and the
+key-hole of the street-door luminous with eyes; that every time the
+single gentleman or either of his guests was seen at the upper
+window, or so much as the end of one of their noses was visible,
+there was a great shout of execration from the excluded mob, who
+remained howling and yelling, and refusing consolation, until the
+exhibitors were delivered up to them to be attended elsewhere.  It
+was sufficient, in short, to know that Bevis Marks was
+revolutionised by these popular movements, and that peace and
+quietness fled from its precincts.
+
+Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr
+Sampson Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so
+profitable an inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger's
+affront along with his cash, and to annoy the audiences who
+clustered round his door by such imperfect means of retaliation as
+were open to him, and which were confined to the trickling down of
+foul water on their heads from unseen watering pots, pelting them
+with fragments of tile and mortar from the roof of the house, and
+bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to come suddenly round
+the corner and dash in among them precipitately.  It may, at first
+sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few that Mr Brass,
+being a professional gentleman, should not have legally indicted
+some party or parties, active in the promotion of the nuisance, but
+they will be good enough to remember, that as Doctors seldom take
+their own prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what
+they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their
+own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain
+application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable
+for its properties of close shaving, than for its always shaving
+the right person.
+
+'Come,' said Mr Brass one afternoon, 'this is two days without a
+Punch.  I'm in hopes he has run through 'em all, at last.'
+
+'Why are you in hopes?' returned Miss Sally.  'What harm do they
+do?'
+
+'Here's a pretty sort of a fellow!' cried Brass, laying down his
+pen in despair.  'Now here's an aggravating animal!'
+
+'Well, what harm do they do?' retorted Sally.
+
+'What harm!' cried Brass.  'Is it no harm to have a constant
+hallooing and hooting under one's very nose, distracting one from
+business, and making one grind one's teeth with vexation?  Is it no
+harm to be blinded and choked up, and have the king's highway
+stopped with a set of screamers and roarers whose throats must be
+made of--of--'
+
+'Brass,' suggested Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Ah! of brass,' said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure
+himself that he had suggested the word in good faith and without
+any sinister intention.  'Is that no harm?'
+
+The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a
+moment, and recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon
+his hand, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly,
+
+'There's another!'
+
+Up went the single gentleman's window directly.
+
+'There's another,' repeated Brass; 'and if I could get a break and
+four blood horses to cut into the Marks when the crowd is at its
+thickest, I'd give eighteen-pence and never grudge it!'
+
+The distant squeak was heard again.  The single gentleman's door
+burst open.  He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street,
+and so past the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence
+the sound proceeded--bent, no doubt, upon securing the strangers'
+services directly.
+
+'I wish I only knew who his friends were,' muttered Sampson,
+filling his pocket with papers; 'if they'd just get up a pretty
+little Commission de lunatico at the Gray's Inn Coffee House and
+give me the job, I'd be content to have the lodgings empty for one
+while, at all events.'
+
+With which words, and knocking his hat over his eyes as if for the
+purpose of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation,
+Mr Brass rushed from the house and hurried away.
+
+As Mr Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances,
+upon the ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at
+anything out of window, was better than working; and as he had
+been, for this reason, at some pains to awaken in his fellow clerk
+a sense of their beauties and manifold deserts; both he and Miss
+Sally rose as with one accord and took up their positions at the
+window: upon the sill whereof, as in a post of honour, sundry young
+ladies and gentlemen who were employed in the dry nurture of
+babies, and who made a point of being present, with their young
+charges, on such occasions, had already established themselves as
+comfortably as the circumstances would allow.
+
+The glass being dim, Mr Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom
+which he had established between them, hitched off the brown
+head-dress from Miss Sally's head, and dusted it carefully
+therewith.  By the time he had handed it back, and its beautiful
+wearer had put it on again (which she did with perfect composure
+and indifference), the lodger returned with the show and showmen at
+his heels, and a strong addition to the body of spectators.  The
+exhibitor disappeared with all speed behind the drapery; and his
+partner, stationing himself by the side of the Theatre, surveyed
+the audience with a remarkable expression of melancholy, which
+became more remarkable still when he breathed a hornpipe tune into
+that sweet musical instrument which is popularly termed a
+mouth-organ, without at all changing the mournful expression of the
+upper part of his face, though his mouth and chin were, of
+necessity, in lively spasms.
+
+The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained
+in the customary manner.  The sensation which kindles in large
+assemblies, when they are relieved from a state of breathless
+suspense and are again free to speak and move, was yet rife, when
+the lodger, as usual, summoned the men up stairs.
+
+'Both of you,' he called from the window; for only the actual
+exhibitor--a little fat man--prepared to obey the summons.  'I
+want to talk to you.  Come both of you!'
+
+Come, Tommy,' said the little man.
+
+I an't a talker,' replied the other.  'Tell him so.  What should I
+go and talk for?'
+
+'Don't you see the gentleman's got a bottle and glass up there?'
+returned the little man.
+
+'And couldn't you have said so at first?' retorted the other with
+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.
+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
+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
+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
+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 square-
+folded 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,
+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
+introduce Mr Abel Garland, sir--his young master; my articled
+pupil, sir, and most particular friend:--my most particular
+friend, sir,' repeated the Notary, drawing out his silk
+handkerchief and flourishing it about his face.
+
+'Your servant, sir,' said the stranger gentleman.
+
+'Yours, sir, I'm sure,' replied Mr Abel mildly.  'You were wishing
+to speak to Christopher, sir?'
+
+'Yes, I was.  Have I your permission?'
+
+'By all means.'
+
+'My business is no secret; or I should rather say it need be no
+secret here,' said the stranger, observing that Mr Abel and the
+Notary were preparing to retire.  'It relates to a dealer in
+curiosities with whom he lived, and in whom I am earnestly and
+warmly interested.  I have been a stranger to this country,
+gentlemen, for very many years, and if I am deficient in form and
+ceremony, I hope you will forgive me.'
+
+'No forgiveness is necessary, sir;--none whatever,' replied the
+Notary.  And so said Mr Abel.
+
+'I have been making inquiries in the neighbourhood in which his old
+master lived,' said the stranger, 'and I learn that he was served
+by this lad.  I have found out his mother's house, and have been
+directed by her to this place as the nearest in which I should be
+likely to find him.  That's the cause of my presenting myself here
+this morning.'
+
+'I am very glad of any cause, sir,' said the Notary, 'which
+procures me the honour of this visit.'
+
+'Sir,' retorted the stranger, 'you speak like a mere man of the
+world, and I think you something better.  Therefore, pray do not
+sink your real character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.'
+
+'Hem!' coughed the Notary.  'You're a plain speaker, sir.'
+
+'And a plain dealer,' returned the stranger.  'It may be my long
+absence and inexperience that lead me to the conclusion; but if
+plain speakers are scarce in this part of the world, I fancy plain
+dealers are still scarcer.  If my speaking should offend you, sir,
+my dealing, I hope, will make amends.'
+
+Mr Witherden seemed a little disconcerted by the elderly
+gentleman's mode of conducting the dialogue; and as for Kit, he
+looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment: wondering what kind of
+language he would address to him, if he talked in that free and
+easy way to a Notary.  It was with no harshness, however, though
+with something of constitutional irritability and haste, that he
+turned to Kit and said:
+
+'If you think, my lad, that I am pursuing these inquiries with any
+other view than that of serving and reclaiming those I am in search
+of, you do me a very great wrong, and deceive yourself.  Don't be
+deceived, I beg of you, but rely upon my assurance.  The fact is,
+gentlemen,' he added, turning again to the Notary and his pupil,
+'that I am in a very painful and wholly unexpected position.  I
+came to this city with a darling object at my heart, expecting to
+find no obstacle or difficulty in the way of its attainment.  I
+find myself suddenly checked and stopped short, in the execution of
+my design, by a mystery which I cannot penetrate.  Every effort I
+have made to penetrate it, has only served to render it darker and
+more obscure; and I am afraid to stir openly in the matter, lest
+those whom I anxiously pursue, should fly still farther from me.
+I assure you that if you could give me any assistance, you would
+not be sorry to do so, if you knew how greatly I stand in need of
+it, and what a load it would relieve me from.'
+
+There was a simplicity in this confidence which occasioned it to
+find a quick response in the breast of the good-natured Notary, who
+replied, in the same spirit, that the stranger had not mistaken his
+desire, and that if he could be of service to him, he would, most
+readily.
+
+Kit was then put under examination and closely questioned by the
+unknown gentleman, touching his old master and the child, their
+lonely way of life, their retired habits, and strict seclusion.
+The nightly absence of the old man, the solitary existence of the
+child at those times, his illness and recovery, Quilp's possession
+of the house, and their sudden disappearance, were all the subjects
+of much questioning and answer.  Finally, Kit informed the
+gentleman that the premises were now to let, and that a board upon
+the door referred all inquirers to Mr Sampson Brass, Solicitor, of
+Bevis Marks, from whom he might perhaps learn some further
+particulars.
+
+'Not by inquiry,' said the gentleman shaking his head.  'I live
+there.'
+
+'Live at Brass's the attorney's!' cried Mr Witherden in some
+surprise: having professional knowledge of the gentleman in
+question.
+
+'Aye,' was the reply.  'I entered on his lodgings t'other day,
+chiefly because I had seen this very board.  it matters little to
+me where I live, and I had a desperate hope that some intelligence
+might be cast in my way there, which would not reach me elsewhere.
+Yes, I live at Brass's--more shame for me, I suppose?'
+
+'That's a mere matter of opinion,' said the Notary, shrugging his
+shoulders.  'He is looked upon as rather a doubtful character.'
+
+'Doubtful?' echoed the other.  'I am glad to hear there's any doubt
+about it.  I supposed that had been thoroughly settled, long ago.
+But will you let me speak a word or two with you in private?'
+
+Mr Witherden consenting, they walked into that gentleman's private
+closet, and remained there, in close conversation, for some quarter
+of an hour, when they returned into the outer office.  The stranger
+had left his hat in Mr Witherden's room, and seemed to have
+established himself in this short interval on quite a friendly
+footing.
+
+'I'll not detain you any longer now,' he said, putting a crown into
+Kit's hand, and looking towards the Notary.  'You shall hear from
+me again.  Not a word of this, you know, except to your master and
+mistress.'
+
+'Mother, sir, would be glad to know--' said Kit, faltering.
+
+'Glad to know what?'
+
+'Anything--so that it was no harm--about Miss Nell.'
+
+'Would she?  Well then, you may tell her if she can keep a secret.
+But mind, not a word of this to anybody else.  Don't forget that.
+Be particular.'
+
+'I'll take care, sir,' said Kit.  'Thankee, sir, and good morning.'
+
+Now, it happened that the gentleman, in his anxiety to impress upon
+Kit that he was not to tell anybody what had passed between them,
+followed him out to the door to repeat his caution, and it further
+happened that at that moment the eyes of Mr Richard Swiveller were
+turned in that direction, and beheld his mysterious friend and Kit
+together.
+
+It was quite an accident, and the way in which it came about was
+this.  Mr Chuckster, being a gentleman of a cultivated taste and
+refined spirit, was one of that Lodge of Glorious Apollos whereof
+Mr Swiveller was Perpetual Grand.  Mr Swiveller, passing through
+the street in the execution of some Brazen errand, and beholding
+one of his Glorious Brotherhood intently gazing on a pony, crossed
+over to give him that fraternal greeting with which Perpetual
+Grands are, by the very constitution of their office, bound to
+cheer and encourage their disciples.  He had scarcely bestowed upon
+him his blessing, and followed it with a general remark touching
+the present state and prospects of the weather, when, lifting up
+his eyes, he beheld the single gentleman of Bevis Marks in earnest
+conversation with Christopher Nubbles.
+
+'Hallo!' said Dick, 'who is that?'
+
+'He called to see my Governor this morning,' replied Mr Chuckster;
+'beyond that, I don't know him from Adam.'
+
+'At least you know his name?' said Dick.
+
+To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming
+a Glorious Apollo, that he was 'everlastingly blessed' if he did.
+
+'All I know, my dear feller,' said Mr Chuckster, running his
+fingers through his hair, 'is, that he is the cause of my having
+stood here twenty minutes, for which I hate him with a mortal and
+undying hatred, and would pursue him to the confines of eternity if
+I could afford the time.'
+
+While they were thus discoursing, the subject of their conversation
+(who had not appeared to recognise Mr Richard Swiveller) re-entered
+the house, and Kit came down the steps and joined them; to whom Mr
+Swiveller again propounded his inquiry with no better success.
+
+'He is a very nice gentleman, Sir,' said Kit, 'and that's all I
+know about him.'
+
+Mr Chuckster waxed wroth at this answer, and without applying the
+remark to any particular case, mentioned, as a general truth, that
+it was expedient to break the heads of Snobs, and to tweak their
+noses.  Without expressing his concurrence in this sentiment, Mr
+Swiveller after a few moments of abstraction inquired which way Kit
+was driving, and, being informed, declared it was his way, and that
+he would trespass on him for a lift.  Kit would gladly have
+declined the proffered honour, but as Mr Swiveller was already
+established in the seat beside him, he had no means of doing so,
+otherwise than by a forcible ejectment, and therefore, drove
+briskly off--so briskly indeed, as to cut short the leave-taking
+between Mr Chuckster and his Grand Master, and to occasion the
+former gentleman some inconvenience from having his corns squeezed
+by the impatient pony.
+
+As Whisker was tired of standing, and Mr Swiveller was kind enough
+to stimulate him by shrill whistles, and various sporting cries,
+they rattled off at too sharp a pace to admit of much conversation:
+especially as the pony, incensed by Mr Swiveller's admonitions,
+took a particular fancy for the lamp-posts and cart-wheels, and
+evinced a strong desire to run on the pavement and rasp himself
+against the brick walls.  It was not, therefore, until they had
+arrived at the stable, and the chaise had been extricated from a
+very small doorway, into which the pony dragged it under the
+impression that he could take it along with him into his usual
+stall, that Mr Swiveller found time to talk.
+
+'It's hard work,' said Richard.  'What do you say to some beer?'
+
+Kit at first declined, but presently consented, and they adjourned
+to the neighbouring bar together.
+
+'We'll drink our friend what's-his-name,' said Dick, holding up the
+bright frothy pot; '--that was talking to you this morning, you
+know--I know him--a good fellow, but eccentric--very--here's
+what's-his-name!'
+
+Kit pledged him.
+
+'He lives in my house,' said Dick; 'at least in the house occupied
+by the firm in which I'm a sort of a--of a managing partner--a
+difficult fellow to get anything out of, but we like him--we like
+him.'
+
+'I must be going, sir, if you please,' said Kit, moving away.
+
+'Don't be in a hurry, Christopher,' replied his patron, 'we'll
+drink your mother.'
+
+'Thank you, sir.'
+
+'An excellent woman that mother of yours, Christopher,' said Mr
+Swiveller.  'Who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place
+to make it well?  My mother.  A charming woman.  He's a liberal
+sort of fellow.  We must get him to do something for your mother.
+Does he know her, Christopher?'
+
+Kit shook his head, and glancing slyly at his questioner, thanked
+him, and made off before he could say another word.
+
+'Humph!' said Mr Swiveller pondering, 'this is queer.  Nothing but
+mysteries in connection with Brass's house.  I'll keep my own
+counsel, however.  Everybody and anybody has been in my confidence
+as yet, but now I think I'll set up in business for myself.  Queer--
+very queer!'
+
+After pondering deeply and with a face of exceeding wisdom for some
+time, Mr Swiveller drank some more of the beer, and summoning a
+small boy who had been watching his proceedings, poured forth the
+few remaining drops as a libation on the gravel, and bade him carry
+the empty vessel to the bar with his compliments, and above all
+things to lead a sober and temperate life, and abstain from all
+intoxicating and exciting liquors.  Having given him this piece of
+moral advice for his trouble (which, as he wisely observed, was far
+better than half-pence) the Perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious
+Apollos thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered away: still
+pondering as he went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 39
+
+
+All that day, though he waited for Mr Abel until evening, Kit kept
+clear of his mother's house, determined not to anticipate the
+pleasures of the morrow, but to let them come in their full rush of
+delight; for to-morrow was the great and long looked-for epoch in
+his life--to-morrow was the end of his first quarter--the day of
+receiving, for the first time, one fourth part of his annual income
+of Six Pounds in one vast sum of Thirty Shillings--to-morrow was
+to be a half-holiday devoted to a whirl of entertainments, and
+little Jacob was to know what oysters meant, and to see a play.
+
+All manner of incidents combined in favour of the occasion: not
+only had Mr and Mrs Garland forewarned him that they intended to
+make no deduction for his outfit from the great amount, but to pay
+it him unbroken in all its gigantic grandeur; not only had the
+unknown gentleman increased the stock by the sum of five shillings,
+which was a perfect god-send and in itself a fortune; not only had
+these things come to pass which nobody could have calculated upon,
+or in their wildest dreams have hoped; but it was Barbara's quarter
+too--Barbara's quarter, that very day--and Barbara had a
+half-holiday as well as Kit, and Barbara's mother was going to make
+one of the party, and to take tea with Kit's mother, and cultivate
+her acquaintance.
+
+To be sure Kit looked out of his window very early that morning to
+see which way the clouds were flying, and to be sure Barbara would
+have been at hers too, if she had not sat up so late over-night,
+starching and ironing small pieces of muslin, and crimping them
+into frills, and sewing them on to other pieces to form magnificent
+wholes for next day's wear.  But they were both up very early for
+all that, and had small appetites for breakfast and less for
+dinner, and were in a state of great excitement when Barbara's
+mother came in, with astonishing accounts of the fineness of the
+weather out of doors (but with a very large umbrella
+notwithstanding, for people like Barbara's mother seldom make
+holiday without one), and when the bell rang for them to go up
+stairs and receive their quarter's money in gold and silver.
+
+Well, wasn't Mr Garland kind when he said 'Christopher, here's your
+money, and you have earned it well;' and wasn't Mrs Garland kind
+when she said 'Barbara, here's yours, and I'm much pleased with
+you;' and didn't Kit sign his name bold to his receipt, and didn't
+Barbara sign her name all a trembling to hers; and wasn't it
+beautiful to see how Mrs Garland poured out Barbara's mother a
+glass of wine; and didn't Barbara's mother speak up when she said
+'Here's blessing you, ma'am, as a good lady, and you, sir, as a
+good gentleman, and Barbara, my love to you, and here's towards
+you, Mr Christopher;' and wasn't she as long drinking it as if it
+had been a tumblerful; and didn't she look genteel, standing there
+with her gloves on; and wasn't there plenty of laughing and talking
+among them as they reviewed all these things upon the top of the
+coach, and didn't they pity the people who hadn't got a holiday!
+
+But Kit's mother, again--wouldn't anybody have supposed she had
+come of a good stock and been a lady all her life!  There she was,
+quite ready to receive them, with a display of tea-things that
+might have warmed the heart of a china-shop; and little Jacob and
+the baby in such a state of perfection that their clothes looked as
+good as new, though Heaven knows they were old enough!  Didn't she
+say before they had sat down five minutes that Barbara's mother was
+exactly the sort of lady she expected, and didn't Barbara's mother
+say that Kit's mother was the very picture of what she had
+expected, and didn't Kit's mother compliment Barbara's mother on
+Barbara, and didn't Barbara's mother compliment Kit's mother on
+Kit, and wasn't Barbara herself quite fascinated with little Jacob,
+and did ever a child show off when he was wanted, as that child
+did, or make such friends as he made!
+
+'And we are both widows too!' said Barbara's mother.  'We must have
+been made to know each other.'
+
+'I haven't a doubt about it,' returned Mrs Nubbles.  'And what a
+pity it is we didn't know each other sooner.'
+
+'But then, you know, it's such a pleasure,' said Barbara's mother,
+'to have it brought about by one's son and daughter, that it's
+fully made up for.  Now, an't it?'
+
+To this, Kit's mother yielded her full assent, and tracing things
+back from effects to causes, they naturally reverted to their
+deceased husbands, respecting whose lives, deaths, and burials,
+they compared notes, and discovered sundry circumstances that
+tallied with wonderful exactness; such as Barbara's father having
+been exactly four years and ten months older than Kit's father, and
+one of them having died on a Wednesday and the other on a Thursday,
+and both of them having been of a very fine make and remarkably
+good-looking, with other extraordinary coincidences.  These
+recollections being of a kind calculated to cast a shadow on the
+brightness of the holiday, Kit diverted the conversation to general
+topics, and they were soon in great force again, and as merry as
+before.  Among other things, Kit told them about his old place, and
+the extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to Barbara
+a thousand times already); but the last-named circumstance failed
+to interest his hearers to anything like the extent he had
+supposed, and even his mother said (looking accidentally at Barbara
+at the same time) that there was no doubt Miss Nell was very
+pretty, but she was but a child after all, and there were many
+young women quite as pretty as she; and Barbara mildly observed
+that she should think so, and that she never could help believing
+Mr Christopher must be under a mistake--which Kit wondered at very
+much, not being able to conceive what reason she had for doubting
+him.  Barbara's mother too, observed that it was very common for
+young folks to change at about fourteen or fifteen, and whereas
+they had been very pretty before, to grow up quite plain; which
+truth she illustrated by many forcible examples, especially one of
+a young man, who, being a builder with great prospects, had been
+particular in his attentions to Barbara, but whom Barbara would
+have nothing to say to; which (though everything happened for the
+best) she almost thought was a pity.  Kit said he thought so too,
+and so he did honestly, and he wondered what made Barbara so silent
+all at once, and why his mother looked at him as if he shouldn't
+have said it.
+
+However, it was high time now to be thinking of the play; for which
+great preparation was required, in the way of shawls and bonnets,
+not to mention one handkerchief full of oranges and another of
+apples, which took some time tying up, in consequence of
+the fruit having a tendency to roll out at the corners.  At length,
+everything was ready, and they went off very fast; Kit's mother
+carrying the baby, who was dreadfully wide awake, and Kit holding
+little Jacob in one hand, and escorting Barbara with the other--a
+state of things which occasioned the two mothers, who walked
+behind, to declare that they looked quite family folks, and caused
+Barbara to blush and say, 'Now don't, mother!' But Kit said she had
+no call to mind what they said; and indeed she need not have had,
+if she had known how very far from Kit's thoughts any love-making
+was.  Poor Barbara!
+
+At last they got to the theatre, which was Astley's: and in some
+two minutes after they had reached the yet unopened door, little
+Jacob was squeezed flat, and the baby had received divers
+concussions, and Barbara's mother's umbrella had been carried
+several yards off and passed back to her over the shoulders of the
+people, and Kit had hit a man on the head with the handkerchief of
+apples for 'scrowdging' his parent with unnecessary violence, and
+there was a great uproar.  But, when they were once past the
+pay-place and tearing away for very life with their checks in their
+hands, and, above all, when they were fairly in the theatre, and
+seated in such places that they couldn't have had better if they
+had picked them out, and taken them beforehand, all this was looked
+upon as quite a capital joke, and an essential part of the
+entertainment.
+
+Dear, dear, what a place it looked, that Astley's; with all the
+paint, gilding, and looking-glass; the vague smell of horses
+suggestive of coming wonders; the curtain that hid such gorgeous
+mysteries; the clean white sawdust down in the circus; the company
+coming in and taking their places; the fiddlers looking carelessly
+up at them while they tuned their instruments, as if they didn't
+want the play to begin, and knew it all beforehand!  What a glow
+was that, which burst upon them all, when that long, clear,
+brilliant row of lights came slowly up; and what the feverish
+excitement when the little bell rang and the music began in good
+earnest, with strong parts for the drums, and sweet effects for the
+triangles!  Well might Barbara's mother say to Kit's mother that
+the gallery was the place to see from, and wonder it wasn't much
+dearer than the boxes; well might Barbara feel doubtful whether to
+laugh or cry, in her flutter of delight.
+
+Then the play itself! the horses which little Jacob believed from
+the first to be alive, and the ladies and gentlemen of whose
+reality he could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or
+heard anything at all like them--the firing, which made Barbara
+wink--the forlorn lady, who made her cry--the tyrant, who made
+her tremble--the man who sang the song with the lady's-maid and
+danced the chorus, who made her laugh--the pony who reared up on
+his hind legs when he saw the murderer, and wouldn't hear of
+walking on all fours again until he was taken into custody--the
+clown who ventured on such familiarities with the military man in
+boots--the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty ribbons and
+came down safe upon the horse's back--everything was delightful,
+splendid, and surprising!  Little Jacob applauded till his hands
+were sore; Kit cried 'an-kor' at the end of everything, the
+three-act piece included; and Barbara's mother beat her umbrella on
+the floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to the
+gingham.
+
+In the midst of all these fascinations, Barbara's thoughts seemed
+to have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for,
+when they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an
+hysterical simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who
+jumped over the ribbons.
+
+'As handsome as her?' said Kit.  'Double as handsome.'
+
+'Oh Christopher! I'm sure she was the beautifullest creature ever
+was,' said Barbara.
+
+'Nonsense!' returned Kit.  'She was well enough, I don't deny that;
+but think how she was dressed and painted, and what a difference
+that made.  Why YOU are a good deal better looking than her,
+Barbara.'
+
+'Oh Christopher!' said Barbara, looking down.
+
+'You are, any day,' said Kit, '--and so's your mother.'
+
+Poor Barbara!
+
+What was all this though--even all this--to the extraordinary
+dissipation that ensued, when Kit, walking into an oyster-shop as
+bold as if he lived there, and not so much as looking at the
+counter or the man behind it, led his party into a box--a private
+box, fitted up with red curtains, white table-cloth, and cruet-
+stand complete--and ordered a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who
+acted as waiter and called him, him Christopher Nubbles, 'sir,' to
+bring three dozen of his largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp
+about it!  Yes, Kit told this gentleman to look sharp, and he not
+only said he would look sharp, but he actually did, and presently
+came running back with the newest loaves, and the freshest butter,
+and the largest oysters, ever seen.  Then said Kit to this
+gentleman, 'a pot of beer'--just so--and the gentleman, instead
+of replying, 'Sir, did you address that language to me?' only said,
+'Pot o' beer, sir?  Yes, sir,' and went off and fetched it, and put
+it on the table in a small decanter-stand, like those which
+blind-men's dogs carry about the streets in their mouths, to catch
+the half-pence in; and both Kit's mother and Barbara's mother
+declared as he turned away that he was one of the slimmest and
+gracefullest young men she had ever looked upon.
+
+Then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and there was
+Barbara, that foolish Barbara, declaring that she could not eat
+more than two, and wanting more pressing than you would believe
+before she would eat four: though her mother and Kit's mother made
+up for it pretty well, and ate and laughed and enjoyed themselves
+so thoroughly that it did Kit good to see them, and made him laugh
+and eat likewise from strong sympathy.  But the greatest miracle of
+the night was little Jacob, who ate oysters as if he had been born
+and bred to the business--sprinkled the pepper and the vinegar
+with a discretion beyond his years--and afterwards built a grotto
+on the table with the shells.  There was the baby too, who had
+never closed an eye all night, but had sat as good as gold, trying
+to force a large orange into his mouth, and gazing intently at the
+lights in the chandelier--there he was, sitting up in his mother's
+lap, staring at the gas without winking, and making indentations in
+his soft visage with an oyster-shell, to that degree that a heart
+of iron must have loved him!  In short, there never was a more
+successful supper; and when Kit ordered in a glass of something hot
+to finish with, and proposed Mr and Mrs Garland before sending it
+round, there were not six happier people in all the world.
+
+But all happiness has an end--hence the chief pleasure of its next
+beginning--and as it was now growing late, they agreed it was time
+to turn their faces homewards.  So, after going a little out of
+their way to see Barbara and Barbara's mother safe to a friend's
+house where they were to pass the night, Kit and his mother left
+them at the door, with an early appointment for returning to
+Finchley next morning, and a great many plans for next quarter's
+enjoyment.  Then, Kit took little Jacob on his back, and giving his
+arm to his mother, and a kiss to the baby, they all trudged merrily
+home together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 40
+
+
+Full of that vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next
+morning, Kit turned out at sunrise, and, with his faith in last
+night's enjoyments a little shaken by cool daylight and the return
+to every-day duties and occupations, went to meet Barbara and her
+mother at the appointed place.  And being careful not to awaken any
+of the little household, who were yet resting from their unusual
+fatigues, Kit left his money on the chimney-piece, with an
+inscription in chalk calling his mother's attention to the
+circumstance, and informing her that it came from her dutiful son;
+and went his way, with a heart something heavier than his pockets,
+but free from any very great oppression notwithstanding.
+
+Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret?  why cannot
+we push them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put
+them at once at that convenient distance whence they may be
+regarded either with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of
+recollection! why will they hang about us, like the flavour of
+yesterday's wine, suggestive of headaches and lassitude, and those
+good intentions for the future, which, under the earth, form the
+everlasting pavement of a large estate, and, upon it, usually
+endure until dinner-time or thereabouts!
+
+Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's
+mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated
+Astley's, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him
+to be last night?  Kit was not surprised to hear her say so--not
+he.  He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in
+that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before
+last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks
+and months to come, though he would not be there.  Such is the
+difference between yesterday and today.  We are all going to the
+play, or coming home from it.
+
+However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers
+strength and courage as the day gets on.  By degrees, they began to
+recall circumstances more and more pleasant in their nature, until,
+what between talking, walking, and laughing, they reached Finchley
+in such good heart, that Barbara's mother declared she never felt
+less tired or in better spirits.  And so said Kit.  Barbara had
+been silent all the way, but she said so too.  Poor little Barbara!
+She was very quiet.
+
+They were at home in such good time that Kit had rubbed down the
+pony and made him as spruce as a race-horse, before Mr Garland came
+down to breakfast; which punctual and industrious conduct the old
+lady, and the old gentleman, and Mr Abel, highly extolled.  At his
+usual hour (or rather at his usual minute and second, for he was
+the soul of punctuality) Mr Abel walked out, to be overtaken by the
+London coach, and Kit and the old gentleman went to work in the
+garden.
+
+This was not the least pleasant of Kit's employments.  On a fine
+day they were quite a family party; the old lady sitting hard by
+with her work-basket on a little table; the old gentleman digging,
+or pruning, or clipping about with a large pair of shears, or
+helping Kit in some way or other with great assiduity; and Whisker
+looking on from his paddock in placid contemplation of them all.
+To-day they were to trim the grape-vine, so Kit mounted half-way up
+a short ladder, and began to snip and hammer away, while the old
+gentleman, with a great interest in his proceedings, handed up the
+nails and shreds of cloth as he wanted them.  The old lady and
+Whisker looked on as usual.
+
+'Well, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'and so you have made a new
+friend, eh?'
+
+'I beg your pardon, Sir?' returned Kit, looking down from the
+ladder.
+
+'You have made a new friend, I hear from Mr Abel,' said the old
+gentleman, 'at the office!'
+
+'Oh!  Yes Sir, yes.  He behaved very handsome, Sir.'
+
+'I'm glad to hear it,' returned the old gentlemen with a smile.
+'He is disposed to behave more handsomely still, though,
+Christopher.'
+
+'Indeed, Sir!  It's very kind in him, but I don't want him to, I'm
+sure,' said Kit, hammering stoutly at an obdurate nail.
+
+'He is rather anxious,' pursued the old gentleman, 'to have you in
+his own service--take care what you're doing, or you will fall
+down and hurt yourself.'
+
+'To have me in his service, Sir?' cried Kit, who had stopped short
+in his work and faced about on the ladder like some dexterous
+tumbler.  'Why, Sir, I don't think he can be in earnest when he
+says that.'
+
+'Oh!  But he is indeed,' said Mr Garland.  'And he has told Mr Abel
+so.'
+
+'I never heard of such a thing!' muttered Kit, looking ruefully at
+his master and mistress.  'I wonder at him; that I do.'
+
+'You see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'this is a point of much
+importance to you, and you should understand and consider it in
+that light.  This gentleman is able to give you more money than I--
+not, I hope, to carry through the various relations of master and
+servant, more kindness and confidence, but certainly, Christopher,
+to give you more money.'
+
+'Well,' said Kit, 'after that, Sir--'
+
+'Wait a moment,' interposed Mr Garland.  'That is not all.  You
+were a very faithful servant to your old employers, as I
+understand, and should this gentleman recover them, as it is his
+purpose to attempt doing by every means in his power, I have no
+doubt that you, being in his service, would meet with your reward.
+Besides,' added the old gentleman with stronger emphasis, 'besides
+having the pleasure of being again brought into communication with
+those to whom you seem to be very strongly and disinterestedly
+attached.  You must think of all this, Christopher, and not be rash
+or hasty in your choice.'
+
+Kit did suffer one twinge, one momentary pang, in keeping the
+resolution he had already formed, when this last argument passed
+swiftly into his thoughts, and conjured up the realization of all
+his hopes and fancies.  But it was gone in a minute, and he
+sturdily rejoined that the gentleman must look out for somebody
+else, as he did think he might have done at first.
+
+'He has no right to think that I'd be led away to go to him, sir,'
+said Kit, turning round again after half a minute's hammering.
+'Does he think I'm a fool?'
+
+'He may, perhaps, Christopher, if you refuse his offer,' said Mr
+Garland gravely.
+
+'Then let him, sir,' retorted Kit; 'what do I care, sir, what he
+thinks?  why should I care for his thinking, sir, when I know that
+I should be a fool, and worse than a fool, sir, to leave the
+kindest master and mistress that ever was or can be, who took me
+out of the streets a very poor and hungry lad indeed--poorer and
+hungrier perhaps than even you think for, sir--to go to him or
+anybody?  If Miss Nell was to come back, ma'am,' added Kit, turning
+suddenly to his mistress, 'why that would be another thing, and
+perhaps if she wanted me, I might ask you now and then to let me
+work for her when all was done at home.  But when she comes back,
+I see now that she'll be rich as old master always said she would,
+and being a rich young lady, what could she want of me?  No, no,'
+added Kit, shaking his head sorrowfully, 'she'll never want me any
+more, and bless her, I hope she never may, though I should like to
+see her too!'
+
+Here Kit drove a nail into the wall, very hard--much harder than
+was necessary--and having done so, faced about again.
+
+'There's the pony, sir,' said Kit--'Whisker, ma'am (and he knows
+so well I'm talking about him that he begins to neigh directly,
+Sir)--would he let anybody come near him but me, ma'am?  Here's
+the garden, sir, and Mr Abel, ma'am.  Would Mr Abel part with me,
+Sir, or is there anybody that could be fonder of the garden, ma'am?
+It would break mother's heart, Sir, and even little Jacob would
+have sense enough to cry his eyes out, ma'am, if he thought that Mr
+Abel could wish to part with me so soon, after having told me, only
+the other day, that he hoped we might be together for years to
+come--'
+
+There is no telling how long Kit might have stood upon the ladder,
+addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning
+towards the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come
+running up to say that a messenger from the office had brought a
+note, which, with an expression of some surprise at Kit's
+oratorical appearance, she put into her master's hand.
+
+'Oh!' said the old gentleman after reading it, 'ask the messenger
+to walk this way.'  Barbara tripping off to do as she was bid, he
+turned to Kit and said that they would not pursue the subject any
+further, and that Kit could not be more unwilling to part with
+them, than they would be to part with Kit; a sentiment which the
+old lady very generously echoed.
+
+'At the same time, Christopher,' added Mr Garland, glancing at the
+note in his hand, 'if the gentleman should want to borrow you now
+and then for an hour or so, or even a day or so, at a time, we must
+consent to lend you, and you must consent to be lent. --Oh! here
+is the young gentleman.  How do you do, Sir?'
+
+This salutation was addressed to Mr Chuckster, who, with his hat
+extremely on one side, and his hair a long way beyond it, came
+swaggering up the walk.
+
+'Hope I see you well sir,' returned that gentleman.  'Hope I see
+YOU well, ma'am.  Charming box' this, sir.  Delicious country to be
+sure.'
+
+'You want to take Kit back with you, I find?' observed Mr Garland.
+
+'I have got a chariot-cab waiting on purpose,' replied the clerk.
+'A very spanking grey in that cab, sir, if you're a judge of
+horse-flesh.'
+
+Declining to inspect the spanking grey, on the plea that he was but
+poorly acquainted with such matters, and would but imperfectly
+appreciate his beauties, Mr Garland invited Mr Chuckster to partake
+of a slight repast in the way of lunch.  That gentleman readily
+consenting, certain cold viands, flanked with ale and wine, were
+speedily prepared for his refreshment.
+
+At this repast, Mr Chuckster exerted his utmost abilities to
+enchant his entertainers, and impress them with a conviction of the
+mental superiority of those who dwelt in town; with which view he
+led the discourse to the small scandal of the day, in which he was
+justly considered by his friends to shine prodigiously.  Thus, he
+was in a condition to relate the exact circumstances of the
+difference between the Marquis of Mizzler and Lord Bobby, which it
+appeared originated in a disputed bottle of champagne, and not in
+a pigeon-pie, as erroneously reported in the newspapers; neither
+had Lord Bobby said to the Marquis of Mizzler, 'Mizzler, one of us
+two tells a lie, and I'm not the man,' as incorrectly stated by the
+same authorities; but 'Mizzler, you know where I'm to be found, and
+damme, sir, find me if you want me'--which, of course, entirely
+changed the aspect of this interesting question, and placed it in
+a very different light.  He also acquainted them with the precise
+amount of the income guaranteed by the Duke of Thigsberry to
+Violetta Stetta of the Italian Opera, which it appeared was payable
+quarterly, and not half-yearly, as the public had been given to
+understand, and which was EXclusive, and not INclusive (as had been
+monstrously stated,) of jewellery, perfumery, hair-powder for five
+footmen, and two daily changes of kid-gloves for a page.  Having
+entreated the old lady and gentleman to set their minds at rest on
+these absorbing points, for they might rely on his statement being
+the correct one, Mr Chuckster entertained them with theatrical
+chit-chat and the court circular; and so wound up a brilliant and
+fascinating conversation which he had maintained alone, and without
+any assistance whatever, for upwards of three-quarters of an hour.
+
+'And now that the nag has got his wind again,' said Mr Chuckster
+rising in a graceful manner, 'I'm afraid I must cut my stick.'
+
+Neither Mr nor Mrs Garland offered any opposition to his tearing
+himself away (feeling, no doubt, that such a man could ill be
+spared from his proper sphere of action), and therefore Mr
+Chuckster and Kit were shortly afterwards upon their way to town;
+Kit being perched upon the box of the cabriolet beside the driver,
+and Mr Chuckster seated in solitary state inside, with one of his
+boots sticking out at each of the front windows.
+
+When they reached the Notary's house, Kit followed into the office,
+and was desired by Mr Abel to sit down and wait, for the gentleman
+who wanted him had gone out, and perhaps might not return for some
+time.  This anticipation was strictly verified, for Kit had had his
+dinner, and his tea, and had read all the lighter matter in the
+Law-List, and the Post-Office Directory, and had fallen asleep a
+great many times, before the gentleman whom he had seen before,
+came in; which he did at last in a very great hurry.
+
+He was closeted with Mr Witherden for some little time, and Mr Abel
+had been called in to assist at the conference, before Kit,
+wondering very much what he was wanted for, was summoned to attend
+them.
+
+'Christopher,' said the gentleman, turning to him directly he
+entered the room, 'I have found your old master and young
+mistress.'
+
+'No, Sir!  Have you, though?' returned Kit, his eyes sparkling with
+delight.  'Where are they, Sir?  How are they, Sir?  Are they--are
+they near here?'
+
+'A long way from here,' returned the gentleman, shaking his head.
+'But I am going away to-night to bring them back, and I want you to
+go with me.'
+
+'Me, Sir?' cried Kit, full of joy and surprise.
+
+'The place,' said the strange gentleman, turning thoughtfully to
+the Notary, 'indicated by this man of the dogs, is--how far from
+here--sixty miles?'
+
+'From sixty to seventy.'
+
+'Humph!  If we travel post all night, we shall reach there in good
+time to-morrow morning.  Now, the only question is, as they will
+not know me, and the child, God bless her, would think that any
+stranger pursuing them had a design upon her grandfather's liberty--
+can I do better than take this lad, whom they both know and will
+readily remember, as an assurance to them of my friendly
+intentions?'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied the Notary.  'Take Christopher by all
+means.'
+
+'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Kit, who had listened to this
+discourse with a lengthening countenance, 'but if that's the
+reason, I'm afraid I should do more harm than good--Miss Nell,
+Sir, she knows me, and would trust in me, I am sure; but old master--
+I don't know why, gentlemen; nobody does--would not bear me in
+his sight after he had been ill, and Miss Nell herself told me that
+I must not go near him or let him see me any more.  I should spoil
+all that you were doing if I went, I'm afraid.  I'd give the world
+to go, but you had better not take me, Sir.'
+
+'Another difficulty!' cried the impetuous gentleman.  'Was ever man
+so beset as I?  Is there nobody else that knew them, nobody else in
+whom they had any confidence?  Solitary as their lives were, is
+there no one person who would serve my purpose?'
+
+'IS there, Christopher?' said the Notary.
+
+'Not one, Sir,' replied Kit.--'Yes, though--there's my mother.'
+
+'Did they know her?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'Know her, Sir! why, she was always coming backwards and forwards.
+They were as kind to her as they were to me.  Bless you, Sir, she
+expected they'd come back to her house.'
+
+'Then where the devil is the woman?' said the impatient gentleman,
+catching up his hat.  'Why isn't she here?  Why is that woman
+always out of the way when she is most wanted?'
+
+In a word, the single gentleman was bursting out of the office,
+bent upon laying violent hands on Kit's mother, forcing her into a
+post-chaise, and carrying her off, when this novel kind of
+abduction was with some difficulty prevented by the joint efforts
+of Mr Abel and the Notary, who restrained him by dint of their
+remonstrances, and persuaded him to sound Kit upon the probability
+of her being able and willing to undertake such a journey on so
+short a notice.
+
+This occasioned some doubts on the part of Kit, and some violent
+demonstrations on that of the single gentleman, and a great many
+soothing speeches on that of the Notary and Mr Abel.  The upshot of
+the business was, that Kit, after weighing the matter in his mind
+and considering it carefully, promised, on behalf of his mother,
+that she should be ready within two hours from that time to
+undertake the expedition, and engaged to produce her in that place,
+in all respects equipped and prepared for the journey, before the
+specified period had expired.
+
+Having given this pledge, which was rather a bold one, and not
+particularly easy of redemption, Kit lost no time in sallying
+forth, and taking measures for its immediate fulfilment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 41
+
+
+Kit made his way through the crowded streets, dividing the stream
+of people, dashing across the busy road-ways, diving into lanes and
+alleys, and stopping or turning aside for nothing, until he came in
+front of the Old Curiosity Shop, when he came to a stand; partly
+from habit and partly from being out of breath.
+
+It was a gloomy autumn evening, and he thought the old place had
+never looked so dismal as in its dreary twilight.  The windows
+broken, the rusty sashes rattling in their frames, the deserted
+house a dull barrier dividing the glaring lights and bustle of the
+street into two long lines, and standing in the midst, cold, dark,
+and empty--presented a cheerless spectacle which mingled harshly
+with the bright prospects the boy had been building up for its late
+inmates, and came like a disappointment or misfortune.  Kit would
+have had a good fire roaring up the empty chimneys, lights
+sparkling and shining through the windows, people moving briskly to
+and fro, voices in cheerful conversation, something in unison with
+the new hopes that were astir.  He had not expected that the house
+would wear any different aspect--had known indeed that it could
+not--but coming upon it in the midst of eager thoughts and
+expectations, it checked the current in its flow, and darkened it
+with a mournful shadow.
+
+Kit, however, fortunately for himself, was not learned enough or
+contemplative enough to be troubled with presages of evil afar off,
+and, having no mental spectacles to assist his vision in this
+respect, saw nothing but the dull house, which jarred uncomfortably
+upon his previous thoughts.  So, almost wishing that he had not
+passed it, though hardly knowing why, he hurried on again, making
+up by his increased speed for the few moments he had lost.
+
+'Now, if she should be out,' thought Kit, as he approached the poor
+dwelling of his mother, 'and I not able to find her, this impatient
+gentleman would be in a pretty taking.  And sure enough there's no
+light, and the door's fast.  Now, God forgive me for saying so, but
+if this is Little Bethel's doing, I wish Little Bethel was--was
+farther off,' said Kit checking himself, and knocking at the door.
+
+A second knock brought no reply from within the house; but caused
+a woman over the way to look out and inquire who that was, awanting
+Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'Me,' said Kit.  'She's at--at Little Bethel, I suppose?'--getting
+out the name of the obnoxious conventicle with some reluctance, and
+laying a spiteful emphasis upon the words.
+
+The neighbour nodded assent.
+
+'Then pray tell me where it is,' said Kit, 'for I have come on a
+pressing matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the
+pulpit.'
+
+It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in
+question, as none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted
+thither, and few knew anything more of it than the name.  At last,
+a gossip of Mrs Nubbles's, who had accompanied her to chapel on one
+or two occasions when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her
+devotions, furnished the needful information, which Kit had no
+sooner obtained than he started off again.
+
+Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a
+straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who
+presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite
+allusion to the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which
+enabled him to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to
+the parish church and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto.
+Kit found it, at last, after some trouble, and pausing at the door
+to take breath that he might enter with becoming decency, passed
+into the chapel.
+
+It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a
+particularly little Bethel--a Bethel of the smallest dimensions--
+with a small number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a
+small gentleman (by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was
+delivering in a by no means small voice, a by no means small
+sermon, judging of its dimensions by the condition of his audience,
+which, if their gross amount were but small, comprised a still
+smaller number of hearers, as the majority were slumbering.
+
+Among these was Kit's mother, who, finding it matter of extreme
+difficulty to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night,
+and feeling their inclination to close strongly backed and seconded
+by the arguments of the preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness
+that overpowered her, and fallen asleep; though not so soundly but
+that she could, from time to time, utter a slight and almost
+inaudible groan, as if in recognition of the orator's doctrines.
+The baby in her arms was as fast asleep as she; and little Jacob,
+whose youth prevented him from recognising in this prolonged
+spiritual nourishment anything half as interesting as oysters, was
+alternately very fast asleep and very wide awake, as his
+inclination to slumber, or his terror of being personally alluded
+to in the discourse, gained the mastery over him.
+
+'And now I'm here,' thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew
+which was opposite his mother's, and on the other side of the
+little aisle, 'how am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come
+out!  I might as well be twenty miles off.  She'll never wake till
+it's all over, and there goes the clock again!  If he would but
+leave off for a minute, or if they'd only sing!'
+
+But there was little encouragement to believe that either event
+would happen for a couple of hours to come.  The preacher went on
+telling them what he meant to convince them of before he had done,
+and it was clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises
+and forgot the other, he was good for that time at least.
+
+In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the
+chapel, and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front
+of the clerk's desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed
+him--Quilp!
+
+He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp
+was there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his
+knees, and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with
+the accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the
+ceiling.  He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and
+appeared utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not
+help feeling, directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend
+was fastened upon them, and upon nothing else.
+
+But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the
+Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the
+forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue
+his wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his
+parent, as the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew
+serious.  Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set
+himself to attract his wandering attention, and this not being a
+very difficult task (one sneeze effected it), he signed to him to
+rouse his mother.
+
+Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in
+a forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over
+upon the pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs
+remained inside; and, while he made vehement gestures with his
+right hand, and held on with his left, stared, or seemed to stare,
+straight into little Jacob's eyes, threatening him by his strained
+look and attitude--so it appeared to the child--that if he so
+much as moved a muscle, he, the preacher, would be literally, and
+not figuratively, 'down upon him' that instant.  In this fearful
+state of things, distracted by the sudden appearance of Kit, and
+fascinated by the eyes of the preacher, the miserable Jacob sat
+bolt upright, wholly incapable of motion, strongly disposed to cry
+but afraid to do so, and returning his pastor's gaze until his
+infant eyes seemed starting from their sockets.
+
+'If I must do it openly, I must,' thought Kit.  With that he walked
+softly out of his pew and into his mother's, and as Mr Swiveller
+would have observed if he had been present, 'collared' the baby
+without speaking a word.
+
+'Hush, mother!' whispered Kit.  'Come along with me, I've got
+something to tell you.'
+
+'Where am I?' said Mrs Nubbles.
+
+'In this blessed Little Bethel,' returned her son, peevishly.
+
+'Blessed indeed!' cried Mrs Nubbles, catching at the word.  'Oh,
+Christopher, how have I been edified this night!'
+
+'Yes, yes, I know,' said Kit hastily; 'but come along, mother,
+everybody's looking at us.  Don't make a noise--bring Jacob--
+that's right!'
+
+'Stay, Satan, stay!' cried the preacher, as Kit was moving off.
+
+
+'This gentleman says you're to stay, Christopher,' whispered his
+mother.
+
+'Stay, Satan, stay!' roared the preacher again.  'Tempt not the
+woman that doth incline her ear to thee, but harken to the voice of
+him that calleth.  He hath a lamb from the fold!' cried the
+preacher, raising his voice still higher and pointing to the baby.
+'He beareth off a lamb, a precious lamb!  He goeth about, like a
+wolf in the night season, and inveigleth the tender lambs!'
+
+Kit was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but considering this
+strong language, and being somewhat excited by the circumstances in
+which he was placed, he faced round to the pulpit with the baby in
+his arms, and replied aloud, 'No, I don't.  He's my brother.'
+
+'He's MY brother!' cried the preacher.
+
+'He isn't,' said Kit indignantly.  'How can you say such a thing?
+And don't call me names if you please; what harm have I done?  I
+shouldn't have come to take 'em away, unless I was obliged, you may
+depend upon that.  I wanted to do it very quiet, but you wouldn't
+let me.  Now, you have the goodness to abuse Satan and them, as
+much as you like, Sir, and to let me alone if you please.'
+
+So saying, Kit marched out of the chapel, followed by his mother
+and little Jacob, and found himself in the open air, with an
+indistinct recollection of having seen the people wake up and look
+surprised, and of Quilp having remained, throughout the
+interruption, in his old attitude, without moving his eyes from the
+ceiling, or appearing to take the smallest notice of anything that
+passed.
+
+'Oh Kit!' said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, 'what
+have you done!  I never can go there again--never!'
+
+'I'm glad of it, mother.  What was there in the little bit of
+pleasure you took last night that made it necessary for you to be
+low-spirited and sorrowful tonight?  That's the way you do.  If
+you're happy or merry ever, you come here to say, along with that
+chap, that you're sorry for it.  More shame for you, mother, I was
+going to say.'
+
+'Hush, dear!' said Mrs Nubbles; 'you don't mean what you say I
+know, but you're talking sinfulness.'
+
+'Don't mean it?  But I do mean it!' retorted Kit.  'I don't
+believe, mother, that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are
+thought greater sins in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I
+do believe that those chaps are just about as right and sensible in
+putting down the one as in leaving off the other--that's my
+belief.  But I won't say anything more about it, if you'll promise
+not to cry, that's all; and you take the baby that's a lighter
+weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we go along (which we must
+do pretty quick) I'll give you the news I bring, which will
+surprise you a little, I can tell you.  There--that's right.  Now
+you look as if you'd never seen Little Bethel in all your life, as
+I hope you never will again; and here's the baby; and little Jacob,
+you get atop of my back and catch hold of me tight round the neck,
+and whenever a Little Bethel parson calls you a precious lamb or
+says your brother's one, you tell him it's the truest things he's
+said for a twelvemonth, and that if he'd got a little more of the
+lamb himself, and less of the mint-sauce--not being quite so sharp
+and sour over it--I should like him all the better.  That's what
+you've got to say to him, Jacob.'
+
+Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and
+cheering up his mother, the children, and himself, by the one
+simple process of determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them
+briskly forward; and on the road home, he related what had passed
+at the Notary's house, and the purpose with which he had intruded
+on the solemnities of Little Bethel.
+
+His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was
+required of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of
+which the most prominent were that it was a great honour and
+dignity to ride in a post-chaise, and that it was a moral
+impossibility to leave the children behind.  But this objection,
+and a great many others, founded on certain articles of dress being
+at the wash, and certain other articles having no existence in the
+wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were overcome by Kit, who opposed to each
+and every of them, the pleasure of recovering Nell, and the delight
+it would be to bring her back in triumph.
+
+'There's only ten minutes now, mother,' said Kit when they reached
+home.  'There's a bandbox.  Throw in what you want, and we'll be
+off directly.'
+
+To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which
+could, by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out
+everything likely to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was
+persuaded to come and stop with the children, and how the children
+at first cried dismally, and then laughed heartily on being
+promised all kinds of impossible and unheard-of toys; how Kit's
+mother wouldn't leave off kissing them, and how Kit couldn't make
+up his mind to be vexed with her for doing it; would take more time
+and room than you and I can spare.  So, passing over all such
+matters, it is sufficient to say that within a few minutes after
+the two hours had expired, Kit and his mother arrived at the
+Notary's door, where a post-chaise was already waiting.
+
+'With four horses I declare!' said Kit, quite aghast at the
+preparations.  'Well you ARE going to do it, mother!  Here she is,
+Sir.  Here's my mother.  She's quite ready, sir.'
+
+'That's well,' returned the gentleman.  'Now, don't be in a
+flutter, ma'am; you'll be taken great care of.  Where's the box
+with the new clothing and necessaries for them?'
+
+'Here it is,' said the Notary.  'In with it, Christopher.'
+
+'All right, Sir,' replied Kit.  'Quite ready now, sir.'
+
+'Then come along,' said the single gentleman.  And thereupon he
+gave his arm to Kit's mother, handed her into the carriage as
+politely as you please, and took his seat beside her.
+
+Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels,
+and off they rattled, with Kit's mother hanging out at one window
+waving a damp pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many
+messages to little Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a
+word.
+
+Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with
+tears in his eyes--not brought there by the departure he
+witnessed, but by the return to which he looked forward.  'They
+went away,' he thought, 'on foot with nobody to speak to them or
+say a kind word at parting, and they'll come back, drawn by four
+horses, with this rich gentleman for their friend, and all their
+troubles over!  She'll forget that she taught me to write--'
+
+Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of,
+for he stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the
+chaise had disappeared, and did not return into the house until the
+Notary and Mr Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the
+sound of the wheels was no longer distinguishable, had several
+times wondered what could possibly detain him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 42
+
+
+It behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant,
+and to follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of
+the narrative at the point where it was left, some chapters back.
+
+In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the
+two sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with
+them and her recognition in their trials of something akin to her
+own loneliness of spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such
+moments a time of deep delight, though the softened pleasure they
+yielded was of that kind which lives and dies in tears--in one of
+those wanderings at the quiet hour of twilight, when sky, and
+earth, and air, and rippling water, and sound of distant bells,
+claimed kindred with the emotions of the solitary child, and
+inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of a child's world or
+its easy joys--in one of those rambles which had now become her
+only pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into darkness
+and evening deepened into night, and still the young creature
+lingered in the gloom; feeling a companionship in Nature so serene
+and still, when noise of tongues and glare of garish lights would
+have been solitude indeed.
+
+The sisters had gone home, and she was alone.  She raised her eyes
+to the bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of
+air, and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and
+more beyond, and more beyond again, until the whole great expanse
+sparkled with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in
+immeasurable space, eternal in their numbers as in their changeless
+and incorruptible existence.  She bent over the calm river, and saw
+them shining in the same majestic order as when the dove beheld
+them gleaming through the swollen waters, upon the mountain tops
+down far below, and dead mankind, a million fathoms deep.
+
+The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by
+the stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders.  The
+time and place awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope--
+less hope, perhaps, than resignation--on the past, and present,
+and what was yet before her.  Between the old man and herself there
+had come a gradual separation, harder to bear than any former
+sorrow.  Every evening, and often in the day-time too, he was
+absent, alone; and although she well knew where he went, and why--
+too well from the constant drain upon her scanty purse and from his
+haggard looks--he evaded all inquiry, maintained a strict reserve,
+and even shunned her presence.
+
+She sat meditating sorrowfully upon this change, and mingling it,
+as it were, with everything about her, when the distant
+church-clock bell struck nine.  Rising at the sound, she retraced
+her steps, and turned thoughtfully towards the town.
+
+She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the
+stream, led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon
+a ruddy light, and looking forward more attentively, discerned that
+it proceeded from what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who
+had made a fire in one corner at no great distance from the path,
+and were sitting or lying round it.  As she was too poor to have
+any fear of them, she did not alter her course (which, indeed, she
+could not have done without going a long way round), but quickened
+her pace a little, and kept straight on.
+
+A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the
+spot, to glance towards the fire.  There was a form between it and
+her, the outline strongly developed against the light, which caused
+her to stop abruptly.  Then, as if she had reasoned with herself
+and were assured that it could not be, or had satisfied herself
+that it was not that of the person she had supposed, she went on
+again.
+
+But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had
+been carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the
+voice that spoke--she could not distinguish words--sounded as
+familiar to her as her own.
+
+She turned, and looked back.  The person had been seated before,
+but was now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick
+on which he rested both hands.  The attitude was no less familiar
+to her than the tone of voice had been.  It was her grandfather.
+
+Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his
+associates could be, and for what purpose they were together.  Some
+vague apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong
+inclination it awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not
+advancing across the open field, however, but creeping towards it
+by the hedge.
+
+In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and
+standing among a few young trees, could both see and hear, without
+much danger of being observed.
+
+There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy
+camps they had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy--a
+tall athletic man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against
+a tree at a little distance off, looking now at the fire, and now,
+under his black eyelashes, at three other men who were there, with
+a watchful but half-concealed interest in their conversation.  Of
+these, her grandfather was one; the others she recognised as the
+first card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the
+storm--the man whom they had called Isaac List, and his gruff
+companion.  One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to that
+people, was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be,
+empty.
+
+'Well, are you going?' said the stout man, looking up from the
+ground where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather's face.
+'You were in a mighty hurry a minute ago.  Go, if you like.  You're
+your own master, I hope?'
+
+'Don't vex him,' returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog
+on the other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that
+he seemed to be squinting all over; 'he didn't mean any offence.'
+
+'You keep me poor, and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me
+besides,' said the old man, turning from one to the other.  'Ye'll
+drive me mad among ye.'
+
+The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child,
+contrasted with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands
+he was, smote upon the little listener's heart.  But she
+constrained herself to attend to all that passed, and to note each
+look and word.
+
+'Confound you, what do you mean?' said the stout man rising a
+little, and supporting himself on his elbow.  'Keep you poor!
+You'd keep us poor if you could, wouldn't you?  That's the way with
+you whining, puny, pitiful players.  When you lose, you're martyrs;
+but I don't find that when you win, you look upon the other losers
+in that light.  As to plunder!' cried the fellow, raising his voice--
+'Damme, what do you mean by such ungentlemanly language as
+plunder, eh?'
+
+The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or
+two short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his
+unbounded indignation.  It was quite plain that he acted the bully,
+and his friend the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or
+rather, it would have been to any one but the weak old man; for
+they exchanged glances quite openly, both with each other and with
+the gipsy, who grinned his approval of the jest until his white
+teeth shone again.
+
+The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then
+said, turning to his assailant:
+
+'You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know.  Don't
+be so violent with me.  You were, were you not?'
+
+'Not of plundering among present company!  Honour among--among
+gentlemen, Sir,' returned the other, who seemed to have been very
+near giving an awkward termination to the sentence.
+
+'Don't be hard upon him, Jowl,' said Isaac List.  'He's very sorry
+for giving offence.  There--go on with what you were saying--go
+on.'
+
+'I'm a jolly old tender-hearted lamb, I am,' cried Mr Jowl, 'to be
+sitting here at my time of life giving advice when I know it won't
+be taken, and that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains.  But
+that's the way I've gone through life.  Experience has never put a
+chill upon my warm-heartedness.'
+
+'I tell you he's very sorry, don't I?' remonstrated Isaac List,
+'and that he wishes you'd go on.'
+
+'Does he wish it?' said the other.
+
+'Ay,' groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and
+fro.  'Go on, go on.  It's in vain to fight with it; I can't do it;
+go on.'
+
+'I go on then,' said Jowl, 'where I left off, when you got up so
+quick.  If you're persuaded that it's time for luck to turn, as it
+certainly is, and find that you haven't means enough to try it (and
+that's where it is, for you know, yourself, that you never have the
+funds to keep on long enough at a sitting), help yourself to what
+seems put in your way on purpose.  Borrow it, I say, and, when
+you're able, pay it back again.'
+
+'Certainly,' Isaac List struck in, 'if this good lady as keeps the
+wax-works has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to
+bed, and doesn't lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy
+thing; quite a Providence, I should call it--but then I've been
+religiously brought up.'
+
+'You see, Isaac,' said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing
+himself closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to
+come between them; 'you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out
+every hour of the day; nothing would be more likely than for one of
+these strangers to get under the good lady's bed, or lock himself
+in the cupboard; suspicion would be very wide, and would fall a
+long way from the mark, no doubt.  I'd give him his revenge to the
+last farthing he brought, whatever the amount was.'
+
+'But could you?' urged Isaac List.  'Is your bank strong enough?'
+
+'Strong enough!' answered the other, with assumed disdain.  'Here,
+you Sir, give me that box out of the straw!'
+
+This was addressed to the gipsy, who crawled into the low tent on
+all fours, and after some rummaging and rustling returned with a
+cash-box, which the man who had spoken opened with a key he wore
+about his person.
+
+'Do you see this?' he said, gathering up the money in his hand and
+letting it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water.
+'Do you hear it?  Do you know the sound of gold?  There, put it
+back--and don't talk about banks again, Isaac, till you've got one
+of your own.'
+
+Isaac List, with great apparent humility, protested that he had
+never doubted the credit of a gentleman so notorious for his
+honourable dealing as Mr Jowl, and that he had hinted at the
+production of the box, not for the satisfaction of his doubts, for
+he could have none, but with a view to being regaled with a sight
+of so much wealth, which, though it might be deemed by some but an
+unsubstantial and visionary pleasure, was to one in his
+circumstances a source of extreme delight, only to be surpassed by
+its safe depository in his own personal pockets.  Although Mr List
+and Mr Jowl addressed themselves to each other, it was remarkable
+that they both looked narrowly at the old man, who, with his eyes
+fixed upon the fire, sat brooding over it, yet listening eagerly--
+as it seemed from a certain involuntary motion of the head, or
+twitching of the face from time to time--to all they said.
+
+'My advice,' said Jowl, lying down again with a careless air, 'is
+plain--I have given it, in fact.  I act as a friend.  Why should
+I help a man to the means perhaps of winning all I have, unless I
+considered him my friend?  It's foolish, I dare say, to be so
+thoughtful of the welfare of other people, but that's my
+constitution, and I can't help it; so don't blame me, Isaac List.'
+
+'I blame you!' returned the person addressed; 'not for the world,
+Mr Jowl.  I wish I could afford to be as liberal as you; and, as
+you say, he might pay it back if he won--and if he lost--'
+
+'You're not to take that into consideration at all,' said Jowl.
+
+'But suppose he did (and nothing's less likely, from all I know of
+chances), why, it's better to lose other people's money than one's
+own, I hope?'
+
+'Ah!' cried Isaac List rapturously, 'the pleasures of winning!  The
+delight of picking up the money--the bright, shining yellow-boys--
+and sweeping 'em into one's pocket!  The deliciousness of having a
+triumph at last, and thinking that one didn't stop short and turn
+back, but went half-way to meet it!  The--but you're not going,
+old gentleman?'
+
+'I'll do it,' said the old man, who had risen and taken two or
+three hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly.  'I'll
+have it, every penny.'
+
+'Why, that's brave,' cried Isaac, jumping up and slapping him on
+the shoulder; 'and I respect you for having so much young blood
+left.  Ha, ha, ha!  Joe Jowl's half sorry he advised you now.
+We've got the laugh against him.  Ha, ha, ha!'
+
+'He gives me my revenge, mind,' said the old man, pointing to him
+eagerly with his shrivelled hand: 'mind--he stakes coin against
+coin, down to the last one in the box, be there many or few.
+Remember that!'
+
+'I'm witness,' returned Isaac.  'I'll see fair between you.'
+
+'I have passed my word,' said Jowl with feigned reluctance, 'and
+I'll keep it.  When does this match come off?  I wish it was over.--
+To-night?'
+
+'I must have the money first,' said the old man; 'and that I'll
+have to-morrow--'
+
+'Why not to-night?' urged Jowl.
+
+'It's late now, and I should be flushed and flurried,' said the old
+man.  'It must be softly done.  No, to-morrow night.'
+
+'Then to-morrow be it,' said Jowl.  'A drop of comfort here.  Luck
+to the best man!  Fill!' The gipsy produced three tin cups, and
+filled them to the brim with brandy.  The old man turned aside and
+muttered to himself before he drank.  Her own name struck upon the
+listener's ear, coupled with some wish so fervent, that he seemed
+to breathe it in an agony of supplication.
+
+'God be merciful to us!' cried the child within herself, 'and help
+us in this trying hour!  What shall I do to save him!'
+
+The remainder of their conversation was carried on in a lower tone
+of voice, and was sufficiently concise; relating merely to the
+execution of the project, and the best precautions for diverting
+suspicion.  The old man then shook hands with his tempters, and
+withdrew.
+
+They watched his bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly,
+and when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved
+their hands, or shouted some brief encouragement.  It was not until
+they had seen him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the
+distant road, that they turned to each other, and ventured to laugh
+aloud.
+
+'So,' said Jowl, warming his hands at the fire, 'it's done at last.
+He wanted more persuading than I expected.  It's three weeks ago,
+since we first put this in his head.  What'll he bring, do you
+think?'
+
+'Whatever he brings, it's halved between us,' returned Isaac List.
+
+The other man nodded.  'We must make quick work of it,' he said,
+'and then cut his acquaintance, or we may be suspected.  Sharp's
+the word.'
+
+List and the gipsy acquiesced.  When they had all three amused
+themselves a little with their victim's infatuation, they dismissed
+the subject as one which had been sufficiently discussed, and began
+to talk in a jargon which the child did not understand.  As their
+discourse appeared to relate to matters in which they were warmly
+interested, however, she deemed it the best time for escaping
+unobserved; and crept away with slow and cautious steps, keeping in
+the shadow of the hedges, or forcing a path through them or the dry
+ditches, until she could emerge upon the road at a point beyond
+their range of vision.  Then she fled homeward as quickly as she
+could, torn and bleeding from the wounds of thorns and briars, but
+more lacerated in mind, and threw herself upon her bed, distracted.
+
+The first idea that flashed upon her mind was flight, instant
+flight; dragging him from that place, and rather dying of want upon
+the roadside, than ever exposing him again to such terrible
+temptations.  Then, she remembered that the crime was not to be
+committed until next night, and there was the intermediate time for
+thinking, and resolving what to do.  Then, she was distracted with
+a horrible fear that he might be committing it at that moment; with
+a dread of hearing shrieks and cries piercing the silence of the
+night; with fearful thoughts of what he might be tempted and led on
+to do, if he were detected in the act, and had but a woman to
+struggle with.  It was impossible to bear such torture.  She stole
+to the room where the money was, opened the door, and looked in.
+God be praised!  He was not there, and she was sleeping soundly.
+
+She went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for
+bed.  But who could sleep--sleep! who could lie passively down,
+distracted by such terrors?  They came upon her more and more
+strongly yet.  Half undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder,
+she flew to the old man's bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and
+roused him from his sleep.
+
+'What's this!' he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes
+upon her spectral face.
+
+'I have had a dreadful dream,' said the child, with an energy that
+nothing but such terrors could have inspired.  'A dreadful,
+horrible dream.  I have had it once before.  It is a dream of
+grey-haired men like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing
+sleepers of their gold.  Up, up!'
+
+The old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who
+prays.
+
+'Not to me,' said the child, 'not to me--to Heaven, to save us
+from such deeds!  This dream is too real.  I cannot sleep, I cannot
+stay here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such
+dreams come.  Up!  We must fly.'
+
+He looked at her as if she were a spirit--she might have been for
+all the look of earth she had--and trembled more and more.
+
+'There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute,' said the
+child.  'Up! and away with me!'
+
+'To-night?' murmured the old man.
+
+'Yes, to-night,' replied the child.  'To-morrow night will be too
+late.  The dream will have come again.  Nothing but flight can save
+us.  Up!'
+
+The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold
+sweat of fear: and, bending before the child as if she had been an
+angel messenger sent to lead him where she would, made ready to
+follow her.  She took him by the hand and led him on. As they
+passed the door of the room he had proposed to rob, she  shuddered
+and looked up into his face.  What a white face was that, and with
+what a look did he meet hers!
+
+She took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand
+as if she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the
+little stock she had, and hung her basket on her arm.  The old man
+took his wallet from her hands and strapped it on his shoulders--
+his staff, too, she had brought away--and then she led him forth.
+
+Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their
+trembling feet passed quickly.  Up the steep hill too, crowned by
+the old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once
+looked behind.
+
+But as they drew nearer the ruined walls, the moon rose in all her
+gentle glory, and, from their venerable age, garlanded with ivy,
+moss, and waving grass, the child looked back upon the sleeping
+town, deep in the valley's shade: and on the far-off river with its
+winding track of light: and on the distant hills; and as she did
+so, she clasped the hand she held, less firmly, and bursting into
+tears, fell upon the old man's neck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 43
+
+
+Her momentary weakness past, the child again summoned the
+resolution which had until now sustained her, and, endeavouring to
+keep steadily in her view the one idea that they were flying from
+disgrace and crime, and that her grandfather's preservation must
+depend solely on her firmness, unaided by one word of advice or any
+helping hand, urged him onward and looked back no more.
+
+While he, subdued and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to
+shrink and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior
+creature, the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within
+her, which elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and
+confidence she had never known.  There was no divided
+responsibility now; the whole burden of their two lives had fallen
+upon her, and henceforth she must think and act for both.  'I have
+saved him,' she thought.  'In all dangers and distresses, I will
+remember that.'
+
+At any other time, the recollection of having deserted the friend
+who had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of
+justification--the thought that they were guilty, in appearance,
+of treachery and ingratitude--even the having parted from the two
+sisters--would have filled her with sorrow and regret.  But now,
+all other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and
+anxieties of their wild and wandering life; and the very
+desperation of their condition roused and stimulated her.
+
+In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the
+delicate face where thoughtful care already mingled with the
+winning grace and loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the
+spiritual head, the lips that pressed each other with such high
+resolve and courage of the heart, the slight figure firm in its
+bearing and yet so very weak, told their silent tale; but told it
+only to the wind that rustled by, which, taking up its burden,
+carried, perhaps to some mother's pillow, faint dreams of childhood
+fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that knows no waking.
+
+The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale
+and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached.  Then, from
+behind a distant hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in
+phantom shapes before it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly
+forms till darkness came again.  When it had climbed higher into
+the sky, and there was warmth in its cheerful beams, they laid them
+down to sleep, upon a bank, hard by some water.
+
+But Nell retained her grasp upon the old man's arm, and long after
+he was slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes.  Fatigue
+stole over her at last; her grasp relaxed, tightened, relaxed
+again, and they slept side by side.
+
+A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her.
+A man of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them,
+and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat
+which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping.  The
+boat had neither oar nor sail, but was towed by a couple of horses,
+who, with the rope to which they were harnessed slack and dripping
+in the water, were resting on the path.
+
+'Holloa!' said the man roughly.  'What's the matter here?'
+
+'We were only asleep, Sir,' said Nell.  'We have been walking all
+night.'
+
+'A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,' observed the
+man who had first accosted them.  'One of you is a trifle too old
+for that sort of work, and the other a trifle too young.  Where are
+you going?'
+
+Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which
+the man inquired if she meant a certain town which he named.  Nell,
+to avoid more questioning, said 'Yes, that was the place.'
+
+'Where have you come from?' was the next question; and this being
+an easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in
+which their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to
+be known to the men or to provoke further inquiry.
+
+'I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,'
+said the man.  'That's all.  Good day.'
+
+Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure,
+Nell looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat
+went on.  It had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she
+saw the men beckoning to her.
+
+'Did you call to me?' said Nell, running up to them.
+
+'You may go with us if you like,' replied one of those in the boat.
+'We're going to the same place.'
+
+The child hesitated for a moment.  Thinking, as she had thought
+with great trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she
+had seen with her grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness
+for the booty, follow them, and regaining their influence over him,
+set hers at nought; and that if they went with these men, all
+traces of them must surely be lost at that spot; determined to
+accept the offer.  The boat came close to the bank again, and
+before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her
+grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.
+
+The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes
+shaded by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country,
+intersected by running streams, and rich with wooded hills,
+cultivated land, and sheltered farms.  Now and then, a village with
+its modest spire, thatched roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out
+from among the trees; and, more than once, a distant town, with
+great church towers looming through its smoke, and high factories
+or workshops rising above the mass of houses, would come in view,
+and, by the length of time it lingered in the distance, show them
+how slowly they travelled.  Their way lay, for the most part,
+through the low grounds, and open plains; and except these distant
+places, and occasionally some men working in the fields, or
+lounging on the bridges under which they passed, to see them creep
+along, nothing encroached on their monotonous and secluded track.
+
+Nell was rather disheartened, when they stopped at a kind of wharf
+late in the afternoon, to learn from one of the men that they would
+not reach their place of destination until next day, and that, if
+she had no provision with her, she had better buy it there.  She
+had but a few pence, having already bargained with them for some
+bread, but even of these it was necessary to be very careful, as
+they were on their way to an utterly strange place, with no
+resource whatever.  A small loaf and a morsel of cheese, therefore,
+were all she could afford, and with these she took her place in the
+boat again, and, after half an hour's delay during which the men
+were drinking at the public-house, proceeded on the journey.
+
+They brought some beer and spirits into the boat with them, and
+what with drinking freely before, and again now, were soon in a
+fair way of being quarrelsome and intoxicated.  Avoiding the small
+cabin, therefore, which was very dark and filthy, and to which they
+often invited both her and her grandfather, Nell sat in the open
+air with the old man by her side: listening to their boisterous
+hosts with a palpitating heart, and almost wishing herself safe on
+shore again though she should have to walk all night.
+
+They were, in truth, very rugged, noisy fellows, and quite brutal
+among themselves, though civil enough to their two passengers.
+Thus, when a quarrel arose between the man who was steering and his
+friend in the cabin, upon the question who had first suggested the
+propriety of offering Nell some beer, and when the quarrel led to
+a scuffle in which they beat each other fearfully, to her
+inexpressible terror, neither visited his displeasure upon her, but
+each contented himself with venting it on his adversary, on whom,
+in addition to blows, he bestowed a variety of compliments, which,
+happily for the child, were conveyed in terms, to her quite
+unintelligible.  The difference was finally adjusted, by the man
+who had come out of the cabin knocking the other into it head
+first, and taking the helm into his own hands, without evincing the
+least discomposure himself, or causing any in his friend, who,
+being of a tolerably strong constitution and perfectly inured to
+such trifles, went to sleep as he was, with his heels upwards, and
+in a couple of minutes or so was snoring comfortably.
+
+By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold,
+being but poorly clad, her anxious thoughts were far removed from
+her own suffering or uneasiness, and busily engaged in endeavouring
+to devise some scheme for their joint subsistence.  The same spirit
+which had supported her on the previous night, upheld and sustained
+her now.  Her grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the
+crime to which his madness urged him, was not committed.  That was
+her comfort.
+
+How every circumstance of her short, eventful life, came thronging
+into her mind, as they travelled on!  Slight incidents, never
+thought of or remembered until now; faces, seen once and ever since
+forgotten; words scarcely heeded at the time; scenes, of a year ago
+and those of yesterday, mixing up and linking themselves together;
+familiar places shaping themselves out in the darkness from things
+which, when approached, were, of all others, the most remote and
+most unlike them; sometimes, a strange confusion in her mind
+relative to the occasion of her being there, and the place to which
+she was going, and the people she was with; and imagination
+suggesting remarks and questions which sounded so plainly in her
+ears, that she would start, and turn, and be almost tempted to
+reply;--all the fancies and contradictions common in watching and
+excitement and restless change of place, beset the child.
+
+She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of
+the man on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had
+now succeeded to the boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a
+short pipe, quilted over with string for its longer preservation,
+requested that she would oblige him with a song.
+
+'You've got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong
+memory,' said this gentleman; 'the voice and eye I've got evidence
+for, and the memory's an opinion of my own.  And I'm never wrong.
+Let me hear a song this minute.'
+
+'I don't think I know one, sir,' returned Nell.
+
+'You know forty-seven songs,' said the man, with a gravity which
+admitted of no altercation on the subject.  'Forty-seven's your
+number.  Let me hear one of 'em--the best.  Give me a song this
+minute.'
+
+Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her
+friend, and trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him
+some little ditty which she had learned in happier times, and which
+was so agreeable to his ear, that on its conclusion he in the same
+peremptory manner requested to be favoured with another, to which
+he was so obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and
+with no words at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy
+for its deficiency in other respects.  The noise of this vocal
+performance awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck and
+shaking his late opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his
+pride and joy and chief delight, and that he desired no better
+entertainment.  With a third call, more imperative than either of
+the two former, Nell felt obliged to comply, and this time a chorus
+was maintained not only by the two men together, but also by the
+third man on horseback, who being by his position debarred from a
+nearer participation in the revels of the night, roared when his
+companions roared, and rent the very air.  In this way, with little
+cessation, and singing the same songs again and again, the tired
+and exhausted child kept them in good humour all that night; and
+many a cottager, who was roused from his soundest sleep by the
+discordant chorus as it floated away upon the wind, hid his head
+beneath the bed-clothes and trembled at the sounds.
+
+At length the morning dawned.  It was no sooner light than it began
+to rain heavily.  As the child could not endure the intolerable
+vapours of the cabin, they covered her, in return for her
+exertions, with some pieces of sail-cloth and ends of tarpaulin,
+which sufficed to keep her tolerably dry and to shelter her
+grandfather besides.  As the day advanced the rain increased.  At
+noon it poured down more hopelessly and heavily than ever without
+the faintest promise of abatement.
+
+They had, for some time, been gradually approaching the place for
+which they were bound.  The water had become thicker and dirtier;
+other barges, coming from it, passed them frequently; the paths of
+coal-ash and huts of staring brick, marked the vicinity of some
+great manufacturing town; while scattered streets and houses, and
+smoke from distant furnaces, indicated that they were already in
+the outskirts.  Now, the clustered roofs, and piles of buildings,
+trembling with the working of engines, and dimly resounding with
+their shrieks and throbbings; the tall chimneys vomiting forth a
+black vapour, which hung in a dense ill-favoured cloud above the
+housetops and filled the air with gloom; the clank of hammers
+beating upon iron, the roar of busy streets and noisy crowds,
+gradually augmenting until all the various sounds blended into one
+and none was distinguishable for itself, announced the termination
+of their journey.
+
+The boat floated into the wharf to which it belonged.  The men were
+occupied directly.  The child and her grandfather, after waiting in
+vain to thank them or ask them whither they should go, passed
+through a dirty lane into a crowded street, and stood, amid its din
+and tumult, and in the pouring rain, as strange, bewildered, and
+confused, as if they had lived a thousand years before, and were
+raised from the dead and placed there by a miracle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 44
+
+
+The throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no
+symptom of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs;
+and undisturbed in their business speculations, by the roar of
+carts and waggons laden with clashing wares, the slipping of
+horses' feet upon the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the
+rain on windows and umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more
+impatient passengers, and all the noise and tumult of a crowded
+street in the high tide of its occupation: while the two poor
+strangers, stunned and bewildered by the hurry they beheld but had
+no part in, looked mournfully on; feeling, amidst the crowd, a
+solitude which has no parallel but in the thirst of the shipwrecked
+mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the billows of a mighty ocean,
+his red eyes blinded by looking on the water which hems him in on
+every side, has not one drop to cool his burning tongue.
+
+They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and
+watched the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a
+ray of encouragement or hope.  Some frowned, some smiled, some
+muttered to themselves, some made slight gestures, as if
+anticipating the conversation in which they would shortly be
+engaged, some wore the cunning look of bargaining and plotting,
+some were anxious and eager, some slow and dull; in some
+countenances, were written gain; in others, loss.  It was like
+being in the confidence of all these people to stand quietly there,
+looking into their faces as they flitted past.  In busy places,
+where each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that
+every other man has his, his character and purpose are written
+broadly in his face.  In the public walks and lounges of a town,
+people go to see and to be seen, and there the same expression,
+with little variety, is repeated a hundred times.  The working-day
+faces come nearer to the truth, and let it out more plainly.
+
+Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude
+awakens, the child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a
+wondering interest, amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness
+of her own condition.  But cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and
+lack of any place in which to lay her aching head, soon brought her
+thoughts back to the point whence they had strayed.  No one passed
+who seemed to notice them, or to whom she durst appeal.  After some
+time, they left their place of refuge from the weather, and mingled
+with the concourse.
+
+Evening came on.  They were still wandering up and down, with fewer
+people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own
+breasts, and the same indifference from all around.  The lights in
+the streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, for with
+their help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster.  Shivering
+with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart,
+the child needed her utmost firmness and resolution even to creep
+along.
+
+Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were peaceful
+country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered and
+thirsted, with less suffering than in its squalid strife!  They
+were but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very
+sight of which increased their hopelessness and suffering.
+
+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
+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
+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, cast 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.
+
+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!'
+
+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
+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!'
+
+With thoughts like this, and with some vague design of travelling
+to a great distance among streams and mountains, where only very
+poor and simple people lived, and where they might maintain
+themselves by very humble helping work in farms, free from such
+terrors as that from which they fled--the child, with no resource
+but the poor man's gift, and no encouragement but that which flowed
+from her own heart, and its sense of the truth and right of what
+she did, nerved herself to this last journey and boldly pursued her
+task.
+
+'We shall be very slow to-day, dear,' she said, as they toiled
+painfully through the streets; 'my feet are sore, and I have pains
+in all my limbs from the wet of yesterday.  I saw that he looked at
+us and thought of that, when he said how long we should be upon the
+road.'
+
+'It was a dreary way he told us of,' returned her grandfather,
+piteously.  'Is there no other road?  Will you not let me go some
+other way than this?'
+
+'Places lie beyond these,' said the child, firmly, 'where we may
+live in peace, and be tempted to do no harm.  We will take the road
+that promises to have that end, and we would not turn out of it, if
+it were a hundred times worse than our fears lead us to expect.  We
+would not, dear, would we?'
+
+'No,' replied the old man, wavering in his voice, no less than in
+his manner.  'No.  Let us go on.  I am ready.  I am quite ready,
+Nell.'
+
+The child walked with more difficulty than she had led her
+companion to expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of
+no common severity, and every exertion increased them.  But they
+wrung from her no complaint, or look of suffering; and, though the
+two travellers proceeded very slowly, they did proceed.  Clearing
+the town in course of time, they began to feel that they were
+fairly on their way.
+
+A long suburb of red brick houses--some with patches of
+garden-ground, where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the
+shrinking leaves, and coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling
+vegetation sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and
+furnace, making them by its presence seem yet more blighting and
+unwholesome than in the town itself--a long, flat, straggling
+suburb passed, they came, by slow degrees, upon a cheerless region,
+where not a blade of grass was seen to grow, where not a bud put
+forth its promise in the spring, where nothing green could live but
+on the surface of the stagnant pools, which here and there lay idly
+sweltering by the black road-side.
+
+Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its
+dark depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them
+with a dismal gloom.  On every side, and far as the eye could see
+into the heavy distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and
+presenting that endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form,
+which is the horror of oppressive dreams, poured out their plague
+of smoke, obscured the light, and made foul the melancholy air.  On
+mounds of ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough
+boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and
+writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron chains,
+shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in
+torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their
+agonies.  Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to
+the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down,
+unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited.  Men,
+women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in attire, tended
+the engines, fed their tributary fire, begged upon the road, or
+scowled half-naked from the doorless houses.  Then came more of the
+wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in their
+wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and
+round again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left,
+was the same interminable perspective of brick towers, never
+ceasing in their black vomit, blasting all things living or
+inanimate, shutting out the face of day, and closing in on all
+these horrors with a dense dark cloud.
+
+But night-time in this dreadful spot!--night, when the smoke was
+changed to fire; when every chimney spirited up its flame; and
+places, that had been dark vaults all day, now shone red-hot, with
+figures moving to and fro within their blazing jaws, and calling to
+one another with hoarse cries--night, when the noise of every
+strange machine was aggravated by the darkness; when the people
+near them looked wilder and more savage; when bands of unemployed
+labourers paraded the roads, or clustered by torch-light round
+their leaders, who told them, in stern language, of their wrongs,
+and urged them on to frightful cries and threats; when maddened
+men, armed with sword and firebrand, spurning the tears and prayers
+of women who would restrain them, rushed forth on errands of terror
+and destruction, to work no ruin half so surely as their own--
+night, when carts came rumbling by, filled with rude coffins (for
+contagious disease and death had been busy with the living crops);
+when orphans cried, and distracted women shrieked and followed in
+their wake--night, when some called for bread, and some for drink
+to drown their cares, and some with tears, and some with staggering
+feet, and some with bloodshot eyes, went brooding home--night,
+which, unlike the night that Heaven sends on earth, brought with it
+no peace, nor quiet, nor signs of blessed sleep--who shall tell
+the terrors of the night to the young wandering child!
+
+And yet she lay down, with nothing between her and the sky; and,
+with no fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer
+for the poor old man.  So very weak and spent, she felt, so very
+calm and unresisting, that she had no thought of any wants of her
+own, but prayed that God would raise up some friend for him.  She
+tried to recall the way they had come, and to look in the direction
+where the fire by which they had slept last night was burning.  She
+had forgotten to ask the name of the poor man, their friend, and
+when she had remembered him in her prayers, it seemed ungrateful
+not to turn one look towards the spot where he was watching.
+
+A penny loaf was all they had had that day.  It was very little,
+but even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that
+crept over her senses.  She lay down, very gently, and, with a
+quiet smile upon her face, fell into a slumber.  It was not like
+sleep--and yet it must have been, or why those pleasant dreams of
+the little scholar all night long!  Morning came.  Much weaker,
+diminished powers even of sight and hearing, and yet the child made
+no complaint--perhaps would have made none, even if she had not
+had that inducement to be silent, travelling by her side.  She felt
+a hopelessness of their ever being extricated together from that
+forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very ill, perhaps
+dying; but no fear or anxiety.
+
+A loathing of food that she was not conscious of until they
+expended their last penny in the purchase of another loaf,
+prevented her partaking even of this poor repast.  Her grandfather
+ate greedily, which she was glad to see.
+
+Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety
+or improvement.  There was the same thick air, difficult to
+breathe; the same blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the
+same misery and distress.  Objects appeared more dim, the noise
+less, the path more rugged and uneven, for sometimes she stumbled,
+and became roused, as it were, in the effort to prevent herself
+from falling.  Poor child! the cause was in her tottering feet.
+
+Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained bitterly of
+hunger.  She approached one of the wretched hovels by the way-side,
+and knocked with her hand upon the door.
+
+'What would you have here?' said a gaunt man, opening it.
+
+'Charity.  A morsel of bread.'
+
+'Do you see that?' returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a kind of
+bundle on the ground.  'That's a dead child.  I and five hundred
+other men were thrown out of work, three months ago.  That is my
+third dead child, and last.  Do you think I have charity to bestow,
+or a morsel of bread to spare?'
+
+The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her.  Impelled
+by strong necessity, she knocked at another: a neighbouring one,
+which, yielding to the slight pressure of her hand, flew open.
+
+It seemed that a couple of poor families lived in this hovel, for
+two women, each among children of her own, occupied different
+portions of the room.  In the centre, stood a grave gentleman in
+black who appeared to have just entered, and who held by the arm a
+boy.
+
+'Here, woman,' he said, 'here's your deaf and dumb son.  You may
+thank me for restoring him to you.  He was brought before me, this
+morning, charged with theft; and with any other boy it would have
+gone hard, I assure you.  But, as I had compassion on his
+infirmities, and thought he might have learnt no better, I have
+managed to bring him back to you.  Take more care of him for the
+future.'
+
+'And won't you give me back MY son!' said the other woman, hastily
+rising and confronting him.  'Won't you give me back MY son, Sir,
+who was transported for the same offence!'
+
+'Was he deaf and dumb, woman?' asked the gentleman sternly.
+
+'Was he not, Sir?'
+
+'You know he was not.'
+
+'He was,' cried the woman.  'He was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all
+that was good and right, from his cradle.  Her boy may have learnt
+no better! where did mine learn better?  where could he?  who was
+there to teach him better, or where was it to be learnt?'
+
+'Peace, woman,' said the gentleman, 'your boy was in possession of
+all his senses.'
+
+'He was,' cried the mother; 'and he was the more easy to be led
+astray because he had them.  If you save this boy because he may
+not know right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never
+taught the difference?  You gentlemen have as good a right to
+punish her boy, that God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech,
+as you have to punish mine, that you kept in ignorance yourselves.
+How many of the girls and boys--ah, men and women too--that are
+brought before you and you don't pity, are deaf and dumb in their
+minds, and go wrong in that state, and are punished in that state,
+body and soul, while you gentlemen are quarrelling among yourselves
+whether they ought to learn this or that? --Be a just man, Sir,
+and give me back my son.'
+
+'You are desperate,' said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box,
+'and I am sorry for you.'
+
+'I AM desperate,' returned the woman, 'and you have made me so.
+Give me back my son, to work for these helpless children.  Be a
+just man, Sir, and, as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me
+back my son!'
+
+The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a
+place at which to ask for alms.  She led the old man softly from
+the door, and they pursued their journey.
+
+With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with
+an undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her
+sinking state, so long as she had energy to move, the child,
+throughout the remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to
+proceed: not even stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to
+compensate in some measure for the tardy pace at which she was
+obliged to walk.  Evening was drawing on, but had not closed in,
+when--still travelling among the same dismal objects--they came to
+a busy town.
+
+Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable.
+After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being
+repulsed, they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as
+they could, and try if the inmates of any lone house beyond, would
+have more pity on their exhausted state.
+
+They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and
+the child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled
+powers would bear no more.  There appeared before them, at this
+juncture, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on
+foot, who, with a portmanteau strapped to his back, leaned upon a
+stout stick as he walked, and read from a book which he held in his
+other hand.
+
+It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid,
+for he walked fast, and was a little distance in advance.  At
+length, he stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his
+book.  Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her
+grandfather, and, going close to the stranger without rousing him
+by the sound of her footsteps, began, in a few faint words, to
+implore his help.
+
+He turned his head.  The child clapped her hands together, uttered
+a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 46
+
+
+It was the poor schoolmaster.  No other than the poor schoolmaster.
+Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than
+she had been on recognising him, he stood, for a moment, silent and
+confounded by this unexpected apparition, without even the presence
+of mind to raise her from the ground.
+
+But, quickly recovering his self-possession, he threw down his
+stick and book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured,
+by such simple means as occurred to him, to restore her to herself;
+while her grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and
+implored her with many endearing expressions to speak to him, were
+it only a word.
+
+'She is quite exhausted,' said the schoolmaster, glancing upward
+into his face.  'You have taxed her powers too far, friend.'
+
+'She is perishing of want,' rejoined the old man.  'I never thought
+how weak and ill she was, till now.'
+
+Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate,
+the schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old
+man gather up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her
+away at his utmost speed.
+
+There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had
+been directing his steps when so unexpectedly overtaken.  Towards
+this place he hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into
+the kitchen, and calling upon the company there assembled to make
+way for God's sake, deposited it on a chair before the fire.
+
+The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance,
+did as people usually do under such circumstances.  Everybody
+called for his or her favourite remedy, which nobody brought; each
+cried for more air, at the same time carefully excluding what air
+there was, by closing round the object of sympathy; and all
+wondered why somebody else didn't do what it never appeared to
+occur to them might be done by themselves.
+
+The landlady, however, who possessed more readiness and activity
+than any of them, and who had withal a quicker perception of the
+merits of the case, soon came running in, with a little hot brandy
+and water, followed by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar,
+hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other restoratives; which,
+being duly administered, recovered the child so far as to enable
+her to thank them in a faint voice, and to extend her hand to the
+poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, hard by.
+Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir
+a finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed;
+and, having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped
+them in flannel, they despatched a messenger for the doctor.
+
+The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of
+seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived
+with all speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell,
+drew out his watch, and felt her pulse.  Then he looked at her
+tongue, then he felt her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed
+the half-emptied wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.
+
+'I should give her,' said the doctor at length, 'a tea-spoonful,
+every now and then, of hot brandy and water.'
+
+'Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!' said the delighted
+landlady.
+
+'I should also,' observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath
+on the stairs, 'I should also,' said the doctor, in the voice of an
+oracle, 'put her feet in hot water, and wrap them up in flannel.
+I should likewise,' said the doctor with increased solemnity, 'give
+her something light for supper--the wing of a roasted fowl now--'
+
+'Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire
+this instant!' cried the landlady.  And so indeed it was, for the
+schoolmaster had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on
+so well that the doctor might have smelt it if he had tried;
+perhaps he did.
+
+'You may then,' said the doctor, rising gravely, 'give her a glass
+of hot mulled port wine, if she likes wine--'
+
+'And a toast, Sir?' suggested the landlady.
+'Ay,' said the doctor, in the tone of a man who makes a dignified
+concession.  'And a toast--of bread.  But be very particular to
+make it of bread, if you please, ma'am.'
+
+With which parting injunction, slowly and portentously delivered,
+the doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that
+wisdom which tallied so closely with their own.  Everybody said he
+was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's
+constitutions were; which there appears some reason to suppose he
+did.
+
+While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing
+sleep, from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready.
+As she evinced extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her
+grandfather was below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at
+the thought of their being apart, he took his supper with her.
+Finding her still very restless on this head, they made him up a
+bed in an inner room, to which he presently retired.  The key of
+this chamber happened by good fortune to be on that side of the
+door which was in Nell's room; she turned it on him when the
+landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful
+heart.
+
+The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the
+kitchen fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy
+face, on the fortunate chance which had brought him so opportunely
+to the child's assistance, and parrying, as well as in his simple
+way he could, the inquisitive cross-examination of the landlady,
+who had a great curiosity to be made acquainted with every
+particular of Nell's life and history.  The poor schoolmaster was
+so open-hearted, and so little versed in the most ordinary cunning
+or deceit, that she could not have failed to succeed in the first
+five minutes, but that he happened to be unacquainted with what she
+wished to know; and so he told her.  The landlady, by no means
+satisfied with this assurance, which she considered an ingenious
+evasion of the question, rejoined that he had his reasons of
+course.  Heaven forbid that she should wish to pry into the affairs
+of her customers, which indeed were no business of hers, who had so
+many of her own.  She had merely asked a civil question, and to be
+sure she knew it would meet with a civil answer.  She was quite
+satisfied--quite.  She had rather perhaps that he would have said
+at once that he didn't choose to be communicative, because that
+would have been plain and intelligible.  However, she had no right
+to be offended of course.  He was the best judge, and had a perfect
+right to say what he pleased; nobody could dispute that for a
+moment.  Oh dear, no!
+
+'I assure you, my good lady,' said the mild schoolmaster, 'that I
+have told you the plain truth.  As I hope to be saved, I have told
+you the truth.'
+
+'Why then, I do believe you are in earnest,' rejoined the landlady,
+with ready good-humour, 'and I'm very sorry I have teazed you.  But
+curiosity you know is the curse of our sex, and that's the fact.'
+The landlord scratched his head, as if he thought the curse
+sometimes involved the other sex likewise; but he was prevented
+from making any remark to that effect, if he had it in
+contemplation to do so, by the schoolmaster's rejoinder.
+
+'You should question me for half-a-dozen hours at a sitting, and
+welcome, and I would answer you patiently for the kindness of heart
+you have shown to-night, if I could,' he said.  'As it is, please
+to take care of her in the morning, and let me know early how she
+is; and to understand that I am paymaster for the three.'
+
+So, parting with them on most friendly terms (not the less cordial
+perhaps for this last direction), the schoolmaster went to his bed,
+and the host and hostess to theirs.
+
+The report in the morning was, that the child was better, but was
+extremely weak, and would at least require a day's rest, and
+careful nursing, before she could proceed upon her journey.  The
+schoolmaster received this communication with perfect cheerfulness,
+observing that he had a day to spare--two days for that matter--
+and could very well afford to wait.  As the patient was to sit up
+in the evening, he appointed to visit her in her room at a certain
+hour, and rambling out with his book, did not return until the hour
+arrived.
+
+Nell could not help weeping when they were left alone; whereat, and
+at sight of her pale face and wasted figure, the simple
+schoolmaster shed a few tears himself, at the same time showing in
+very energetic language how foolish it was to do so, and how very
+easily it could be avoided, if one tried.
+
+'It makes me unhappy even in the midst of all this kindness' said
+the child, 'to think that we should be a burden upon you.  How can
+I ever thank you?  If I had not met you so far from home, I must
+have died, and he would have been left alone.'
+
+'We'll not talk about dying,' said the schoolmaster; 'and as to
+burdens, I have made my fortune since you slept at my cottage.'
+
+'Indeed!' cried the child joyfully.
+
+'Oh yes,' returned her friend.  'I have been appointed clerk and
+schoolmaster to a village a long way from here--and a long way
+from the old one as you may suppose--at five-and-thirty pounds a
+year.  Five-and-thirty pounds!'
+
+'I am very glad,' said the child, 'so very, very glad.'
+
+'I am on my way there now,' resumed the schoolmaster.  'They
+allowed me the stage-coach-hire--outside stage-coach-hire all the
+way.  Bless you, they grudge me nothing.  But as the time at which
+I am expected there, left me ample leisure, I determined to walk
+instead.  How glad I am, to think I did so!'
+
+'How glad should we be!'
+
+'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster, moving restlessly in his chair,
+'certainly, that's very true.  But you--where are you going, where
+are you coming from, what have you been doing since you left me,
+what had you been doing before?  Now, tell me--do tell me.  I know
+very little of the world, and perhaps you are better fitted to
+advise me in its affairs than I am qualified to give advice to you;
+but I am very sincere, and I have a reason (you have not forgotten
+it) for loving you.  I have felt since that time as if my love for
+him who died, had been transferred to you who stood beside his bed.
+If this,' he added, looking upwards, 'is the beautiful creation
+that springs from ashes, let its peace prosper with me, as I deal
+tenderly and compassionately by this young child!'
+
+The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the
+affectionate earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which
+was stamped upon his every word and look, gave the child a
+confidence in him, which the utmost arts of treachery and
+dissimulation could never have awakened in her breast.  She told
+him all--that they had no friend or relative--that she had fled
+with the old man, to save him from a madhouse and all the miseries
+he dreaded--that she was flying now, to save him from himself--
+and that she sought an asylum in some remote and primitive place,
+where the temptation before which he fell would never enter, and
+her late sorrows and distresses could have no place.
+
+The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment.  'This child!'--he
+thought--'Has this child heroically persevered under all doubts
+and dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and
+sustained by strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude
+alone!  And yet the world is full of such heroism.  Have I yet to
+learn that the hardest and best-borne trials are those which are
+never chronicled in any earthly record, and are suffered every day!
+And should I be surprised to hear the story of this child!'
+
+What more he thought or said, matters not.  It was concluded that
+Nell and her grandfather should accompany him to the village
+whither he was bound, and that he should endeavour to find them
+some humble occupation by which they could subsist.  'We shall be
+sure to succeed,' said the schoolmaster, heartily.  'The cause is
+too good a one to fail.'
+
+They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a
+stage-waggon, which travelled for some distance on the same road as
+they must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and the
+driver for a small gratuity would give Nell a place inside.  A
+bargain was soon struck when the waggon came; and in due time it
+rolled away; with the child comfortably bestowed among the softer
+packages, her grandfather and the schoolmaster walking on beside
+the driver, and the landlady and all the good folks of the inn
+screaming out their good wishes and farewells.
+
+What a soothing, luxurious, drowsy way of travelling, to lie inside
+that slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the
+horses' bells, the occasional smacking of the carter's whip, the
+smooth rolling of the great broad wheels, the rattle of the
+harness, the cheery good-nights of passing travellers jogging past
+on little short-stepped horses--all made pleasantly indistinct by
+the thick awning, which seemed made for lazy listening under, till
+one fell asleep!  The very going to sleep, still with an indistinct
+idea, as the head jogged to and fro upon the pillow, of moving
+onward with no trouble or fatigue, and hearing all these sounds
+like dreamy music, lulling to the senses--and the slow waking up,
+and finding one's self staring out through the breezy curtain
+half-opened in the front, far up into the cold bright sky with its
+countless stars, and downward at the driver's lantern dancing on
+like its namesake Jack of the swamps and marshes, and sideways at
+the dark grim trees, and forward at the long bare road rising up,
+up, up, until it stopped abruptly at a sharp high ridge as if there
+were no more road, and all beyond was sky--and the stopping at the
+inn to bait, and being helped out, and going into a room with fire
+and candles, and winking very much, and being agreeably reminded
+that the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort's sake to
+think it colder than it was!--What a delicious journey was that
+journey in the waggon.
+
+Then the going on again--so fresh at first, and shortly afterwards
+so sleepy.  The waking from a sound nap as the mail came dashing
+past like a highway comet, with gleaming lamps and rattling hoofs,
+and visions of a guard behind, standing up to keep his feet warm,
+and of a gentleman in a fur cap opening his eyes and looking wild
+and stupefied--the stopping at the turnpike where the man was gone
+to bed, and knocking at the door until he answered with a smothered
+shout from under the bed-clothes in the little room above, where
+the faint light was burning, and presently came down, night-capped
+and shivering, to throw the gate wide open, and wish all waggons
+off the road except by day.  The cold sharp interval between night
+and morning--the distant streak of light widening and spreading,
+and turning from grey to white, and from white to yellow, and from
+yellow to burning red--the presence of day, with all its
+cheerfulness and life--men and horses at the plough--birds in the
+trees and hedges, and boys in solitary fields, frightening them
+away with rattles.  The coming to a town--people busy in the
+markets; light carts and chaises round the tavern yard; tradesmen
+standing at their doors; men running horses up and down the street
+for sale; pigs plunging and grunting in the dirty distance, getting
+off with long strings at their legs, running into clean chemists'
+shops and being dislodged with brooms by 'prentices; the night
+coach changing horses--the passengers cheerless, cold, ugly, and
+discontented, with three months' growth of hair in one night--the
+coachman fresh as from a band-box, and exquisitely beautiful by
+contrast:--so much bustle, so many things in motion, such a
+variety of incidents--when was there a journey with so many
+delights as that journey in the waggon!
+
+Sometimes walking for a mile or two while her grandfather rode
+inside, and sometimes even prevailing upon the schoolmaster to take
+her place and lie down to rest, Nell travelled on very happily
+until they came to a large town, where the waggon stopped, and
+where they spent a night.  They passed a large church; and in the
+streets were a number of old houses, built of a kind of earth or
+plaster, crossed and re-crossed in a great many directions with
+black beams, which gave them a remarkable and very ancient look.
+The doors, too, were arched and low, some with oaken portals and
+quaint benches, where the former inhabitants had sat on summer
+evenings.  The windows were latticed in little diamond panes, that
+seemed to wink and blink upon the passengers as if they were dim of
+sight.  They had long since got clear of the smoke and furnaces,
+except in one or two solitary instances, where a factory planted
+among fields withered the space about it, like a burning mountain.
+When they had passed through this town, they entered again upon the
+country, and began to draw near their place of destination.
+
+It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon
+the road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity,
+but that the schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles
+of his village, had a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new
+clerk, and was unwilling to make his entry in dusty shoes, and
+travel-disordered dress.  It was a fine, clear, autumn morning,
+when they came upon the scene of his promotion, and stopped to
+contemplate its beauties.
+
+'See--here's the church!' cried the delighted schoolmaster in a
+low voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the school-
+house, I'll be sworn.  Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this
+beautiful place!'
+
+They admired everything--the old grey porch, the mullioned
+windows, the venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard,
+the ancient tower, the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs
+of cottage, barn, and homestead, peeping from among the trees; the
+stream that rippled by the distant water-mill; the blue Welsh
+mountains far away.  It was for such a spot the child had wearied
+in the dense, dark, miserable haunts of labour.  Upon her bed of
+ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through which they had forced
+their way, visions of such scenes--beautiful indeed, but not more
+beautiful than this sweet reality--had been always present to her
+mind.  They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy distance, as the
+prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter; but, as they
+receded, she had loved and panted for them more.
+
+'I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,' said the
+schoolmaster, at length breaking the silence into which they had
+fallen in their gladness.  'I have a letter to present, and
+inquiries to make, you know.  Where shall I take you?  To the
+little inn yonder?'
+
+'Let us wait here,' rejoined Nell.  'The gate is open.  We will sit
+in the church porch till you come back.'
+
+'A good place too,' said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards
+it, disencumbering himself of his portmanteau, and placing it on
+the stone seat.  'Be sure that I come back with good news, and am
+not long gone!'
+
+So, the happy schoolmaster put on a bran-new pair of gloves which
+he had carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and
+hurried off, full of ardour and excitement.
+
+The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage
+hid him from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old
+churchyard--so solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress
+upon the fallen leaves, which strewed the path and made her
+footsteps noiseless, seemed an invasion of its silence.  It was a
+very aged, ghostly place; the church had been built many hundreds
+of years ago, and had once had a convent or monastery attached; for
+arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of
+blackened walls, were yet standing-, while other portions of the
+old building, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled
+with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as if they too
+claimed a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes with the dust
+of men.  Hard by these gravestones of dead years, and forming a
+part of the ruin which some pains had been taken to render
+habitable in modern times, were two small dwellings with sunken
+windows and oaken doors, fast hastening to decay, empty and
+desolate.
+
+Upon these tenements, the attention of the child became exclusively
+riveted.  She knew not why.  The church, the ruin, the antiquated
+graves, had equal claims at least upon a stranger's thoughts, but
+from the moment when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings,
+she could turn to nothing else.  Even when she had made the circuit
+of the enclosure, and, returning to the porch, sat pensively
+waiting for their friend, she took her station where she could
+still look upon them, and felt as if fascinated towards that spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 47
+
+
+Kit's mother and the single gentleman--upon whose track it is
+expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be
+chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its
+characters in situations of uncertainty and doubt--Kit's mother
+and the single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-
+and-four whose departure from the Notary's door we have already
+witnessed, soon left the town behind them, and struck fire from the
+flints of the broad highway.
+
+The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of
+her situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by
+this time little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the
+fire, or tumbled down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or
+had scalded their windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst
+at the spouts of tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and
+meeting from the window the eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers,
+and others, felt in the new dignity of her position like a mourner
+at a funeral, who, not being greatly afflicted by the loss of the
+departed, recognizes his every-day acquaintance from the window of
+the mourning coach, but is constrained to preserve a decent
+solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent to all external
+objects.
+
+To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single
+gentleman would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of
+steel.  Never did chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless
+gentleman as he.  He never sat in the same position for two minutes
+together, but was perpetually tossing his arms and legs about,
+pulling up the sashes and letting them violently down, or thrusting
+his head out of one window to draw it in again and thrust it out of
+another.  He carried in his pocket, too, a fire-box of mysterious
+and unknown construction; and as sure as ever Kit's mother closed
+her eyes, so surely--whisk, rattle, fizz--there was the single
+gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of fire, and letting the
+sparks fall down among the straw as if there were no such thing as
+a possibility of himself and Kit's mother being roasted alive
+before the boys could stop their horses.  Whenever they halted to
+change, there he was--out of the carriage without letting down the
+steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling
+out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before he
+put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that
+Kit's mother was quite afraid of him.  Then, when the horses were
+to, in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile,
+out came the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit's mother as
+wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage.
+
+'Are you comfortable?' the single gentleman would say after one of
+these exploits, turning sharply round.
+
+'Quite, Sir, thank you.'
+
+'Are you sure?  An't you cold?'
+
+'It is a little chilly, Sir,' Kit's mother would reply.
+
+'I knew it!' cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the
+front glasses.  'She wants some brandy and water!  Of course she
+does.  How could I forget it?  Hallo!  Stop at the next inn, and
+call out for a glass of hot brandy and water.'
+
+It was in vain for Kit's mother to protest that she stood in need
+of nothing of the kind.  The single gentleman was inexorable; and
+whenever he had exhausted all other modes and fashions of
+restlessness, it invariably occurred to him that Kit's mother
+wanted brandy and water.
+
+In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they
+stopped to supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered
+everything eatable that the house contained; and because Kit's
+mother didn't eat everything at once, and eat it all, he took it
+into his head that she must be ill.
+
+'You're faint,' said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself
+but walk about the room.  'I see what's the matter with you, ma'am.
+You're faint.'
+
+'Thank you, sir, I'm not indeed.'
+
+'I know you are.  I'm sure of it.  I drag this poor woman from the
+bosom of her family at a minute's notice, and she goes on getting
+fainter and fainter before my eyes.  I'm a pretty fellow!  How many
+children have you got, ma'am?'
+
+'Two, sir, besides Kit.'
+
+'Boys, ma'am?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Are they christened?'
+
+'Only half baptised as yet, sir.'
+
+'I'm godfather to both of 'em.  Remember that, if you please,
+ma'am.  You had better have some mulled wine.'
+
+'I couldn't touch a drop indeed, sir.'
+
+'You must,' said the single gentleman.  'I see you want it.  I
+ought to have thought of it before.'
+
+Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as
+impetuously as if it had been wanted for instant use in the
+recovery of some person apparently drowned, the single gentleman
+made Kit's mother swallow a bumper of it at such a high temperature
+that the tears ran down her face, and then hustled her off to the
+chaise again, where--not impossibly from the effects of this
+agreeable sedative--she soon became insensible to his
+restlessness, and fell fast asleep.  Nor were the happy effects of
+this prescription of a transitory nature, as, notwithstanding that
+the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the single
+gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad
+day, and they were clattering over the pavement of a town.
+
+'This is the place!' cried her companion, letting down all the
+glasses.  'Drive to the wax-work!'
+
+The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his
+horse, to the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke
+into a smart canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise
+that brought the good folks wondering to their doors and windows,
+and drowned the sober voices of the town-clocks as they chimed out
+half-past eight.  They drove up to a door round which a crowd of
+persons were collected, and there stopped.
+
+'What's this?' said the single gentleman thrusting out his head.
+'Is anything the matter here?'
+
+'A wedding Sir, a wedding!' cried several voices.  'Hurrah!'
+
+The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the
+centre of this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of
+the postilions, and handed out Kit's mother, at sight of whom the
+populace cried out, 'Here's another wedding!' and roared and leaped
+for joy.
+
+'The world has gone mad, I think,' said the single gentleman,
+pressing through the concourse with his supposed bride.  'Stand
+back here, will you, and let me knock.'
+
+Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd.  A score of
+dirty hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has
+a knocker of equal powers been made to produce more deafening
+sounds than this particular engine on the occasion in question.
+Having rendered these voluntary services, the throng modestly
+retired a little, preferring that the single gentleman should bear
+their consequences alone.
+
+'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at
+his button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very
+stoical aspect.
+
+'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'I have.'
+
+'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'
+
+'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him
+from top to toe.
+
+'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's
+mother more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently
+had it in contemplation to run away.  'A right you little dream of.
+Mind, good people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor--tut,
+tut, that can't be.  Where is the child you have here, my good
+fellow.  You call her Nell.  Where is she?'
+
+As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody
+in a room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in
+a white dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon
+the bridegroom's arm.
+
+'Where is she!' cried this lady.  'What news have you brought me?
+What has become of her?'
+
+The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the
+late Mrs Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to
+the eternal wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of
+conflicting apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity.  At
+length he stammered out,
+
+'I ask YOU where she is?  What do you mean?'
+
+'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any
+good, why weren't you here a week ago?'
+
+'She is not--not dead?' said the person to whom she addressed
+herself, turning very pale.
+
+'No, not so bad as that.'
+
+'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly.  'Let me come
+in.'
+
+They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the
+door.
+
+'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-
+married couple, 'one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two
+persons whom I seek.  They would not know me.  My features are
+strange to them, but if they or either of them are here, take this
+good woman with you, and let them see her first, for her they both
+know.  If you deny them from any mistaken regard or fear for them,
+judge of my intentions by their recognition of this person as their
+old humble friend.'
+
+'I always said it!' cried the bride, 'I knew she was not a common
+child!  Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we
+could do, has been tried in vain.'
+
+With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment,
+all that they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first
+meeting with them, down to the time of their sudden disappearance;
+adding (which was quite true) that they had made every possible
+effort to trace them, but without success; having been at first in
+great alarm for their safety, as well as on account of the
+suspicions to which they themselves might one day be exposed in
+consequence of their abrupt departure.  They dwelt upon the old
+man's imbecility of mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always
+testified when he was absent, upon the company he had been supposed
+to keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually
+crept over her and changed her both in health and spirits.  Whether
+she had missed the old man in the night, and knowing or
+conjecturing whither he had bent his steps, had gone in pursuit, or
+whether they had left the house together, they had no means of
+determining.  Certain they considered it, that there was but
+slender prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether
+their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there
+was now no hope of their return.
+To all this, the single gentleman listened with the air of a man
+quite borne down by grief and disappointment.  He shed tears when
+they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep affliction.
+
+Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short
+work of a long story, let it be briefly written that before the
+interview came to a close, the single gentleman deemed he had
+sufficient evidence of having been told the truth, and that he
+endeavoured to force upon the bride and bridegroom an
+acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child, which,
+however, they steadily declined accepting.  In the end, the happy
+couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a
+country excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit's mother stood
+ruefully before their carriage-door.
+
+'Where shall we drive you, sir?' said the post-boy.
+
+'You may drive me,' said the single gentleman, 'to the--' He was
+not going to add 'inn,' but he added it for the sake of Kit's
+mother; and to the inn they went.
+
+Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to
+show the wax-work, was the child of great people who had been
+stolen from her parents in infancy, and had only just been traced.
+Opinion was divided whether she was the daughter of a prince, a
+duke, an earl, a viscount, or a baron, but all agreed upon the main
+fact, and that the single gentleman was her father; and all bent
+forward to catch a glimpse, though it were only of the tip of his
+noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his four-horse chaise.
+
+What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been
+saved if he had only known, that at that moment both child and
+grandfather were seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting
+the schoolmaster's return!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 48
+
+
+Popular rumour concerning the single gentleman and his errand,
+travelling from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the
+marvellous as it was bandied about--for your popular rumour,
+unlike the rolling stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a
+deal of moss in its wanderings up and down--occasioned his
+dismounting at the inn-door to be looked upon as an exciting and
+attractive spectacle, which could scarcely be enough admired; and
+drew together a large concourse of idlers, who having recently
+been, as it were, thrown out of employment by the closing of the
+wax-work and the completion of the nuptial ceremonies, considered
+his arrival as little else than a special providence, and hailed it
+with demonstrations of the liveliest joy.
+
+Not at all participating in the general sensation, but wearing the
+depressed and wearied look of one who sought to meditate on his
+disappointment in silence and privacy, the single gentleman
+alighted, and handed out Kit's mother with a gloomy politeness
+which impressed the lookers-on extremely.  That done, he gave her
+his arm and escorted her into the house, while several active
+waiters ran on before as a skirmishing party, to clear the way and
+to show the room which was ready for their reception.
+
+'Any room will do,' said the single gentleman.  'Let it be near at
+hand, that's all.'
+
+'Close here, sir, if you please to walk this way.'
+
+'Would the gentleman like this room?' said a voice, as a little
+out-of-the-way door at the foot of the well staircase flew briskly
+open and a head popped out.  'He's quite welcome to it.  He's as
+welcome as flowers in May, or coals at Christmas.  Would you like
+this room, sir?  Honour me by walking in.  Do me the favour, pray.'
+
+'Goodness gracious me!' cried Kit's mother, falling back in extreme
+surprise, 'only think of this!'
+
+She had some reason to be astonished, for the person who proffered
+the gracious invitation was no other than Daniel Quilp.  The little
+door out of which he had thrust his head was close to the inn
+larder; and there he stood, bowing with grotesque politeness; as
+much at his ease as if the door were that of his own house;
+blighting all the legs of mutton and cold roast fowls by his close
+companionship, and looking like the evil genius of the cellars come
+from underground upon some work of mischief.
+
+'Would you do me the honour?' said Quilp.
+
+'I prefer being alone,' replied the single gentleman.
+
+'Oh!' said Quilp.  And with that, he darted in again with one jerk
+and clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch clock when
+the hour strikes.
+
+'Why it was only last night, sir,' whispered Kit's mother, 'that I
+left him in Little Bethel.'
+
+'Indeed!' said her fellow-passenger.  'When did that person come
+here, waiter?'
+
+'Come down by the night-coach, this morning, sir.'
+
+'Humph!  And when is he going?'
+
+'Can't say, sir, really.  When the chambermaid asked him just now
+if he should want a bed, sir, he first made faces at her, and then
+wanted to kiss her.'
+
+'Beg him to walk this way,' said the single gentleman.  'I should
+be glad to exchange a word with him, tell him.  Beg him to come at
+once, do you hear?'
+
+The man stared on receiving these instructions, for the single
+gentleman had not only displayed as much astonishment as Kit's
+mother at sight of the dwarf, but, standing in no fear of him, had
+been at less pains to conceal his dislike and repugnance.  He
+departed on his errand, however, and immediately returned, ushering
+in its object.
+
+'Your servant, sir,' said the dwarf, 'I encountered your messenger
+half-way.  I thought you'd allow me to pay my compliments to you.
+I hope you're well.  I hope you're very well.'
+
+There was a short pause, while the dwarf, with half-shut eyes and
+puckered face, stood waiting for an answer.  Receiving none, he
+turned towards his more familiar acquaintance.
+
+'Christopher's mother!' he cried.  'Such a dear lady, such a worthy
+woman, so blest in her honest son!  How is Christopher's mother?
+Have change of air and scene improved her?  Her little family too,
+and Christopher?  Do they thrive?  Do they flourish?  Are they
+growing into worthy citizens, eh?'
+
+Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding
+question, Mr Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into
+the panting look which was customary with him, and which, whether
+it were assumed or natural, had equally the effect of banishing all
+expression from his face, and rendering it, as far as it afforded
+any index to his mood or meaning, a perfect blank.
+
+'Mr Quilp,' said the single gentleman.
+
+The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited
+the closest attention.
+
+'We two have met before--'
+
+'Surely,' cried Quilp, nodding his head.  'Oh surely, sir.  Such an
+honour and pleasure--it's both, Christopher's mother, it's both--
+is not to be forgotten so soon.  By no means!'
+
+'You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the
+house to which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some
+of the neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for
+rest or refreshment?'
+
+'How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous
+measure!' said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his
+friend Mr Sampson Brass.
+
+'I found,' said the single gentleman, 'you most unaccountably, in
+possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another
+man, and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon
+his property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden
+beggary, and driven from house and home.'
+
+'We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,' rejoined Quilp, 'we
+had our warrant.  Don't say driven either.  He went of his own
+accord--vanished in the night, sir.'
+
+'No matter,' said the single gentleman angrily.  'He was gone.'
+
+'Yes, he was gone,' said Quilp, with the same exasperating
+composure.  'No doubt he was gone.  The only question was, where.
+And it's a question still.'
+
+'Now, what am I to think,' said the single gentleman, sternly
+regarding him, 'of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any
+information then--nay, obviously holding back, and sheltering
+yourself with all kinds of cunning, trickery, and evasion--are
+dogging my footsteps now?'
+
+'I dogging!' cried Quilp.
+
+'Why, are you not?' returned his questioner, fretted into a state
+of the utmost irritation.  'Were you not a few hours since, sixty
+miles off, and in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say
+her prayers?'
+
+'She was there too, I think?' said Quilp, still perfectly unmoved.
+'I might say, if I was inclined to be rude, how do I know but you
+are dogging MY footsteps.  Yes, I was at chapel.  What then?  I've
+read in books that pilgrims were used to go to chapel before they
+went on journeys, to put up petitions for their safe return.  Wise
+men! journeys are very perilous--especially outside the coach.
+Wheels come off, horses take fright, coachmen drive too fast,
+coaches overturn.  I always go to chapel before I start on
+journeys.  It's the last thing I do on such occasions, indeed.'
+
+That Quilp lied most heartily in this speech, it needed no very
+great penetration to discover, although for anything that he
+suffered to appear in his face, voice, or manner, he might have
+been clinging to the truth with the quiet constancy of a martyr.
+
+'In the name of all that's calculated to drive one crazy, man,'
+said the unfortunate single gentleman, 'have you not, for some
+reason of your own, taken upon yourself my errand?  don't you know
+with what object I have come here, and if you do know, can you
+throw no light upon it?'
+
+'You think I'm a conjuror, sir,' replied Quilp, shrugging up his
+shoulders.  'If I was, I should tell my own fortune--and make it.'
+
+'Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,' returned the other,
+throwing himself impatiently upon a sofa.  'Pray leave us, if you
+please.'
+
+'Willingly,' returned Quilp.  'Most willingly.  Christopher's
+mother, my good soul, farewell.  A pleasant journey--back, sir.
+Ahem!'
+
+With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features
+altogether indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of
+every monstrous grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the
+dwarf slowly retreated and closed the door behind him.
+
+'Oho!' he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself
+down in a chair with his arms akimbo.  'Oho!  Are you there, my
+friend?  In-deed!'
+
+Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself
+for the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by
+twisting it into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp,
+rocking himself to and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at
+the same time, fell into certain meditations, of which it may be
+necessary to relate the substance.
+
+First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing
+to that spot, which were briefly these.  Dropping in at Mr Sampson
+Brass's office on the previous evening, in the absence of that
+gentleman and his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller,
+who chanced at the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and
+water on the dust of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the
+phrase goes, rather copiously.  But as clay in the abstract, when
+too much moistened, becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency,
+breaking down in unexpected places, retaining impressions but
+faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of character, so
+Mr Swiveller's clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity of
+moisture, was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the
+various ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinctive
+character, and running into each other.  It is not uncommon for
+human clay in this condition to value itself above all things upon
+its great prudence and sagacity; and Mr Swiveller, especially
+prizing himself upon these qualities, took occasion to remark that
+he had made strange discoveries in connection with the single
+gentleman who lodged above, which he had determined to keep within
+his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor cajolery should ever
+induce him to reveal.  Of this determination Mr Quilp expressed his
+high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to goad Mr
+Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single
+gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this
+was the secret which was never to be disclosed.
+
+Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed
+that the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual
+who had waited on him, and having assured himself by further
+inquiries that this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in
+arriving at the conclusion that the intent and object of his
+correspondence with Kit was the recovery of his old client and the
+child.  Burning with curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot,
+he resolved to pounce upon Kit's mother as the person least able to
+resist his arts, and consequently the most likely to be entrapped
+into such revelations as he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr
+Swiveller, he hurried to her house.  The good woman being from
+home, he made inquiries of a neighbour, as Kit himself did soon
+afterwards, and being directed to the chapel be took himself there,
+in order to waylay her, at the conclusion of the service.
+
+He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and
+with his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly
+over the joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared.
+Watchful as a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on
+business.  Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a
+profound abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour,
+and when he withdrew with his family, shot out after him.  In fine,
+he traced them to the notary's house; learnt the destination of the
+carriage from one of the postilions; and knowing that a fast
+night-coach started for the same place, at the very hour which was
+on the point of striking, from a street hard by, darted round to
+the coach-office without more ado, and took his seat upon the roof.
+After passing and repassing the carriage on the road, and being
+passed and repassed by it sundry times in the course of the night,
+according as their stoppages were longer or shorter; or their rate
+of travelling varied, they reached the town almost together.  Quilp
+kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the crowd, learnt the single
+gentleman's errand, and its failure, and having possessed himself
+of all that it was material to know, hurried off, reached the inn
+before him, had the interview just now detailed, and shut himself
+up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all these
+occurrences.
+
+'You are there, are you, my friend?' he repeated, greedily biting
+his nails.  'I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit's the
+confidential agent, is he?  I shall have to dispose of him, I fear.
+If we had come up with them this morning,' he continued, after a
+thoughtful pause, 'I was ready to prove a pretty good claim.  I
+could have made my profit.  But for these canting hypocrites, the
+lad and his mother, I could get this fiery gentleman as comfortably
+into my net as our old friend--our mutual friend, ha! ha!--and
+chubby, rosy Nell.  At the worst, it's a golden opportunity, not to
+be lost.  Let us find them first, and I'll find means of draining
+you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while there are prison
+bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or kinsman safely.
+I hate your virtuous people!' said the dwarf, throwing off a bumper
+of brandy, and smacking his lips, 'ah! I hate 'em every one!'
+
+This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his
+real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and
+little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his
+ruined client: --the old man himself, because he had been able to
+deceive him and elude his vigilance --the child, because she was
+the object of Mrs Quilp's commiseration and constant self-reproach
+--the single gentleman, because of his unconcealed aversion to
+himself --Kit and his mother, most mortally, for the reasons shown.
+Above and beyond that general feeling of opposition to them, which
+would have been inseparable from his ravenous desire to enrich
+himself by these altered circumstances, Daniel Quilp hated them
+every one.
+
+In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds
+with more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an
+obscure alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all
+possible inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man
+and his grandchild.  But all was in vain.  Not the slightest trace
+or clue could be obtained.  They had left the town by night; no one
+had seen them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no
+coach, cart, or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their
+description; nobody had fallen in with them, or heard of them.
+Convinced at last that for the present all such attempts were
+hopeless, he appointed two or three scouts, with promises of large
+rewards in case of their forwarding him any intelligence, and
+returned to London by next day's coach.
+
+It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place
+upon the roof, that Kit's mother was alone inside; from which
+circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much
+cheerfulness of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled
+him to terrify her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as
+hanging over the side of the coach at the risk of his life, and
+staring in with his great goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the
+more horrible from his face being upside down; dodging her in this
+way from one window to another; getting nimbly down whenever they
+changed horses and thrusting his head in at the window with a
+dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had such an effect upon Mrs
+Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time to resist the
+belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and embody
+that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little Bethel,
+and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley's and
+oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.
+
+Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother's intended
+return, was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his
+surprise when he saw, leering over the coachman's shoulder like
+some familiar demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known
+face of Quilp.
+
+'How are you, Christopher?' croaked the dwarf from the coach-top.
+'All right, Christopher.  Mother's inside.'
+
+'Why, how did he come here, mother?' whispered Kit.
+
+'I don't know how he came or why, my dear,' rejoined Mrs Nubbles,
+dismounting with her son's assistance, 'but he has been a
+terrifying of me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.'
+
+'He has?' cried Kit.
+
+'You wouldn't believe it, that you wouldn't,' replied his mother,
+'but don't say a word to him, for I really don't believe he's
+human.  Hush!  Don't turn round as if I was talking of him, but
+he's a squinting at me now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp,
+quite awful!'
+
+In spite of his mother's injunction, Kit turned sharply round to
+look.  Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in
+celestial contemplation.
+
+'Oh, he's the artfullest creetur!' cried Mrs Nubbles.  'But come
+away.  Don't speak to him for the world.'
+
+'Yes I will, mother.  What nonsense.  I say, sir--'
+
+Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.
+
+'You let my mother alone, will you?' said Kit.  'How dare you tease
+a poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as
+if she hadn't got enough to make her so, without you.  An't you
+ashamed of yourself, you little monster?'
+
+'Monster!' said Quilp inwardly, with a smile.  'Ugliest dwarf that
+could be seen anywhere for a penny--monster--ah!'
+
+'You show her any of your impudence again,' resumed Kit,
+shouldering the bandbox, 'and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won't
+bear with you any more.  You have no right to do it; I'm sure we
+never interfered with you.  This isn't the first time; and if ever
+you worry or frighten her again, you'll oblige me (though I should
+be very sorry to do it, on account of your size) to beat you.'
+
+Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to
+bring his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked
+fixedly at him, retreated a little distance without averting his
+gaze, approached again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen
+times, like a head in a phantasmagoria.  Kit stood his ground as if
+in expectation of an immediate assault, but finding that nothing
+came of these gestures, snapped his fingers and walked away; his
+mother dragging him off as fast as she could, and, even in the
+midst of his news of little Jacob and the baby, looking anxiously
+over her shoulder to see if Quilp were following.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 49
+
+
+Kit's mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back
+so often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp's thoughts than any
+intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with
+which they had parted.  He went his way, whistling from time to
+time some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and
+composed, jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as
+he went with visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who,
+having received no intelligence of him for three whole days and two
+nights, and having had no previous notice of his absence, was
+doubtless by that time in a state of distraction, and constantly
+fainting away with anxiety and grief.
+
+This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf's humour,
+and so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along
+until the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he
+found himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill
+scream, which greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened
+to be walking on before him expecting nothing so little, increased
+his mirth, and made him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.
+
+In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when,
+gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he
+descried more light than is usual in a house of mourning.  Drawing
+nearer, and listening attentively, he could hear several voices in
+earnest conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only
+those of his wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.
+
+'Ha!' cried the jealous dwarf, 'What's this!  Do they entertain
+visitors while I'm away!'
+
+A smothered cough from above, was the reply.  He felt in his
+pockets for his latch-key, but had forgotten it.  There was no
+resource but to knock at the door.
+
+'A light in the passage,' said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole.
+'A very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal
+upon you unawares.  Soho!'
+
+A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within.  But
+after a second application to the knocker, no louder than the
+first, the door was softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom
+Quilp instantly gagged with one hand, and dragged into the street
+with the other.
+
+'You'll throttle me, master,' whispered the boy.  'Let go, will
+you.'
+
+'Who's up stairs, you dog?' retorted Quilp in the same tone.  'Tell
+me.  And don't speak above your breath, or I'll choke you in good
+earnest.'
+
+The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled
+giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched
+him by the throat and might have carried his threat into execution,
+or at least have made very good progress towards that end, but for
+the boy's nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying
+himself behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless
+attempts to catch him by the hair of the head, his master was
+obliged to come to a parley.
+
+'Will you answer me?' said Quilp.  'What's going on, above?'
+
+'You won't let one speak,' replied the boy.  'They--ha, ha, ha!--
+they think you're--you're dead.  Ha ha ha!'
+
+'Dead!' cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself.  'No.  Do
+they?  Do they really, you dog?'
+
+'They think you're--you're drowned,' replied the boy, who in his
+malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master.  'You was
+last seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled
+over.  Ha ha!'
+
+The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances,
+and of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more
+delight to Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could
+possibly have inspired him with.  He was no less tickled than his
+hopeful assistant, and they both stood for some seconds, grinning
+and gasping and wagging their heads at each other, on either side
+of the post, like an unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.
+
+'Not a word,' said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe.  'Not
+a sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a
+cobweb.  Drowned, eh, Mrs Quilp!  Drowned!'
+
+So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped
+his way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy
+of summersets on the pavement.
+
+The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped
+in, and planted himself behind the door of communication between
+that chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render
+both more airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had
+often availed himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed
+enlarged with his pocket-knife), enabled him not only to hear, but
+to see distinctly, what was passing.
+
+Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass
+seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle
+of rum--his own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica--
+convenient to his hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump
+sugar, and all things fitting; from which choice materials,
+Sampson, by no means insensible to their claims upon his attention,
+had compounded a mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at
+that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating
+with looks in which a faint assumption of sentimental regret,
+struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy.  At the same
+table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; no longer
+sipping other people's punch feloniously with teaspoons, but taking
+deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter--not
+exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but
+preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow
+nevertheless--was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her
+grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid.  There were
+also present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them
+certain machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated
+with a stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish,
+and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look,
+their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided
+appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the
+party.
+
+'If I could poison that dear old lady's rum and water,' murmured
+Quilp, 'I'd die happy.'
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to
+the ceiling with a sigh, 'Who knows but he may be looking down upon
+us now!  Who knows but he may be surveying of us from--from
+somewheres or another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye!
+Oh Lor!'
+
+Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed;
+looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.
+
+'I can almost fancy,' said the lawyer shaking his head, 'that I see
+his eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor.  When
+shall we look upon his like again?  Never, never!' One minute we
+are here' --holding his tumbler before his eyes--'the next we are
+there'-- gulping down its contents, and striking himself
+emphatically a little below the chest--'in the silent tomb.  To
+think that I should be drinking his very rum!  It seems like a
+dream.'
+
+With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr
+Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the
+purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant
+mariners.
+
+'The search has been quite unsuccessful then?'
+
+'Quite, master.  But I should say that if he turns up anywhere,
+he'll come ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide,
+eh, mate?'
+
+The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the
+Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to
+receive him whenever he arrived.
+
+'Then we have nothing for it but resignation,' said Mr Brass;
+'nothing but resignation and expectation.  It would be a comfort to
+have his body; it would be a dreary comfort.'
+
+'Oh, beyond a doubt,' assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; 'if we once had
+that, we should be quite sure.'
+
+'With regard to the descriptive advertisement,' said Sampson Brass,
+taking up his pen.  'It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his
+traits.  Respecting his legs now--?'
+
+'Crooked, certainly,' said Mrs Jiniwin.
+'Do you think they WERE crooked?' said Brass, in an insinuating
+tone.  'I think I see them now coming up the street very wide
+apart, in nankeen' pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps.
+Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we say crooked?'
+
+'I think they were a little so,' observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.
+
+'Legs crooked,' said Brass, writing as he spoke.  'Large head,
+short body, legs crooked--'
+
+Very crooked,' suggested Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'We'll not say very crooked, ma'am,' said Brass piously.  'Let us
+not bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased.  He is gone,
+ma'am, to where his legs will never come in question. --We will
+content ourselves with crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.'
+
+'I thought you wanted the truth,' said the old lady.  'That's all.'
+
+'Bless your eyes, how I love you,' muttered Quilp.  'There she goes
+again.  Nothing but punch!'
+
+'This is an occupation,' said the lawyer, laying down his pen and
+emptying his glass, 'which seems to bring him before my eyes like
+the Ghost of Hamlet's father, in the very clothes that he wore on
+work-a-days.  His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his
+trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella,
+all come before me like visions of my youth.  His linen!' said Mr
+Brass smiling fondly at the wall, 'his linen which was always of a
+particular colour, for such was his whim and fancy--how plain I
+see his linen now!'
+
+'You had better go on, sir,' said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.
+
+'True, ma'am, true,' cried Mr Brass.  'Our faculties must not
+freeze with grief.  I'll trouble you for a little more of that,
+ma'am.  A question now arises, with relation to his nose.'
+
+'Flat,' said Mrs Jiniwin.
+
+'Aquiline!' cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the
+feature with his fist.  'Aquiline, you hag.  Do you see it?  Do you
+call this flat?  Do you?  Eh?'
+
+'Oh capital, capital!' shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit.
+'Excellent!  How very good he is!  He's a most remarkable man--so
+extremely whimsical!  Such an amazing power of taking people by
+surprise!'
+
+Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the
+dubious and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually
+subsided, nor to the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to
+the latter's running from the room, nor to the former's fainting
+away.  Keeping his eye fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the
+table, and beginning with his glass, drank off the contents, and
+went regularly round until he had emptied the other two, when he
+seized the case-bottle, and hugging it under his arm, surveyed him
+with a most extraordinary leer.
+
+'Not yet, Sampson,' said Quilp.  'Not just yet!'
+
+'Oh very good indeed!' cried Brass, recovering his spirits a
+little.  'Ha ha ha!  Oh exceedingly good!  There's not another man
+alive who could carry it off like that.  A most difficult position
+to carry off.  But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an
+amazing flow!'
+
+'Good night,' said the dwarf, nodding expressively.
+
+'Good night, sir, good night,' cried the lawyer, retreating
+backwards towards the door.  'This is a joyful occasion indeed,
+extremely joyful.  Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed,
+remarkably so!'
+
+Waiting until Mr Brass's ejaculations died away in the distance
+(for he continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp
+advanced towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid
+amazement.
+
+'Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?' said the
+dwarf, holding the door open with great politeness.
+
+'And yesterday too, master.'
+
+'Dear me, you've had a deal of trouble.  Pray consider everything
+yours that you find upon the--upon the body.  Good night!'
+
+The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to
+argue the point just then, and shuffled out of the room.  The
+speedy clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still
+embracing the case-bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded
+arms, stood looking at his insensible wife like a dismounted
+nightmare.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 50
+
+
+Matrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties
+concerned in the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least
+her full half share.  Those of Mr and Mrs Quilp, however, were an
+exception to the general rule; the remarks which they occasioned
+being limited to a long soliloquy on the part of the gentleman,
+with perhaps a few deprecatory observations from the lady, not
+extending beyond a trembling monosyllable uttered at long
+intervals, and in a very submissive and humble tone.  On the
+present occasion, Mrs Quilp did not for a long time venture even on
+this gentle defence, but when she had recovered from her
+fainting-fit, sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to the
+reproaches of her lord and master.
+
+Of these Mr Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and
+rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that
+even his wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his
+proficiency in these respects, was well-nigh beside herself with
+alarm.  But the Jamaica rum, and the joy of having occasioned a
+heavy disappointment, by degrees cooled Mr Quilp's wrath; which
+from being at savage heat, dropped slowly to the bantering or
+chuckling point, at which it steadily remained.
+
+'So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?' said Quilp.  'You
+thought you were a widow, eh?  Ha, ha, ha, you jade."
+
+'Indeed, Quilp,' returned his wife.  'I'm very sorry--'
+
+'Who doubts it!' cried the dwarf.  'You very sorry! to be sure you
+are.  Who doubts that you're VERY sorry!'
+
+'I don't mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,'
+said his wife, 'but sorry that I should have been led into such a
+belief.  I am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.'
+
+In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her
+lord than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of
+interest in his safety which, all things considered, was rather
+unaccountable.  Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance made no
+impression, farther than as it moved him to snap his fingers close
+to his wife's eyes, with divers grins of triumph and derision.
+
+'How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or
+letting me hear of you or know anything about you?' asked the poor
+little woman, sobbing.  'How could you be so cruel, Quilp?'
+
+'How could I be so cruel! cruel!' cried the dwarf.  'Because I was
+in the humour.  I'm in the humour now.  I shall be cruel
+when I like.  I'm going away again.'
+
+'Not again!'
+
+'Yes, again.  I'm going away now.  I'm off directly.  I mean to go
+and live wherever the fancy seizes me--at the wharf--at the
+counting-house--and be a jolly bachelor.  You were a widow in
+anticipation.  Damme,' screamed the dwarf, 'I'll be a bachelor in
+earnest.'
+
+'You can't be serious, Quilp,' sobbed his wife.
+
+'I tell you,' said the dwarf, exulting in his project, 'that I'll
+be a bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I'll have my
+bachelor's hall at the counting-house, and at such times come near
+it if you dare.  And mind too that I don't pounce in upon you at
+unseasonable hours again, for I'll be a spy upon you, and come and
+go like a mole or a weazel.  Tom Scott--where's Tom Scott?'
+
+'Here I am, master,' cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up
+the window.
+
+'Wait there, you dog,' returned the dwarf, 'to carry a bachelor's
+portmanteau.  Pack it up, Mrs Quilp.  Knock up the dear old lady to
+help; knock her up.  Halloa there!  Halloa!'
+
+With these exclamations, Mr Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying
+to the door of the good lady's sleeping-closet, beat upon it
+therewith until she awoke in inexpressible terror, thinking that
+her amiable son-in-law surely intended to murder her in
+justification of the legs she had slandered.  Impressed with this
+idea, she was no sooner fairly awake than she screamed violently,
+and would have quickly precipitated herself out of the window and
+through a neighbouring skylight, if her daughter had not hastened
+in to undeceive her, and implore her assistance.  Somewhat
+reassured by her account of the service she was required to render,
+Mrs Jiniwin made her appearance in a flannel dressing-gown; and
+both mother and daughter, trembling with terror and cold--for the
+night was now far advanced--obeyed Mr Quilp's directions in
+submissive silence.  Prolonging his preparations as much as
+possible, for their greater comfort, that eccentric gentleman
+superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and having added to it
+with his own hands, a plate, knife and fork, spoon, teacup and
+saucer, and other small household matters of that nature, strapped
+up the portmanteau, took it on his shoulders, and actually marched
+off without another word, and with the case-bottle (which he had
+never once put down) still tightly clasped under his arm.
+Consigning his heavier burden to the care of Tom Scott when he
+reached the street, taking a dram from the bottle for his own
+encouragement, and giving the boy a rap on the head with it as a
+small taste for himself, Quilp very deliberately led the way to the
+wharf, and reached it at between three and four o'clock in the
+morning.
+
+'Snug!' said Quilp, when he had groped his way to the wooden
+counting-house, and opened the door with a key he carried about
+with him.  'Beautifully snug!  Call me at eight, you dog.'
+
+With no more formal leave-taking or explanation, he clutched the
+portmanteau, shut the door on his attendant, and climbing on the
+desk, and rolling himself up as round as a hedgehog, in an old
+boat-cloak, fell fast asleep.
+
+Being roused in the morning at the appointed time, and roused with
+difficulty, after his late fatigues, Quilp instructed Tom Scott to
+make a fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and to
+prepare some coffee for breakfast; for the better furnishing of
+which repast he entrusted him with certain small moneys, to be
+expended in the purchase of hot rolls, butter, sugar, Yarmouth
+bloaters, and other articles of housekeeping; so that in a few
+minutes a savoury meal was smoking on the board.  With this
+substantial comfort, the dwarf regaled himself to his heart's
+content; and being highly satisfied with this free and gipsy mode
+of life (which he had often meditated, as offering, whenever he
+chose to avail himself of it, an agreeable freedom from the
+restraints of matrimony, and a choice means of keeping Mrs Quilp
+and her mother in a state of incessant agitation and suspense),
+bestirred himself to improve his retreat, and render it more
+commodious and comfortable.
+
+With this view, he issued forth to a place hard by, where sea-
+stores were sold, purchased a second-hand hammock, and had it slung
+in seamanlike fashion from the ceiling of the counting-house.  He
+also caused to be erected, in the same mouldy cabin, an old ship's
+stove with a rusty funnel to carry the smoke through the roof; and
+these arrangements completed, surveyed them with ineffable delight.
+
+'I've got a country-house like Robinson Crusoe," said the dwarf,
+ogling the accommodations; 'a solitary, sequestered,
+desolate-island sort of spot, where I can be quite alone when I
+have business on hand, and be secure from all spies and listeners.
+Nobody near me here, but rats, and they are fine stealthy secret
+fellows.  I shall be as merry as a grig among these gentry.  I'll
+look out for one like Christopher, and poison him--ha, ha, ha!
+Business though--business--we must be mindful of business in the
+midst of pleasure, and the time has flown this morning, I declare.'
+
+Enjoining Tom Scott to await his return, and not to stand upon his
+head, or throw a summerset, or so much as walk upon his hands
+meanwhile, on pain of lingering torments, the dwarf threw himself
+into a boat, and crossing to the other side of the river, and then
+speeding away on foot, reached Mr Swiveller's usual house of
+entertainment in Bevis Marks, just as that gentleman sat down alone
+to dinner in its dusky parlour.
+
+'Dick'- said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, 'my pet,
+my pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!'
+
+'Oh you're there, are you?' returned Mr Swiveller; 'how are you?'
+
+'How's Dick?' retorted Quilp.  'How's the cream of clerkship, eh?'
+
+'Why, rather sour, sir,' replied Mr Swiveller.  'Beginning to
+border upon cheesiness, in fact.'
+
+'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, advancing.  'Has Sally proved
+unkind.  "Of all the girls that are so smart, there's none like--"
+eh, Dick!'
+
+'Certainly not,' replied Mr Swiveller, eating his dinner with great
+gravity, 'none like her.  She's the sphynx of private life, is
+Sally B.'
+
+'You're out of spirits,' said Quilp, drawing up a chair.  'What's
+the matter?'
+
+'The law don't agree with me,' returned Dick.  'It isn't moist
+enough, and there's too much confinement.  I have been thinking of
+running away.'
+
+'Bah!' said the dwarf.  'Where would you run to, Dick?'
+
+'I don't know' returned Mr Swiveller.  'Towards Highgate, I
+suppose.  Perhaps the bells might strike up "Turn again Swiveller,
+Lord Mayor of London." Whittington's name was Dick.  I wish cats
+were scarcer."
+
+Quilp looked at his companion with his eyes screwed up into a
+comical expression of curiosity, and patiently awaited his further
+explanation; upon which, however, Mr Swiveller appeared in no hurry
+to enter, as he ate a very long dinner in profound silence, finally
+pushed away his plate, threw himself back into his chair, folded
+his arms, and stared ruefully at the fire, in which some ends of
+cigars were smoking on their own account, and sending up a fragrant
+odour.
+
+'Perhaps you'd like a bit of cake'--said Dick, at last turning to
+the dwarf.  'You're quite welcome to it.  You ought to be, for it's
+of your making.'
+
+'What do you mean?' said Quilp.
+
+Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very
+greasy parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of
+plum-cake extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with
+a paste of white sugar an inch and a half deep.
+
+'What should you say this was?' demanded Mr Swiveller.
+
+'It looks like bride-cake,' replied the dwarf, grinning.
+
+'And whose should you say it was?' inquired Mr Swiveller, rubbing
+the pastry against his nose with a dreadful calmness.  'Whose?'
+
+'Not--'
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, 'the same.  You needn't mention her name.
+There's no such name now.  Her name is Cheggs now, Sophy Cheggs.
+Yet loved I as man never loved that hadn't wooden legs, and my
+heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Sophy Cheggs.'
+
+With this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the
+distressing circumstances of his own case, Mr Swiveller folded up
+the parcel again, beat it very flat between the palms of his hands,
+thrust it into his breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded
+his arms upon the whole.
+
+'Now, I hope you're satisfied, sir,' said Dick; 'and I hope Fred's
+satisfied.  You went partners in the mischief, and I hope you like
+it.  This is the triumph I was to have, is it?  It's like the old
+country-dance of that name, where there are two gentlemen to one
+lady, and one has her, and the other hasn't, but comes limping up
+behind to make out the figure.  But it's Destiny, and mine's a
+crusher.'
+
+Disguising his secret joy in Mr Swiveller's defeat, Daniel Quilp
+adopted the surest means of soothing him, by ringing the bell, and
+ordering in a supply of rosy wine (that is to say, of its usual
+representative), which he put about with great alacrity, calling
+upon Mr Swiveller to pledge him in various toasts derisive of
+Cheggs, and eulogistic of the happiness of single men.  Such was
+their impression on Mr Swiveller, coupled with the reflection that
+no man could oppose his destiny, that in a very short space of time
+his spirits rose surprisingly, and he was enabled to give the dwarf
+an account of the receipt of the cake, which, it appeared, had been
+brought to Bevis Marks by the two surviving Miss Wackleses in
+person, and delivered at the office door with much giggling and
+joyfulness.
+
+'Ha!' said Quilp.  'It will be our turn to giggle soon.  And that
+reminds me--you spoke of young Trent--where is he?'
+
+Mr Swiveller explained that his respectable friend had recently
+accepted a responsible situation in a locomotive gaming-house, and
+was at that time absent on a professional tour among the
+adventurous spirits of Great Britain.
+
+'That's unfortunate,' said the dwarf, 'for I came, in fact, to ask
+you about him.  A thought has occurred to me, Dick; your friend
+over the way--'
+
+'Which friend?'
+
+'In the first floor.'
+
+'Yes?'
+
+'Your friend in the first floor, Dick, may know him.'
+
+'No, he don't,' said Mr Swiveller, shaking his head.
+
+'Don't!  No, because he has never seen him,' rejoined Quilp; 'but
+if we were to bring them together, who knows, Dick, but Fred,
+properly introduced, would serve his turn almost as well as little
+Nell or her grandfather--who knows but it might make the young
+fellow's fortune, and, through him, yours, eh?'
+
+'Why, the fact is, you see,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that they HAVE
+been brought together.'
+
+'Have been!' cried the dwarf, looking suspiciously at his
+companion.  'Through whose means?'
+'Through mine,' said Dick, slightly confused.  'Didn't I mention it
+to you the last time you called over yonder?'
+
+'You know you didn't,' returned the dwarf.
+
+'I believe you're right,' said Dick.  'No.  I didn't, I recollect.
+Oh yes, I brought 'em together that very day.  It was Fred's
+suggestion.'
+
+'And what came of it?'
+
+'Why, instead of my friend's bursting into tears when he knew who
+Fred was, embracing him kindly, and telling him that he was his
+grandfather, or his grandmother in disguise (which we fully
+expected), he flew into a tremendous passion; called him all manner
+of names; said it was in a great measure his fault that little Nell
+and the old gentleman had ever been brought to poverty; didn't hint
+at our taking anything to drink; and--and in short rather turned
+us out of the room than otherwise.'
+
+'That's strange,' said the dwarf, musing.
+
+'So we remarked to each other at the time,' returned Dick coolly,
+'but quite true.'
+
+Quilp was plainly staggered by this intelligence, over which he
+brooded for some time in moody silence, often raising his eyes to
+Mr Swiveller's face, and sharply scanning its expression.  As he
+could read in it, however, no additional information or anything to
+lead him to believe he had spoken falsely; and as Mr Swiveller,
+left to his own meditations, sighed deeply, and was evidently
+growing maudlin on the subject of Mrs Cheggs; the dwarf soon broke
+up the conference and took his departure, leaving the bereaved one
+to his melancholy ruminations.
+
+'Have been brought together, eh?' said the dwarf as he walked the
+streets alone.  'My friend has stolen a march upon me.  It led him
+to nothing, and therefore is no great matter, save in the
+intention.  I'm glad he has lost his mistress.  Ha ha!  The
+blockhead mustn't leave the law at present.  I'm sure of him where
+he is, whenever I want him for my own purposes, and, besides, he's
+a good unconscious spy on Brass, and tells, in his cups, all that
+he sees and hears.  You're useful to me, Dick, and cost nothing but
+a little treating now and then.  I am not sure that it may not be
+worth while, before long, to take credit with the stranger, Dick,
+by discovering your designs upon the child; but for the present
+we'll remain the best friends in the world, with your good leave.'
+
+Pursuing these thoughts, and gasping as he went along, after his
+own peculiar fashion, Mr Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and
+shut himself up in his Bachelor's Hall, which, by reason of its
+newly-erected chimney depositing the smoke inside the room and
+carrying none of it off, was not quite so agreeable as more
+fastidious people might have desired.  Such inconveniences,
+however, instead of disgusting the dwarf with his new abode, rather
+suited his humour; so, after dining luxuriously from the
+public-house, he lighted his pipe, and smoked against the chimney
+until nothing of him was visible through the mist but a pair of red
+and highly inflamed eyes, with sometimes a dim vision of his head
+and face, as, in a violent fit of coughing, he slightly stirred the
+smoke and scattered the heavy wreaths by which they were obscured.
+In the midst of this atmosphere, which must infallibly have
+smothered any other man, Mr Quilp passed the evening with great
+cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time with the pipe and the
+case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself with a melodious
+howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest resemblance
+to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever
+invented by man.  Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight,
+when he turned into his hammock with the utmost satisfaction.
+
+The first sound that met his ears in the morning--as he half
+opened his eyes, and, finding himself so unusually near the
+ceiling, entertained a drowsy idea that he must have been
+transformed into a fly or blue-bottle in the course of the night,
+--was that of a stifled sobbing and weeping in the room.  Peeping
+cautiously over the side of his hammock, he descried Mrs Quilp, to
+whom, after contemplating her for some time in silence, he
+communicated a violent start by suddenly yelling out--'Halloa!'
+
+'Oh, Quilp!' cried his poor little wife, looking up.  'How you
+frightened me!'
+
+'I meant to, you jade,' returned the dwarf.  'What do you want
+here?  I'm dead, an't I?'
+
+'Oh, please come home, do come home,' said Mrs Quilp, sobbing;
+'we'll never do so any more, Quilp, and after all it was only a
+mistake that grew out of our anxiety.'
+
+'Out of your anxiety,' grinned the dwarf.  'Yes, I know that--out
+of your anxiety for my death.  I shall come home when I please, I
+tell you.  I shall come home when I please, and go when I please.
+I'll be a Will o' the Wisp, now here, now there, dancing about you
+always, starting up when you least expect me, and keeping you in a
+constant state of restlessness and irritation.  Will you begone?'
+
+Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty.
+
+'I tell you no,' cried the dwarf.  'No.  If you dare to come here
+again unless you're sent for, I'll keep watch-dogs in the yard
+that'll growl and bite--I'll have man-traps, cunningly altered and
+improved for catching women--I'll have spring guns, that shall
+explode when you tread upon the wires, and blow you into little
+pieces.  Will you begone?'
+
+'Do forgive me.  Do come back,' said his wife, earnestly.
+
+'No-o-o-o-o!' roared Quilp.  'Not till my own good time, and then
+I'll return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to
+nobody for my goings or comings.  You see the door there.  Will you
+go?'
+
+Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic
+voice, and moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture,
+indicative of an intention to spring out of his hammock, and,
+night-capped as he was, bear his wife home again through the public
+streets, that she sped away like an arrow.  Her worthy lord
+stretched his neck and eyes until she had crossed the yard, and
+then, not at all sorry to have had this opportunity of carrying his
+point, and asserting the sanctity of his castle, fell into an
+immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down to sleep again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 51
+
+
+The bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor's Hall slept on
+amidst the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog,
+and rats, until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom
+Scott to assist him to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted
+his couch, and made his toilet.  This duty performed, and his
+repast ended, he again betook himself to Bevis Marks.
+
+This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend
+and employer Mr Sampson Brass.  Both gentlemen however were from
+home, nor was the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post
+either.  The fact of their joint desertion of the office was made
+known to all comers by a scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr
+Swiveller, which was attached to the bell-handle, and which, giving
+the reader no clue to the time of day when it was first posted,
+furnished him with the rather vague and unsatisfactory information
+that that gentleman would 'return in an hour.'
+
+'There's a servant, I suppose,' said the dwarf, knocking at the
+house-door.  'She'll do.'
+
+After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a
+small voice immediately accosted him with, 'Oh please will you
+leave a card or message?'
+
+'Eh?' said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to
+him) upon the small servant.
+
+To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the
+occasion of her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied,
+'Oh please will you leave a card or message?'
+
+'I'll write a note,' said the dwarf, pushing past her into the
+office; 'and mind your master has it directly he comes home.'  So
+Mr Quilp climbed up to the top of a tall stool to write the note,
+and the small servant, carefully tutored for such emergencies,
+looked on with her eyes wide open, ready, if he so much as
+abstracted a wafer, to rush into the street and give the alarm to
+the police.
+
+As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very
+short one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant.  He looked
+at her, long and earnestly.
+
+'How are you?' said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible
+grimaces.
+
+The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no
+audible reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she
+was inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the
+note or message.
+
+'Do they use you ill here?  is your mistress a Tartar?' said Quilp
+with a chuckle.
+
+In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look
+of infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very
+tight and round, and nodded violently.  Whether there was anything
+in the peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or
+anything in the expression of her features at the moment which
+attracted his attention for some other reason; or whether it merely
+occurred to him as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out
+of countenance; certain it is, that he planted his elbows square
+and firmly on the desk, and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands,
+looked at her fixedly.
+
+'Where do you come from?' he said after a long pause, stroking his
+chin.
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'What's your name?'
+
+'Nothing.'
+
+'Nonsense!' retorted Quilp.  'What does your mistress call you when
+she wants you?'
+
+'A little devil,' said the child.
+
+She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further
+questioning, 'But please will you leave a card or message?'
+
+These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more
+inquiries.  Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew
+his eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully
+than before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it
+with scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly
+but very narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows.  The result of
+this secret survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and
+laughed slyly and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen
+almost to bursting.  Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his
+mirth and its effects, he tossed the letter to the child, and
+hastily withdrew.
+
+Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and
+held his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the
+dusty area railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child,
+until he was quite tired out.  At last, he travelled back to the
+Wilderness, which was within rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat,
+and ordered tea in the wooden summer-house that afternoon for three
+persons; an invitation to Miss Sally Brass and her brother to
+partake of that entertainment at that place, having been the object
+both of his journey and his note.
+
+It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually
+take tea in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced
+state of decay, and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at
+low water.  Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr
+Quilp ordered a cold collation to be prepared, and it was beneath
+its cracked and leaky roof that he, in due course of time, received
+Mr Sampson and his sister Sally.
+
+'You're fond of the beauties of nature,' said Quilp with a grin.
+'Is this charming, Brass?  Is it unusual, unsophisticated,
+primitive?'
+
+'It's delightful indeed, sir,' replied the lawyer.
+
+'Cool?' said Quilp.
+
+'N-not particularly so, I think, sir,' rejoined Brass, with his
+teeth chattering in his head.
+
+'Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?' said Quilp.
+
+'Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,' rejoined Brass.  'Nothing
+more, sir, nothing more.'
+
+'And Sally?' said the delighted dwarf.  'Does she like it?'
+
+'She'll like it better,' returned that strong-minded lady, 'when
+she has tea; so let us have it, and don't bother.'
+
+'Sweet Sally!' cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to
+embrace her.  'Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.'
+
+'He's a very remarkable man indeed!' soliloquised Mr Brass.  'He's
+quite a Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!'
+
+These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent
+and distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having
+a bad cold in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have
+willingly borne some pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted
+his present raw quarters to a warm room, and dried himself at a
+fire.  Quilp, however--who, beyond the gratification of his demon
+whims, owed Sampson some acknowledgment of the part he had played
+in the mourning scene of which he had been a hidden witness, marked
+these symptoms of uneasiness with a delight past all expression,
+and derived from them a secret joy which the costliest banquet
+could never have afforded him.
+
+It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in
+the character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own
+account she would have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with
+a very ill grace, and would probably, indeed, have walked off
+before the tea appeared, she no sooner beheld the latent uneasiness
+and misery of her brother than she developed a grim satisfaction,
+and began to enjoy herself after her own manner.  Though the wet
+came stealing through the roof and trickling down upon their heads,
+Miss Brass uttered no complaint, but presided over the tea equipage
+with imperturbable composure.  While Mr Quilp, in his uproarious
+hospitality, seated himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted the
+place as the most beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms,
+and elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that
+jovial spot; and Mr Brass, with the rain plashing down into his
+tea-cup, made a dismal attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear
+at his ease; and Tom Scott, who was in waiting at the door under an
+old umbrella, exulted in his agonies, and bade fair to split his
+sides with laughing; while all this was passing, Miss Sally Brass,
+unmindful of the wet which dripped down upon her own feminine
+person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind the tea-board, erect
+and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her brother with a
+mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of self, to sit
+there all night, witnessing the torments which his avaricious and
+grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade him to
+resent.  And this, it must be observed, or the illustration would
+be incomplete, although in a business point of view she had the
+strongest sympathy with Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond
+measure indignant if he had thwarted their client in any one
+respect.
+
+In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some
+pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his
+usual manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his
+hand upon the lawyer's sleeve.
+
+'A word,' said the dwarf, 'before we go farther.  Sally, hark'ee
+for a minute.'
+
+Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences
+with their host which were the better for not having air.
+
+'Business,' said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister.  'Very
+private business.  Lay your heads together when you're by
+yourselves.'
+
+'Certainly, sir,' returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and
+pencil.  'I'll take down the heads if you please, sir.  Remarkable
+documents,' added the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling,
+'most remarkable documents.  He states his points so clearly that
+it's a treat to have 'em!  I don't know any act of parliament
+that's equal to him in clearness.'
+
+'I shall deprive you of a treat,' said Quilp.  'Put up your book.
+We don't want any documents.  So.  There's a lad named Kit--'
+
+Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.
+
+'Kit!' said Mr Sampson. --'Kit!  Ha! I've heard the name before,
+but I don't exactly call to mind--I don't exactly--'
+
+'You're as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a
+rhinoceros,' returned his obliging client with an impatient
+gesture.
+
+'He's extremely pleasant!' cried the obsequious Sampson.  'His
+acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising.  Quite a
+Buffoon, quite!'
+
+There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other;
+and it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said
+Buffon, but made use of a superfluous vowel.  Be this as it may,
+Quilp gave him no time for correction, as he performed that office
+himself by more than tapping him on the head with the handle of his
+umbrella.
+
+'Don't let's have any wrangling,' said Miss Sally, staying his
+hand.  'I've showed you that I know him, and that's enough.'
+
+'She's always foremost!' said the dwarf, patting her on the back
+and looking contemptuously at Sampson.  'I don't like Kit, Sally.'
+
+'Nor I,' rejoined Miss Brass.
+
+'Nor I,' said Sampson.
+
+'Why, that's right!' cried Quilp.  'Half our work is done already.
+This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters;
+a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double- faced, white-
+livered, sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax
+him, and a barking yelping dog to all besides.'
+
+'Fearfully eloquent!' cried Brass with a sneeze.  'Quite
+appalling!'
+
+'Come to the point,' said Miss Sally, 'and don't talk so much.'
+
+'Right again!' exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at
+Sampson, 'always foremost!  I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent
+dog to all besides, and most of all, to me.  In short, I owe him a
+grudge.'
+'That's enough, sir,' said Sampson.
+
+'No, it's not enough, sir,' sneered Quilp; 'will you hear me out?
+Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at
+this minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise
+prove a golden one to us all.  Apart from that, I repeat that he
+crosses my humour, and I hate him.  Now, you know the lad, and can
+guess the rest.  Devise your own means of putting him out of my
+way, and execute them.  Shall it be done?'
+
+'It shall, sir,' said Sampson.
+
+'Then give me your hand,' retorted Quilp.  'Sally, girl, yours.  I
+rely as much, or more, on you than him.  Tom Scott comes back.
+Lantern, pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!'
+
+No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the
+slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting.
+The trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to
+each other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing
+more was needed.  Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease
+with which he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same
+uproarious, reckless little savage he had been a few seconds
+before.  It was ten o'clock at night before the amiable Sally
+supported her beloved and loving brother from the Wilderness, by
+which time he needed the utmost support her tender frame could
+render; his walk being from some unknown reason anything but
+steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in unexpected places.
+
+Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the
+fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping
+to his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock.  Leaving
+him to visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in
+the old church porch were not without their share, be it our task
+to rejoin them as they sat and watched.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 57
+
+
+After a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of
+the churchyard, and hurried towards them, Tingling in his hand, as
+he came along, a bundle of rusty keys.  He was quite breathless
+with pleasure and haste when he reached the porch, and at first
+could only point towards the old building which the child had been
+contemplating so earnestly.
+
+'You see those two old houses,' he said at last.
+
+'Yes, surely,' replied Nell.  'I have been looking at them nearly
+all the time you have been away.'
+
+'And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could
+have guessed what I have to tell you,' said her friend.  'One of
+those houses is mine.'
+
+Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the
+schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with
+exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke.
+
+They stopped before its low arched door.  After trying several of
+the keys in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock,
+which turned back, creaking, and admitted them into the house.
+
+The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly
+ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its
+beautiful groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of
+its ancient splendour.  Foliage carved in the stone, and emulating
+the mastery of Nature's hand, yet remained to tell how many times
+the leaves outside had come and gone, while it lived on unchanged.
+The broken figures supporting the burden of the chimney-piece,
+though mutilated, were still distinguishable for what they had
+been--far different from the dust without--and showed sadly by the
+empty hearth, like creatures who had outlived their kind, and
+mourned their own too slow decay.
+
+In some old time--for even change was old in that old place--a
+wooden partition had been constructed in one part of the chamber to
+form a sleeping-closet, into which the light was admitted at the
+same period by a rude window, or rather niche, cut in the solid
+wall.  This screen, together with two seats in the broad chimney,
+had at some forgotten date been part of the church or convent; for
+the oak, hastily appropriated to its present purpose, had been
+little altered from its former shape, and presented to the eye a
+pile of fragments of rich carving from old monkish stalls.
+
+An open door leading to a small room or cell, dim with the light
+that came through leaves of ivy, completed the interior of this
+portion of the ruin.  It was not quite destitute of furniture.  A
+few strange chairs, whose arms and legs looked as though they had
+dwindled away with age; a table, the very spectre of its race: a
+great old chest that had once held records in the church, with
+other quaintly-fashioned domestic necessaries, and store of
+fire-wood for the winter, were scattered around, and gave evident
+tokens of its occupation as a dwelling-place at no very distant
+time.
+
+The child looked around her, with that solemn feeling with which we
+contemplate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in
+the great ocean of eternity.  The old man had followed them, but
+they were all three hushed for a space, and drew their breath
+softly, as if they feared to break the silence even by so slight a
+sound.
+
+'It is a very beautiful place!' said the child, in a low voice.
+
+'I almost feared you thought otherwise,' returned the schoolmaster.
+'You shivered when we first came in, as if you felt it cold or
+gloomy.'
+
+'It was not that,' said Nell, glancing round with a slight shudder.
+'Indeed I cannot tell you what it was, but when I saw the outside,
+from the church porch, the same feeling came over me.  It is its
+being so old and grey perhaps.'
+
+'A peaceful place to live in, don't you think so)' said her friend.
+
+'Oh yes,' rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly.  'A
+quiet, happy place--a place to live and learn to die in!' She
+would have said more, but that the energy of her thoughts caused
+her voice to falter, and come in trembling whispers from her lips.
+
+
+'A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and
+body in,' said the schoolmaster; 'for this old house is yours.'
+
+'Ours!' cried the child.
+
+'Ay,' returned the schoolmaster gaily, 'for many a merry year to
+come, I hope.  I shall be a close neighbour--only next door--but
+this house is yours.'
+
+Having now disburdened himself of his great surprise, the
+schoolmaster sat down, and drawing Nell to his side, told her how
+he had learnt that ancient tenement had been occupied for a very
+long time by an old person, nearly a hundred years of age, who kept
+the keys of the church, opened and closed it for the services, and
+showed it to strangers; how she had died not many weeks ago, and
+nobody had yet been found to fill the office; how, learning all
+this in an interview with the sexton, who was confined to his bed
+by rheumatism, he had been bold to make mention of his
+fellow-traveller, which had been so favourably received by that
+high authority, that he had taken courage, acting on his advice, to
+propound the matter to the clergyman.  In a word, the result of his
+exertions was, that Nell and her grandfather were to be carried
+before the last-named gentleman next day; and, his approval of
+their conduct and appearance reserved as a matter of form, that
+they were already appointed to the vacant post.
+
+'There's a small allowance of money,' said the schoolmaster.  'It
+is not much, but still enough to live upon in this retired spot.
+By clubbing our funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of
+that.'
+
+'Heaven bless and prosper you!' sobbed the child.
+
+'Amen, my dear,' returned her friend cheerfully; 'and all of us, as
+it will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble to this
+tranquil life.  But we must look at MY house now.  Come!'
+
+They repaired to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as
+before; at length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten
+door.  It led into a chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which
+they had come, but not so spacious, and having only one other
+little room attached.  It was not difficult to divine that the
+other house was of right the schoolmaster's, and that he had chosen
+for himself the least commodious, in his care and regard for them.
+Like the adjoining habitation, it held such old articles of
+furniture as were absolutely necessary, and had its stack of
+fire-wood.
+
+To make these dwellings as habitable and full of comfort as they
+could, was now their pleasant care.  In a short time, each had its
+cheerful fire glowing and crackling on the hearth, and reddening
+the pale old wall with a hale and healthy blush.  Nell, busily
+plying her needle, repaired the tattered window-hangings, drew
+together the rents that time had worn in the threadbare scraps of
+carpet, and made them whole and decent.  The schoolmaster swept and
+smoothed the ground before the door, trimmed the long grass,
+trained the ivy and creeping plants which hung their drooping heads
+in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer walls a cheery air of
+home.  The old man, sometimes by his side and sometimes with the
+child, lent his aid to both, went here and there on little patient
+services, and was happy.  Neighbours, too, as they came from work,
+proffered their help; or sent their children with such small
+presents or loans as the strangers needed most.  It was a busy day;
+and night came on, and found them wondering that there was yet so
+much to do, and that it should be dark so soon.
+
+They took their supper together, in the house which may be
+henceforth called the child's; and, when they had finished their
+meal, drew round the fire, and almost in whispers--their hearts
+were too quiet and glad for loud expression--discussed their
+future plans.  Before they separated, the schoolmaster read some
+prayers aloud; and then, full of gratitude and happiness, they
+parted for the night.
+
+At that silent hour, when her grandfather was sleeping peacefully
+in his bed, and every sound was hushed, the child lingered before
+the dying embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had
+been a dream And she only now awoke.  The glare of the sinking
+flame, reflected in the oaken panels whose carved tops were dimly
+seen in the dusky roof--the aged walls, where strange shadows came
+and went with every flickering of the fire--the solemn presence,
+within, of that decay which falls on senseless things the most
+enduring in their nature: and, without, and round about on every
+side, of Death--filled her with deep and thoughtful feelings, but
+with none of terror or alarm.  A change had been gradually stealing
+over her, in the time of her loneliness and sorrow.  With failing
+strength and heightening resolution, there had sprung up a purified
+and altered mind; there had grown in her bosom blessed thoughts and
+hopes, which are the portion of few but the weak and drooping.
+There were none to see the frail, perishable figure, as it glided
+from the fire and leaned pensively at the open casement; none but
+the stars, to look into the upturned face and read its history.
+The old church bell rang out the hour with a mournful sound, as if
+it had grown sad from so much communing with the dead and unheeded
+warning to the living; the fallen leaves rustled; the grass stirred
+upon the graves; all else was still and sleeping.
+
+Some of those dreamless sleepers lay close within the shadow of the
+church--touching the wall, as if they clung to it for comfort and
+protection.  Others had chosen to lie beneath the changing shade of
+trees; others by the path, that footsteps might come near them;
+others, among the graves of little children.  Some had desired to
+rest beneath the very ground they had trodden in their daily walks;
+some, where the setting sun might shine upon their beds; some,
+where its light would fall upon them when it rose.  Perhaps not one
+of the imprisoned souls had been able quite to separate itself in
+living thought from its old companion.  If any had, it had still
+felt for it a love like that which captives have been known to bear
+towards the cell in which they have been long confined, and, even
+at parting, hung upon its narrow bounds affectionately.
+
+It was long before the child closed the window, and approached her
+bed.  Again something of the same sensation as before--an
+involuntary chill--a momentary feeling akin to fear--but
+vanishing directly, and leaving no alarm behind.  Again, too,
+dreams of the little scholar; of the roof opening, and a column of
+bright faces, rising far away into the sky, as she had seen in some
+old scriptural picture once, and looking down on her, asleep.  It
+was a sweet and happy dream.  The quiet spot, outside, seemed to
+remain the same, saving that there was music in the air, and a
+sound of angels' wings.  After a time the sisters came there, hand
+in hand, and stood among the graves.  And then the dream grew dim,
+and faded.
+
+With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of
+yesterday's labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the
+restoration of its energies, cheerfulness, and hope.  They worked
+gaily in ordering and arranging their houses until noon, and then
+went to visit the clergyman.
+
+He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued
+spirit, accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with
+the world, which he had left many years before to come and settle
+in that place.  His wife had died in the house in which he still
+lived, and he had long since lost sight of any earthly cares or
+hopes beyond it.
+
+He received them very kindly, and at once showed an interest in
+Nell; asking her name, and age, her birthplace, the circumstances
+which had led her there, and so forth.  The schoolmaster had
+already told her story.  They had no other friends or home to
+leave, he said, and had come to share his fortunes.  He loved the
+child as though she were his own.
+
+'Well, well,' said the clergyman.  'Let it be as you desire.  She
+is very young.'
+'Old in adversity and trial, sir,' replied the schoolmaster.
+
+'God help her.  Let her rest, and forget them,' said the old
+gentleman.  'But an old church is a dull and gloomy place for one
+so young as you, my child.'
+
+'Oh no, sir,' returned Nell.  'I have no such thoughts, indeed.'
+
+'I would rather see her dancing on the green at nights,' said the
+old gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, and smiling sadly,
+'than have her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches.  You
+must look to this, and see that her heart does not grow heavy among
+these solemn ruins.  Your request is granted, friend.'
+
+After more kind words, they withdrew, and repaired to the child's
+house; where they were yet in conversation on their happy fortune,
+when another friend appeared.
+
+This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house,
+and had resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since
+the death of the clergyman's wife, which had happened fifteen years
+before.  He had been his college friend and always his close
+companion; in the first shock of his grief he had come to console
+and comfort him; and from that time they had never parted company.
+The little old gentleman was the active spirit of the place, the
+adjuster of all differences, the promoter of all merry-makings, the
+dispenser of his friend's bounty, and of no small charity of his
+own besides; the universal mediator, comforter, and friend.  None
+of the simple villagers had cared to ask his name, or, when they
+knew it, to store it in their memory.  Perhaps from some vague
+rumour of his college honours which had been whispered abroad on
+his first arrival, perhaps because he was an unmarried,
+unencumbered gentleman, he had been called the bachelor.  The name
+pleased him, or suited him as well as any other, and the Bachelor
+he had ever since remained.  And the bachelor it was, it may be
+added, who with his own hands had laid in the stock of fuel which
+the wanderers had found in their new habitation.
+
+The bachelor, then--to call him by his usual appellation--lifted
+the latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the
+door, and stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it.
+
+'You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?' he said, greeting Nell's
+kind friend.
+
+'I am, sir.'
+
+'You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you.  I should
+have been in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across
+the country to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter
+in service some miles off, and have but just now returned.  This is
+our young church-keeper?  You are not the less welcome, friend, for
+her sake, or for this old man's; nor the worse teacher for having
+learnt humanity.'
+'She has been ill, sir, very lately,' said the schoolmaster, in
+answer to the look with which their visitor regarded Nell when he
+had kissed her cheek.
+
+'Yes, yes.  I know she has,' he rejoined.  'There have been
+suffering and heartache here.'
+
+'Indeed there have, sir.'
+
+The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again
+at the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held.
+
+'You will be happier here,' he said; 'we will try, at least, to
+make you so.  You have made great improvements here already.  Are
+they the work of your hands?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'We may make some others--not better in themselves, but with
+better means perhaps,' said the bachelor.  'Let us see now, let us
+see.'
+
+Nell accompanied him into the other little rooms, and over both the
+houses, in which he found various small comforts wanting, which he
+engaged to supply from a certain collection of odds and ends he had
+at home, and which must have been a very miscellaneous and
+extensive one, as it comprehended the most opposite articles
+imaginable.  They all came, however, and came without loss of time;
+for the little old gentleman, disappearing for some five or ten
+minutes, presently returned, laden with old shelves, rugs,
+blankets, and other household gear, and followed by a boy bearing
+a similar load.  These being cast on the floor in a promiscuous
+heap, yielded a quantity of occupation in arranging, erecting, and
+putting away; the superintendence of which task evidently afforded
+the old gentleman extreme delight, and engaged him for some time
+with great briskness and activity.  When nothing more was left to
+be done, he charged the boy to run off and bring his schoolmates to
+be marshalled before their new master, and solemnly reviewed.
+
+'As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you'd wish to see,' he said,
+turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; 'but I don't let
+'em know I think so.  That wouldn't do, at all.'
+
+The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins,
+great and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house
+door, fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their
+hats and caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible
+dimensions, and making all manner of bows and scrapes, which the
+little old gentleman contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and
+expressed his approval of by a great many nods and smiles.  Indeed,
+his approbation of the boys was by no means so scrupulously
+disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it
+broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which
+were perfectly audible to them every one.
+'This first boy, schoolmaster,' said the bachelor, 'is John Owen;
+a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too
+thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far.  That boy, my
+good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his
+parents of their chief comfort--and between ourselves, when you
+come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by
+the finger-post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry,
+you'll never forget it.  It's beautiful!'
+
+John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession
+of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.
+
+'Now, look at that lad, sir,' said the bachelor.  'You see that
+fellow?  Richard Evans his name is, sir.  An amazing boy to learn,
+blessed with a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover
+with a good voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the
+best among us.  Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he'll
+never die in his bed; he's always falling asleep in sermon-time--
+and to tell you the truth, Mr Marton, I always did the same at his
+age, and feel quite certain that it was natural to my constitution
+and I couldn't help it.'
+
+This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the
+bachelor turned to another.
+
+'But if we talk of examples to be shunned,' said he, 'if we come to
+boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows,
+here's the one, and I hope you won't spare him.  This is the lad,
+sir; this one with the blue eyes and light hair.  This is a
+swimmer, sir, this fellow--a diver, Lord save us!  This is a boy,
+sir, who had a fancy for plunging into eighteen feet of water, with
+his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man's dog, who was being
+drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while his master
+stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of his
+guide and friend.  I sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir,'
+added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, 'directly I heard of
+it; but never mention it on any account, for he hasn't the least
+idea that it came from me.  '
+
+Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another,
+and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying,
+for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting
+emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart
+and were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example.
+Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable
+by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an
+admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings,
+or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the
+schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he
+could have obeyed when he was a boy, had his life depended on it.
+
+Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor's disposition as so
+many assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the
+schoolmaster parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits,
+and deemed himself one of the happiest men on earth.  The windows
+of the two old houses were ruddy again, that night, with the
+reflection of the cheerful fires that burnt within; and the
+bachelor and his friend, pausing to look upon them as they returned
+from their evening walk, spoke softly together of the beautiful
+child, and looked round upon the churchyard with a sigh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 53
+
+
+Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her
+household tasks, and put everything in order for the good
+schoolmaster (though sorely against his will, for he would have
+spared her the pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a
+little bundle of keys with which the bachelor had formally invested
+her on the previous day, and went out alone to visit the old
+church.
+
+The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the
+fresh scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense.
+The neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful
+sound; the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by
+Good Spirits over the dead.  Some young children sported among the
+tombs, and hid from each other, with laughing faces.  They had an
+infant with them, and had laid it down asleep upon a child's grave,
+in a little bed of leaves.  It was a new grave--the resting-place,
+perhaps, of some little creature, who, meek and patient in its
+illness, had often sat and watched them, and now seemed, to their
+minds, scarcely changed.
+
+She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was.  The child
+answered that that was not its name; it was a garden--his
+brother's.  It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens,
+and the birds loved it better because he had been used to feed
+them.  When he had done speaking, he looked at her with a smile,
+and kneeling down and nestling for a moment with his cheek against
+the turf, bounded merrily away.
+
+She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through
+the wicket gate, and so into the village.  The old sexton, leaning
+on a crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her
+good morrow.
+
+'You are better?' said the child, stopping to speak with him.
+
+'Ay surely,' returned the old man.  'I'm thankful to say, much
+better.'
+
+'YOU will be quite well soon.'
+
+'With Heaven's leave, and a little patience.  But come in, come
+in!'
+The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step,
+which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way
+into his little cottage.
+
+'It is but one room you see.  There is another up above, but the
+stair has got harder to climb o' late years, and I never use it.
+I'm thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.'
+
+The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him--one of his
+trade too--could talk of time so easily.  He saw her eyes
+wandering to the tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.
+
+'I warrant now,' he said, 'that you think all those are used in
+making graves.'
+
+'Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.'
+
+'And well you might.  I am a gardener.  I dig the ground, and plant
+things that are to live and grow.  My works don't all moulder away,
+and rot in the earth.  You see that spade in the centre?'
+
+'The very old one--so notched and worn?  Yes.'
+
+'That's the sexton's spade, and it's a well-used one, as you see.
+We're healthy people here, but it has done a power of work.  If it
+could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an
+unexpected job that it and I have done together; but I forget 'em,
+for my memory's a poor one. --That's nothing new,' he added
+hastily.  'It always was.'
+
+'There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,' said
+the child.
+
+'Oh yes.  And tall trees.  But they are not so separate from the
+sexton's labours as you think.'
+
+'No!'
+
+'Not in my mind, and recollection--such as it is,' said the old
+man.  'Indeed they often help it.  For say that I planted such a
+tree for such a man.  There it stands, to remind me that he died.
+When I look at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his
+time, it helps me to the age of my other work, and I can tell you
+pretty nearly when I made his grave.'
+
+'But it may remind you of one who is still alive,' said the child.
+
+'Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives,
+then,' rejoined the old man; 'wife, husband, parents, brothers,
+sisters, children, friends--a score at least.  So it happens that
+the sexton's spade gets worn and battered.  I shall need a new one
+--next summer.'
+
+The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with
+his age and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in
+earnest.
+
+'Ah!' he said, after a brief silence.  'People never learn.  They
+never learn.  It's only we who turn up the ground, where nothing
+grows and everything decays, who think of such things as these--
+who think of them properly, I mean.  You have been into the
+church?'
+
+'I am going there now,' the child replied.
+
+'There's an old well there,' said the sexton, 'right underneath the
+belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well.  Forty year ago, you had only
+to let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of
+the windlass, and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water.
+By little and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after
+that, a second knot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or
+the bucket swung tight and empty at the end.  In ten years' time,
+the water fell again, and a third knot was made.  In ten years
+more, the well dried up; and now, if you lower the bucket till your
+arms are tired, and let out nearly all the cord, you'll hear it, of
+a sudden, clanking and rattling on the ground below; with a sound
+of being so deep and so far down, that your heart leaps into your
+mouth, and you start away as if you were falling in.'
+
+'A dreadful place to come on in the dark!' exclaimed the child, who
+had followed the old man's looks and words until she seemed to
+stand upon its brink.
+
+'What is it but a grave!' said the sexton.  'What else!  And which
+of our old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring
+subsided, of their own failing strength, and lessening life?  Not
+one!'
+
+'Are you very old yourself?' asked the child, involuntarily.
+
+'I shall be seventy-nine--next summer.'
+
+'You still work when you are well?'
+
+'Work!  To be sure.  You shall see my gardens hereabout.  Look at
+the window there.  I made, and have kept, that plot of ground
+entirely with my own hands.  By this time next year I shall hardly
+see the sky, the boughs will have grown so thick.  I have my winter
+work at night besides.'
+
+He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and
+produced some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made
+of old wood.
+
+'Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to
+them,' he said, 'like to buy these keepsakes from our church and
+ruins.  Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here
+and there; sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long
+preserved.  See here--this is a little chest of the last kind,
+clasped at the edges with fragments of brass plates that had
+writing on 'em once, though it would be hard to read it now.  I
+haven't many by me at this time of year, but these shelves will be
+full--next summer.'
+
+The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards
+departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old
+man, drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one
+stern moral, never contemplated its application to himself; and,
+while he dwelt upon the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in
+word and deed to deem himself immortal.  But her musings did not
+stop here, for she was wise enough to think that by a good and
+merciful adjustment this must be human nature, and that the old
+sexton, with his plans for next summer, was but a type of all
+mankind.
+
+Full of these meditations, she reached the church.  It was easy to
+find the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on
+a scrap of yellow parchment.  Its very turning in the lock awoke a
+hollow sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the
+echoes that it raised in closing, made her start.
+
+If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more
+strongly, because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond,
+and through which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what
+was the deep impression of finding herself alone in that solemn
+building, where the very light, coming through sunken windows,
+seemed old and grey, and the air, redolent of earth and mould,
+seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser
+particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, and clustered
+pillars, like the breath of ages gone!  Here was the broken
+pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing on
+the pilgrims' steps, had trodden out their track, and left but
+crumbling stones.  Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the
+sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately
+tomb on which no epitaph remained--all--marble, stone, iron,
+wood, and dust--one common monument of ruin.  The best work and the
+worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least
+imposing--both of Heaven's work and Man's--all found one common
+level here, and told one common tale.
+
+Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were
+effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded
+hands--cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars--
+girded with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived.
+Some of these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of
+mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty
+hooks.  Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet retained
+their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect.  Thus
+violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and
+bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who
+worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.
+
+The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the stark
+figures on the tombs--they made it more quiet there, than
+elsewhere, to her fancy--and gazing round with a feeling of awe,
+tempered with a calm delight, felt that now she was happy, and at
+rest.  She took a Bible from the shelf, and read; then, laying it
+down, thought of the summer days and the bright springtime that
+would come--of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant, upon the
+sleeping forms--of the leaves that would flutter at the window,
+and play in glistening shadows on the pavement--of the songs of
+birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors--of the sweet
+air, that would steal in, and gently wave the tattered banners
+overhead.  What if the spot awakened thoughts of death!  Die who
+would, it would still remain the same; these sights and sounds
+would still go on, as happily as ever.  It would be no pain to
+sleep amidst them.
+
+She left the chapel--very slowly and often turning back to gaze
+again--and coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower,
+opened it, and climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where
+she looked down, through narrow loopholes, on the place she had
+left, or caught a glimmering vision of the dusty bells.  At length
+she gained the end of the ascent and stood upon the turret top.
+
+Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the
+fields and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the
+bright blue sky; the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke,
+that, coming from among the trees, seemed to rise upward from the
+green earth; the children yet at their gambols down below--all,
+everything, so beautiful and happy!  It was like passing from death
+to life; it was drawing nearer Heaven.
+
+The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked
+the door.  As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy
+hum of voices.  Her friend had begun his labours only on that day.
+The noise grew louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come
+trooping out and disperse themselves with merry shouts and play.
+'It's a good thing,' thought the child, 'I am very glad they pass
+the church.'  And then she stopped, to fancy how the noise would
+sound inside, and how gently it would seem to die away upon the
+ear.
+
+Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel,
+and in her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the
+same quiet train of thought.  Even when it had grown dusk, and the
+shadows of coming night made it more solemn still, the child
+remained, like one rooted to the spot, and had no fear or thought
+of stirring.
+
+They found her there, at last, and took her home.  She looked pale
+but very happy, until they separated for the night; and then, as
+the poor schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he
+felt a tear upon his face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 54
+
+
+The bachelor, among his various occupations, found in the old
+church a constant source of interest and amusement.  Taking that
+pride in it which men conceive for the wonders of their own little
+world, he had made its history his study; and many a summer day
+within its walls, and many a winter's night beside the parsonage
+fire, had found the bachelor still poring over, and adding to, his
+goodly store of tale and legend.
+
+As he was not one of those rough spirits who would strip fair Truth
+of every little shadowy vestment in which time and teeming fancies
+love to array her--and some of which become her pleasantly enough,
+serving, like the waters of her well, to add new graces to the
+charms they half conceal and half suggest, and to awaken interest
+and pursuit rather than languor and indifference--as, unlike this
+stern and obdurate class, he loved to see the goddess crowned with
+those garlands of wild flowers which tradition wreathes for her
+gentle wearing, and which are often freshest in their homeliest
+shapes--he trod with a light step and bore with a light hand upon
+the dust of centuries, unwilling to demolish any of the airy
+shrines that had been raised above it, if any good feeling or
+affection of the human heart were hiding thereabouts.  Thus, in the
+case of an ancient coffin of rough stone, supposed, for many
+generations, to contain the bones of a certain baron, who, after
+ravaging, with cut, and thrust, and plunder, in foreign lands, came
+back with a penitent and sorrowing heart to die at home, but which
+had been lately shown by learned antiquaries to be no such thing,
+as the baron in question (so they contended) had died hard in
+battle, gnashing his teeth and cursing with his latest breath--
+the bachelor stoutly maintained that the old tale was the true one;
+that the baron, repenting him of the evil, had done great charities
+and meekly given up the ghost; and that, if ever baron went to
+heaven, that baron was then at peace.  In like manner, when the
+aforesaid antiquaries did argue and contend that a certain secret
+vault was not the tomb of a grey-haired lady who had been hanged
+and drawn and quartered by glorious Queen Bess for succouring a
+wretched priest who fainted of thirst and hunger at her door, the
+bachelor did solemnly maintain, against all comers, that the church
+was hallowed by the said poor lady's ashes; that her remains had
+been collected in the night from four of the city's gates, and
+thither in secret brought, and there deposited; and the bachelor
+did further (being highly excited at such times) deny the glory of
+Queen Bess, and assert the immeasurably greater glory of the
+meanest woman in her realm, who had a merciful and tender heart.
+As to the assertion that the flat stone near the door was not the
+grave of the miser who had disowned his only child and left a sum
+of money to the church to buy a peal of bells, the bachelor did
+readily admit the same, and that the place had given birth to no
+such man.  In a word, he would have had every stone, and plate of
+brass, the monument only of deeds whose memory should survive.  All
+others he was willing to forget.  They might be buried in
+consecrated ground, but he would have had them buried deep, and
+never brought to light again.
+
+It was from the lips of such a tutor, that the child learnt her
+easy task.  Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent
+building and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood--
+majestic age surrounded by perpetual youth--it seemed to her, when
+she heard these things, sacred to all goodness and virtue.  It was
+another world, where sin and sorrow never came; a tranquil place of
+rest, where nothing evil entered.
+
+When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every
+tomb and flat grave-stone some history of its own, he took her down
+into the old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it
+had been lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps
+depending from the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented
+odours, and habits glittering with gold and silver, and pictures,
+and precious stuffs, and jewels all flashing and glistening through
+the low arches, the chaunt of aged voices had been many a time
+heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt
+and prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads.  Thence, he
+took her above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old
+walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along
+--dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off--or to pause like
+gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers.  He showed her too, how
+the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those
+rotting scraps of armour up above--how this had been a helmet, and
+that a shield, and that a gauntlet--and how they had wielded the
+great two-handed swords, and beaten men down, with yonder iron
+mace.  All that he told the child she treasured in her mind; and
+sometimes, when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times,
+and rising from her bed looked out at the dark church, she almost
+hoped to see the windows lighted up, and hear the organ's swell,
+and sound of voices, on the rushing wind.
+
+The old sexton soon got better, and was about again.  From him the
+child learnt many other things, though of a different kind.  He was
+not able to work, but one day there was a grave to be made, and he
+came to overlook the man who dug it.  He was in a talkative mood;
+and the child, at first standing by his side, and afterwards
+sitting on the grass at his feet, with her thoughtful face raised
+towards his, began to converse with him.
+
+Now, the man who did the sexton's duty was a little older than he,
+though much more active.  But he was deaf; and when the sexton (who
+peradventure, on a pinch, might have walked a mile with great
+difficulty in half-a-dozen hours) exchanged a remark with him about
+his work, the child could not help noticing that he did so with an
+impatient kind of pity for his infirmity, as if he were himself the
+strongest and heartiest man alive.
+
+'I'm sorry to see there is this to do,' said the child when she
+approached.  'I heard of no one having died.'
+
+'She lived in another hamlet, my dear,' returned the sexton.
+'Three mile away.'
+
+'Was she young?'
+
+'Ye-yes' said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think.
+David, was she more than sixty-four?'
+
+David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question.  The
+sexton, as he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was
+too infirm to rise without assistance, called his attention by
+throwing a little mould upon his red nightcap.
+
+'What's the matter now?' said David, looking up.
+
+'How old was Becky Morgan?' asked the sexton.
+
+'Becky Morgan?' repeated David.
+
+'Yes,' replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half
+irritable tone, which the old man couldn't hear, 'you're getting
+very deaf, Davy, very deaf to be sure!'
+
+The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a
+piece of slate he had by him for the purpose--and scraping off, in
+the process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans--
+set himself to consider the subject.
+
+'Let me think' quoth he.  'I saw last night what they had put upon
+the coffin--was it seventy-nine?'
+
+'No, no,' said the sexton.
+
+'Ah yes, it was though,' returned the old man with a sigh.  'For I
+remember thinking she was very near our age.  Yes, it was
+seventy-nine.'
+
+'Are you sure you didn't mistake a figure, Davy?' asked the sexton,
+with signs of some emotion.
+
+'What?' said the old man.  'Say that again.'
+
+'He's very deaf.  He's very deaf indeed,' cried the sexton
+petulantly; 'are you sure you're right about the figures?'
+
+'Oh quite,' replied the old man.  'Why not?'
+
+'He's exceedingly deaf,' muttered the sexton to himself.  'I think
+he's getting foolish.'
+
+The child rather wondered what had led him to this belief, as, to
+say the truth, the old man seemed quite as sharp as he, and was
+infinitely more robust.  As the sexton said nothing more just then,
+however, she forgot it for the time, and spoke again.
+
+'You were telling me,' she said, 'about your gardening.  Do you
+ever plant things here?'
+
+'In the churchyard?' returned the sexton, 'Not I.'
+
+'I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,' the child
+rejoined; 'there are some over there, you see.  I thought they were
+of your rearing, though indeed they grow but poorly.'
+
+'They grow as Heaven wills,' said the old man; 'and it kindly
+ordains that they shall never flourish here.'
+
+'I do not understand you.'
+
+'Why, this it is,' said the sexton.  'They mark the graves of those
+who had very tender, loving friends.'
+
+'I was sure they did!' the child exclaimed.  'I am very glad to
+know they do!'
+
+'Aye,' returned the old man, 'but stay.  Look at them.  See how
+they hang their heads, and droop, and wither.  Do you guess the
+reason?'
+
+'No,' the child replied.
+
+'Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon.
+At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin
+to come less frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once
+a week to once a month; then, at long and uncertain intervals;
+then, not at all.  Such tokens seldom flourish long.  I have known
+the briefest summer flowers outlive them.'
+
+'I grieve to hear it,' said the child.
+
+'Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,'
+returned the old man, shaking his head, 'but I say otherwise.
+"It's a pretty custom you have in this part of the country," they
+say to me sometimes, "to plant the graves, but it's melancholy to
+see these things all withering or dead." I crave their pardon and
+tell them that, as I take it, 'tis a good sign for the happiness of
+the living.  And so it is.  It's nature.'
+
+'Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to
+the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not
+in graves,' said the child in an earnest voice.
+
+'Perhaps so,' replied the old man doubtfully.  'It may be.'
+
+'Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,' thought the child within
+herself, 'I'll make this place my garden.  It will be no harm at
+least to work here day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of
+it, I am sure.'
+
+Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton,
+who turned towards old David, and called him by his name.  It was
+plain that Becky Morgan's age still troubled him; though why, the
+child could scarcely understand.
+
+The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man's
+attention.  Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put
+his hand to his dull ear.
+
+'Did you call?' he said.
+
+'I have been thinking, Davy,' replied the sexton, 'that she,' he
+pointed to the grave, 'must have been a deal older than you or me.'
+
+'Seventy-nine,' answered the old man with a shake of the head, 'I
+tell you that I saw it.'
+
+'Saw it?' replied the sexton; 'aye, but, Davy, women don't always
+tell the truth about their age.'
+
+'That's true indeed,' said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle
+in his eye.  'She might have been older.'
+
+'I'm sure she must have been.  Why, only think how old she looked.
+You and I seemed but boys to her.'
+
+'She did look old,' rejoined David.  'You're right.  She did look
+old.'
+
+'Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and
+say if she could be but seventy-nine at last--only our age,' said
+the sexton.
+
+'Five year older at the very least!' cried the other.
+
+'Five!' retorted the sexton.  'Ten.  Good eighty-nine.  I call to
+mind the time her daughter died.  She was eighty-nine if she was a
+day, and tries to pass upon us now, for ten year younger.  Oh!
+human vanity!'
+
+The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on
+this fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such
+weight as to render it doubtful--not whether the deceased was of
+the age suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the
+patriarchal term of a hundred.  When they had settled this question
+to their mutual satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend's
+assistance, rose to go.
+
+'It's chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful--till the
+summer,' he said, as he prepared to limp away.
+
+'What?' asked old David.
+
+'He's very deaf, poor fellow!' cried the sexton.  'Good-bye!'
+'Ah!' said old David, looking after him.  'He's failing very fast.
+He ages every day.'
+
+And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in
+him than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the
+little fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose
+decease was no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and
+would be no business of theirs for half a score of years to come.
+
+The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as
+he threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to
+cough and fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind
+of sober chuckle, that the sexton was wearing fast.  At length she
+turned away, and walking thoughtfully through the churchyard, came
+unexpectedly upon the schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green
+grave in the sun, reading.
+
+'Nell here?' he said cheerfully, as he closed his book.  'It does
+me good to see you in the air and light.  I feared you were again
+in the church, where you so often are.'
+
+'Feared!' replied the child, sitting down beside him.  'Is it not
+a good place?'
+
+'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster.  'But you must be gay
+sometimes--nay, don't shake your head and smile so sadly.'
+
+'Not sadly, if you knew my heart.  Do not look at me as if you
+thought me sorrowful.  There is not a happier creature on earth,
+than I am now.'
+
+Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it
+between her own.  'It's God's will!' she said, when they had been
+silent for some time.
+
+'What?'
+
+'All this,' she rejoined; 'all this about us.  But which of us is
+sad now?  You see that I am smiling.'
+
+'And so am I,' said the schoolmaster; 'smiling to think how often
+we shall laugh in this same place.  Were you not talking yonder?'
+
+'Yes,'the child rejoined.
+
+'Of something that has made you sorrowful?'
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+'What was it?' said the schoolmaster, tenderly.  'Come.  Tell me
+what it was.'
+
+'I rather grieve--I do rather grieve to think,' said the child,
+bursting into tears, 'that those who die about us, are so soon
+forgotten.'
+
+'And do you think,' said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she
+had thrown around, 'that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a
+faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect?
+Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these
+dead may be best remembered?  Nell, Nell, there may be people busy
+in the world, at this instant, in whose good actions and good
+thoughts these very graves--neglected as they look to us--are the
+chief instruments.'
+
+'Tell me no more,' said the child quickly.  'Tell me no more.  I
+feel, I know it.  How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of
+you?'
+
+'There is nothing,' cried her friend, 'no, nothing innocent or
+good, that dies, and is forgotten.  Let us hold to that faith, or
+none.  An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live
+again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play
+its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world,
+though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea.
+There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its
+blessed work on earth in those that loved it here.  Forgotten! oh,
+if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their
+source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much
+charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their
+growth in dusty graves!'
+
+'Yes,' said the child, 'it is the truth; I know it is.  Who should
+feel its force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives
+again!  Dear, dear, good friend, if you knew the comfort you have
+given me!'
+
+The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in
+silence; for his heart was full.
+
+They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather
+approached.  Before they had spoken many words together, the church
+clock struck the hour of school, and their friend withdrew.
+
+'A good man,' said the grandfather, looking after him; 'a kind man.
+Surely he will never harm us, Nell.  We are safe here, at last, eh?
+We will never go away from here?'
+
+The child shook her head and smiled.
+
+'She needs rest,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'too pale--
+too pale.  She is not like what she was.'
+
+When?' asked the child.
+
+'Ha!' said the old man, 'to be sure--when?  How many weeks ago?
+Could I count them on my fingers?  Let them rest though; they're
+better gone.'
+'Much better, dear,' replied the child.  'We will forget them; or,
+if we ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream
+that has passed away.'
+
+'Hush!' said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand
+and looking over his shoulder; 'no more talk of the dream, and all
+the miseries it brought.  There are no dreams here.  'Tis a quiet
+place, and they keep away.  Let us never think about them, lest
+they should pursue us again.  Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks--wet,
+cold, and famine--and horrors before them all, that were even
+worse--we must forget such things if we would be tranquil here.'
+
+'Thank Heaven!' inwardly exclaimed the child, 'for this most happy
+change!'
+
+'I will be patient,' said the old man, 'humble, very thankful, and
+obedient, if you will let me stay.  But do not hide from me; do not
+steal away alone; let me keep beside you.  Indeed, I will be very
+true and faithful, Nell.'
+
+'I steal away alone! why that,' replied the child, with assumed
+gaiety, 'would be a pleasant jest indeed.  See here, dear
+grandfather, we'll make this place our garden--why not!  It is a
+very good one--and to-morrow we'll begin, and work together, side
+by side.'
+
+'It is a brave thought!' cried her grandfather.  'Mind, darling--
+we begin to-morrow!'
+
+Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their
+labour!  Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the
+spot, as he!  They plucked the long grass and nettles from the
+tombs, thinned the poor shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and
+cleared it of the leaves and weeds.  They were yet in the ardour of
+their work, when the child, raising her head from the ground over
+which she bent, observed that the bachelor was sitting on the stile
+close by, watching them in silence.
+
+'A kind office,' said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she
+curtseyed to him.  'Have you done all that, this morning?'
+
+'It is very little, sir,' returned the child, with downcast eyes,
+'to what we mean to do.'
+
+'Good work, good work,' said the bachelor.  'But do you only labour
+at the graves of children, and young people?'
+
+'We shall come to the others in good time, sir,' replied Nell,
+turning her head aside, and speaking softly.
+
+It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident,
+or the child's unconscious sympathy with youth.  But it seemed to
+strike upon her grandfather, though he had not noticed it before.
+He looked in @ hurried manner at the graves, then anxiously at the
+child, then pressed her to his side, and bade her stop to rest.
+Something he had long forgotten, appeared to struggle faintly in
+his mind.  It did not pass away, as weightier things had done; but
+came uppermost again, and yet again, and many times that day, and
+often afterwards.  Once, while they were yet at work, the child,
+seeing that he often turned and looked uneasily at her, as though
+he were trying to resolve some painful doubts or collect some
+scattered thoughts, urged him to tell the reason.  But he said it
+was nothing--nothing--and, laying her head upon his arm, patted
+her fair cheek with his hand, and muttered that she grew stronger
+every day, and would be a woman, soon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 55
+
+
+From that time, there sprung up in the old man's mind, a solicitude
+about the child which never slept or left him.  There are chords in
+the human heart--strange, varying strings--which are only struck
+by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the
+most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest
+casual touch.  In the most insensible or childish minds, there is
+some train of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill
+assist, but which will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by
+chance, and when the discoverer has the plainest end in view.  From
+that time, the old man never, for a moment, forgot the weakness and
+devotion of the child; from the time of that slight incident, he
+who had seen her toiling by his side through so much difficulty and
+suffering, and had scarcely thought of her otherwise than as the
+partner of miseries which he felt severely in his own person, and
+deplored for his own sake at least as much as hers, awoke to a
+sense of what he owed her, and what those miseries had made her.
+Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment from that time to
+the end, did any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort,
+any selfish consideration or regard distract his thoughts from the
+gentle object of his love.
+
+He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire and
+lean upon his arm--he would sit opposite to her in the
+chimney-corner, content to watch, and look, until she raised her
+head and smiled upon him as of old--he would discharge by stealth,
+those household duties which tasked her powers too heavily--he
+would rise, in the cold dark nights, to listen to her breathing in
+her sleep, and sometimes crouch for hours by her bedside only to
+touch her hand.  He who knows all, can only know what hopes, and
+fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were in that one disordered
+brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor old man.
+Sometimes--weeks had crept on, then--the child, exhausted, though
+with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside the
+fire.  At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and
+read to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor
+came in, and took his turn of reading.  The old man sat and
+listened--with little understanding for the words, but with his
+eyes fixed upon the child--and if she smiled or brightened with
+the story, he would say it was a good one, and conceive a fondness
+for the very book.  When, in their evening talk, the bachelor told
+some tale that pleased her (as his tales were sure to do), the old
+man would painfully try to store it in his mind; nay, when the
+bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip out after him, and
+humbly beg that he would tell him such a part again, that he might
+learn to win a smile from Nell.
+
+But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be
+out of doors, and walking in her solemn garden.  Parties, too,
+would come to see the church; and those who came, speaking to
+others of the child, sent more; so even at that season of the year
+they had visitors almost daily.  The old man would follow them at
+a little distance through the building, listening to the voice he
+loved so well; and when the strangers left, and parted from Nell,
+he would mingle with them to catch up fragments of their
+conversation; or he would stand for the same purpose, with his grey
+head uncovered, at the gate as they passed through.
+
+They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was
+proud to hear them!  But what was that, so often added, which wrung
+his heart, and made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner!
+Alas! even careless strangers--they who had no feeling for her,
+but the interest of the moment--they who would go away and forget
+next week that such a being lived--even they saw it--even they
+pitied her--even they bade him good day compassionately, and
+whispered as they passed.
+
+The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew
+to have a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the
+same feeling; a tenderness towards her--a compassionate regard for
+her, increasing every day.  The very schoolboys, light-hearted and
+thoughtless as they were, even they cared for her.  The roughest
+among them was sorry if he missed her in the usual place upon his
+way to school, and would turn out of the path to ask for her at the
+latticed window.  If she were sitting in the church, they perhaps
+might peep in softly at the open door; but they never spoke to her,
+unless she rose and went to speak to them.  Some feeling was abroad
+which raised the child above them all.
+
+So, when Sunday came.  They were all poor country people in the
+church, for the castle in which the old family had lived, was an
+empty ruin, and there were none but humble folks for seven miles
+around.  There, as elsewhere, they had an interest in Nell.  They
+would gather round her in the porch, before and after service;
+young children would cluster at her skirts; and aged men and women
+forsake their gossips, to give her kindly greeting.  None of them,
+young or old, thought of passing the child without a friendly
+word.  Many who came from three or four miles distant, brought her
+little presents; the humblest and rudest had good wishes to bestow.
+
+She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in
+the churchyard.  One of these--he who had spoken of his brother--
+was her little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in
+the church, or climbed with her to the tower-top.  It was his
+delight to help her, or to fancy that he did so, and they soon
+became close companions.
+
+It happened, that, as she was reading in the old spot by herself
+one day, this child came running in with his eyes full of tears,
+and after holding her from him, and looking at her eagerly for a
+moment, clasped his little arms passionately about her neck.
+
+'What now?' said Nell, soothing him.  'What is the matter?'
+
+'She is not one yet!' cried the boy, embracing her still more
+closely.  'No, no.  Not yet.'
+
+She looked at him wonderingly, and putting his hair back from his
+face, and kissing him, asked what he meant.
+
+'You must not be one, dear Nell,' cried the boy.  'We can't see
+them.  They never come to play with us, or talk to us.  Be what you
+are.  You are better so.'
+
+'I do not understand you,' said the child.  'Tell me what you
+mean.'
+
+'Why, they say , replied the boy, looking up into her face, that
+you will be an Angel, before the birds sing again.  But you won't
+be, will you?  Don't leave us Nell, though the sky is bright.  Do
+not leave us!'
+
+The child dropped her head, and put her hands before her face.
+
+'She cannot bear the thought!' cried the boy, exulting through his
+tears.  'You will not go.  You know how sorry we should be.  Dear
+Nell, tell me that you'll stay amongst us.  Oh!  Pray, pray, tell
+me that you will.'
+
+The little creature folded his hands, and knelt down at her feet.
+
+'Only look at me, Nell,' said the boy, 'and tell me that you'll
+stop, and then I shall know that they are wrong, and will cry no
+more.  Won't you say yes, Nell?'
+
+Still the drooping head and hidden face, and the child quite
+silent--save for her sobs.
+
+'After a time,' pursued the boy, trying to draw away her hand, the
+kind angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and
+that you stayed here to be with us.  Willy went away, to join them;
+but if he had known how I should miss him in our little bed at
+night, he never would have left me, I am sure.'
+
+Yet the child could make him no answer, and sobbed as though her
+heart were bursting.
+'Why would you go, dear Nell?  I know you would not be happy when
+you heard that we were crying for your loss.  They say that Willy
+is in Heaven now, and that it's always summer there, and yet I'm
+sure he grieves when I lie down upon his garden bed, and he cannot
+turn to kiss me.  But if you do go, Nell,' said the boy, caressing
+her, and pressing his face to hers, 'be fond of him for my sake.
+Tell him how I love him still, and how much I loved you; and when
+I think that you two are together, and are happy, I'll try to bear
+it, and never give you pain by doing wrong--indeed I never will!'
+
+The child suffered him to move her hands, and put them round his
+neck.  There was a tearful silence, but it was not long before she
+looked upon him with a smile, and promised him, in a very gentle,
+quiet voice, that she would stay, and be his friend, as long as
+Heaven would let her.  He clapped his hands for joy, and thanked
+her many times; and being charged to tell no person what had passed
+between them, gave her an earnest promise that he never would.
+
+Nor did he, so far as the child could learn; but was her quiet
+companion in all her walks and musings, and never again adverted to
+the theme, which he felt had given her pain, although he was
+unconscious of its cause.  Something of distrust lingered about him
+still; for he would often come, even in the dark evenings, and call
+in a timid voice outside the door to know if she were safe within;
+and being answered yes, and bade to enter, would take his station
+on a low stool at her feet, and sit there patiently until they came
+to seek, and take him home.  Sure as the morning came, it found him
+lingering near the house to ask if she were well; and, morning,
+noon, or night, go where she would, he would forsake his playmates
+and his sports to bear her company.
+
+'And a good little friend he is, too,' said the old sexton to her
+once.  'When his elder brother died--elder seems a strange word,
+for he was only seven years old--I remember this one took it
+sorely to heart.'
+
+The child thought of what the schoolmaster had told her, and felt
+how its truth was shadowed out even in this infant.
+
+'It has given him something of a quiet way, I think,' said the old
+man, 'though for that he is merry enough at times.  I'd wager now
+that you and he have been listening by the old well.'
+
+'Indeed we have not,' the child replied.  'I have been afraid to go
+near it; for I am not often down in that part of the church, and do
+not know the ground.'
+
+'Come down with me,' said the old man.  'I have known it from a
+boy.  Come!'
+
+They descended the narrow steps which led into the crypt, and
+paused among the gloomy arches, in a dim and murky spot.
+
+'This is the place,' said the old man.  'Give me your hand while
+you throw back the cover, lest you should stumble and fall in.  I
+am too old--I mean rheumatic--to stoop, myself.'
+
+'A black and dreadful place!' exclaimed the child.
+
+'Look in,' said the old man, pointing downward with his finger.
+
+The child complied, and gazed down into the pit.
+
+'It looks like a grave itself,' said the old man.
+
+'It does,' replied the child.
+
+'I have often had the fancy,' said the sexton, 'that it might have
+been dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old
+monks more religious.  It's to be closed up, and built over.'
+
+The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault.
+
+'We shall see,' said the sexton, 'on what gay heads other earth
+will have closed, when the light is shut out from here.  God knows!
+They'll close it up, next spring.'
+
+'The birds sing again in spring,' thought the child, as she leaned
+at her casement window, and gazed at the declining sun.  'Spring!
+a beautiful and happy time!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 56
+
+
+A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr
+Swiveller walked into Sampson Brass's office at the usual hour, and
+being alone in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the
+desk, and taking from his pocket a small parcel of black crape,
+applied himself to folding and pinning the same upon it, after the
+manner of a hatband.  Having completed the construction of this
+appendage, he surveyed his work with great complacency, and put his
+hat on again--very much over one eye, to increase the mournfulness
+of the effect.  These arrangements perfected to his entire
+satisfaction, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up
+and down the office with measured steps.
+
+'It has always been the same with me,' said Mr Swiveller, 'always.
+'Twas ever thus--from childhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes
+decay, I never loved a tree or flower but 'twas the first to fade
+away; I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black
+eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to
+marry a market-gardener.'
+
+Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the
+clients' chair, and flung himself into its open arms.
+
+'And this,' said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure,
+'is life, I believe.  Oh, certainly.  Why not!  I'm quite
+satisfied.  I shall wear,' added Richard, taking off his hat again
+and looking hard at it, as if he were only deterred by pecuniary
+considerations from spurning it with his foot, 'I shall wear this
+emblem of woman's perfidy, in remembrance of her with whom I shall
+never again thread the windings of the mazy; whom I shall never
+more pledge in the rosy; who, during the short remainder of my
+existence, will murder the balmy.  Ha, ha, ha!'
+
+It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any
+incongruity in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr Swiveller did
+not wind up with a cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been
+undoubtedly at variance with his solemn reflections, but that,
+being in a theatrical mood, he merely achieved that performance
+which is designated in melodramas 'laughing like a fiend,'--for it
+seems that your fiends always laugh in syllables, and always in
+three syllables, never more nor less, which is a remarkable
+property in such gentry, and one worthy of remembrance.
+
+The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr Swiveller was still
+sitting in a very grim state in the clients' chair, when there came
+a ring--or, if we may adapt the sound to his then humour, a knell
+--at the office bell.  Opening the door with all speed, he beheld
+the expressive countenance of Mr Chuckster, between whom and
+himself a fraternal greeting ensued.
+
+'You're devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter-house,'
+said that gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the
+other in an easy manner.
+
+'Rather,' returned Dick.
+
+'Rather!' retorted Mr Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling
+which so well became him.  'I should think so.  Why, my good
+feller, do you know what o'clock it is--half-past nine a.m.  in
+the morning?'
+
+'Won't you come in?' said Dick.  'All alone.  Swiveller solus.
+"'Tis now the witching--'
+
+'"Hour of night!"'
+
+'"When churchyards yawn,"'
+
+'"And graves give up their dead."'
+
+At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an
+attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the
+office.  Such morsels of enthusiasm are common among the Glorious
+Apollos, and were indeed the links that bound them together, and
+raised them above the cold dull earth.
+
+'Well, and how are you my buck?' said Mr Chuckster, taking a stool.
+'I was forced to come into the City upon some little private
+matters of my own, and couldn't pass the corner of the street
+without looking in, but upon my soul I didn't expect to find you.
+It is so everlastingly early.'
+
+Mr Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments; and it appearing on
+further conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr
+Chuckster was in the like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in
+compliance with a solemn custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which
+they belonged, joined in a fragment of the popular duet of 'All's
+Well,' with a long shake' at the end.
+
+'And what's the news?' said Richard.
+
+'The town's as flat, my dear feller,' replied Mr Chuckster, 'as the
+surface of a Dutch oven.  There's no news.  By-the-bye, that lodger
+of yours is a most extraordinary person.  He quite eludes the most
+vigorous comprehension, you know.  Never was such a feller!'
+
+'What has he been doing now?' said Dick.
+
+'By Jove, Sir,' returned Mr Chuckster, taking out an oblong
+snuff-box, the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox's head
+curiously carved in brass, 'that man is an unfathomable.  Sir, that
+man has made friends with our articled clerk.  There's no harm in
+him, but he is so amazingly slow and soft.  Now, if he wanted a
+friend, why couldn't he have one that knew a thing or two, and
+could do him some good by his manners and conversation.  I have my
+faults, sir,' said Mr Chuckster--
+
+'No, no,' interposed Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better
+than I know mine.  But,' said Mr Chuckster, 'I'm not meek.  My
+worst enemies--every man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine--
+never accused me of being meek.  And I tell you what, Sir, if I
+hadn't more of these qualities that commonly endear man to man,
+than our articled clerk has, I'd steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it
+round my neck, and drown myself.  I'd die degraded, as I had lived.
+I would upon my honour.'
+
+Mr Chuckster paused, rapped the fox's head exactly on the nose with
+the knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked
+steadily at Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he
+was going to sneeze, he would find himself mistaken.
+
+'Not contented, Sir,' said Mr Chuckster, 'with making friends with
+Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother.
+Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there--
+actually been there.  He patronises young Snobby besides; you'll
+find, Sir, that he'll be constantly coming backwards and forwards
+to this place: yet I don't suppose that beyond the common forms of
+civility, he has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me.  Now,
+upon my soul, you know,' said Mr Chuckster, shaking his head
+gravely, as men are wont to do when they consider things are going
+a little too far, 'this is altogether such a low-minded affair,
+that if I didn't feel for the governor, and know that he could
+never get on without me, I should be obliged to cut the connection.
+I should have no alternative.'
+
+Mr Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend,
+stirred the fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing.
+
+'As to young Snob, sir,' pursued Mr Chuckster with a prophetic
+look, 'you'll find he'll turn out bad.  In our profession we know
+something of human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller
+that came back to work out that shilling, will show himself one of
+these days in his true colours.  He's a low thief, sir.  He must
+be.'
+
+Mr Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject
+further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door,
+which seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business,
+caused him to assume a greater appearance of meekness than was
+perhaps quite consistent with his late declaration.  Mr Swiveller,
+hearing the same sound, caused his stool to revolve rapidly on one
+leg until it brought him to his desk, into which, having forgotten
+in the sudden flurry of his spirits to part with the poker, he
+thrust it as he cried 'Come in!'
+
+Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme
+of Mr Chuckster's wrath!  Never did man pluck up his courage so
+quickly, or look so fierce, as Mr Chuckster when he found it was
+he.  Mr Swiveller stared at him for a moment, and then leaping from
+his stool, and drawing out the poker from its place of concealment,
+performed the broad-sword exercise with all the cuts and guards
+complete, in a species of frenzy.
+
+'Is the gentleman at home?' said Kit, rather astonished by this
+uncommon reception.
+
+Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took
+occasion to enter his indignant protest against this form of
+inquiry; which he held to be of a disrespectful and snobbish
+tendency, inasmuch as the inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and
+there present, should have spoken of the other gentleman; or rather
+(for it was not impossible that the object of his search might be
+of inferior quality) should have mentioned his name, leaving it to
+his hearers to determine his degree as they thought proper.  Mr
+Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had some reason to believe
+this form of address was personal to himself, and that he was not
+a man to be trifled with--as certain snobs (whom he did not more
+particularly mention or describe) might find to their cost.
+
+'I mean the gentleman up-stairs,' said Kit, turning to Richard
+Swiveller.  'Is he at home?'
+
+'Why?' rejoined Dick.
+
+'Because if he is, I have a letter for him.'
+
+'From whom?' said Dick.
+
+'From Mr Garland.'
+
+'Oh!' said Dick, with extreme politeness.  'Then you may hand it
+over, Sir.  And if you're to wait for an answer, Sir, you may wait
+in the passage, Sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated
+apartment, sir.'
+
+'Thank you,' returned Kit.  'But I am to give it to himself, if you
+please.'
+
+The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster,
+and so moved his tender regard for his friend's honour, that he
+declared, if he were not restrained by official considerations, he
+must certainly have annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of
+the affront which he did consider, under the extraordinary
+circumstances of aggravation attending it, could but have met with
+the proper sanction and approval of a jury of Englishmen, who, he
+had no doubt, would have returned a verdict of justifiable
+Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the morals and character
+of the Avenger.  Mr Swiveller, without being quite so hot upon the
+matter, was rather shamed by his friend's excitement, and not a
+little puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and good-humoured),
+when the single gentleman was heard to call violently down the
+stairs.
+
+'Didn't I see somebody for me, come in?' cried the lodger.
+
+'Yes, Sir,' replied Dick.  'Certainly, Sir.'
+
+'Then where is he?' roared the single gentleman.
+
+'He's here, sir,' rejoined Mr Swiveller.  'Now young man, don't you
+hear you're to go up-stairs?  Are you deaf?'
+
+Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any
+altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing
+at each other in silence.
+
+'Didn't I tell you so?' said Mr Chuckster.  'What do you think of
+that?'
+
+Mr Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not
+perceiving in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude,
+scarcely knew what answer to return.  He was relieved from his
+perplexity, however, by the entrance of Mr Sampson and his sister,
+Sally, at sight of whom Mr Chuckster precipitately retired.
+
+Mr Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a
+consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of
+great interest and importance.  On the occasion of such
+conferences, they generally appeared in the office some half an
+hour after their usual time, and in a very smiling state, as though
+their late plots and designs had tranquillised their minds and shed
+a light upon their toilsome way.  In the present instance, they
+seemed particularly gay; Miss Sally's aspect being of a most oily
+kind, and Mr Brass rubbing his hands in an exceedingly jocose and
+light-hearted manner.  'Well, Mr Richard,' said Brass.  'How are we
+this morning?  Are we pretty fresh and cheerful sir--eh, Mr
+Richard?'
+
+'Pretty well, sir,' replied Dick.
+
+'That's well,' said Brass.  'Ha ha!  We should be as gay as larks,
+Mr Richard--why not?  It's a pleasant world we live in sir, a very
+pleasant world.  There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if
+there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.  Ha ha!
+Any letters by the post this morning, Mr Richard?'
+
+Mr Swiveller answered in the negative.
+
+'Ha!' said Brass, 'no matter.  If there's little business to-day,
+there'll be more to-morrow.  A contented spirit, Mr Richard, is the
+sweetness of existence.  Anybody been here, sir?'
+
+'Only my friend'--replied Dick.  '"May we ne'er want a--'
+
+'Friend,' Brass chimed in quickly, 'or a bottle to give him.'  Ha
+ha!  That's the way the song runs, isn't it?  A very good song, Mr
+Richard, very good.  I like the sentiment of it.  Ha ha!  Your
+friend's the young man from Witherden's office I think--yes--May
+we ne'er want a-- Nobody else at all, been, Mr Richard?'
+
+'Only somebody to the lodger,' replied Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Oh indeed!' cried Brass.  'Somebody to the lodger eh?  Ha ha!  May
+we ne'er want a friend, or a-- Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr
+Richard?'
+
+'Yes,' said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy
+of spirits which his employer displayed.  'With him now.'
+
+'With him now!' cried Brass; 'Ha ha!  There let 'em be, merry and
+free, toor rul rol le.  Eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!'
+
+'Oh certainly,' replied Dick.
+
+'And who,' said Brass, shuffling among his papers, 'who is the
+lodger's visitor--not a lady visitor, I hope, eh, Mr Richard?  The
+morals of the Marks you know, sir--"when lovely women stoops to
+folly"--and all that--eh, Mr Richard?'
+
+'Another young man, who belongs to Witherden's too, or half belongs
+there,' returned Richard.  'Kit, they call him.'
+
+'Kit, eh!' said Brass.  'Strange name--name of a dancing- master's
+fiddle, eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!  Kit's there, is he?  Oh!'
+
+Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn't check this
+uncommon exuberance on the part of Mr Sampson; but as she made no
+attempt to do so, and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit
+acquiescence in it, he concluded that they had just been cheating
+somebody, and receiving the bill.
+
+'Will you have the goodness, Mr Richard,' said Brass, taking a
+letter from his desk, 'just to step over to Peckham Rye with that?
+There's no answer, but it's rather particular and should go by
+hand.  Charge the office with your coach-hire back, you know; don't
+spare the office; get as much out of it as you can--clerk's motto--
+Eh, Mr Richard?  Ha ha!'
+
+Mr Swiveller solemnly doffed the aquatic jacket, put on his coat,
+took down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed.
+As soon as he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling
+sweetly at her brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return)
+withdrew also.
+
+Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-
+door wide open, and establishing himself at his desk directly
+opposite, so that he could not fail to see anybody who came
+down-stairs and passed out at the street door, began to write with
+extreme cheerfulness and assiduity; humming as he did so, in a
+voice that was anything but musical, certain vocal snatches which
+appeared to have reference to the union between Church and State,
+inasmuch as they were compounded of the Evening Hymn and God save
+the King.
+
+Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for
+a long time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning
+face, and hearing nothing, went on humming louder, and writing
+slower than ever.  At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his
+lodger's door opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the
+stairs.  Then, Mr Brass left off writing entirely, and, with his
+pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest; shaking his head
+meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul was in the
+music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic.
+
+It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the
+sweet sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass
+stopped his singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at
+the same time beckoning to him with his pen.
+
+'Kit,' said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, 'how do
+you do?'
+
+Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had
+his hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him
+softly back.
+
+'You are not to go, if you please, Kit,' said the attorney in a
+mysterious and yet business-like way.  'You are to step in here, if
+you please.  Dear me, dear me!  When I look at you,' said the
+lawyer, quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his
+back towards it, 'I am reminded of the sweetest little face that
+ever my eyes beheld.  I remember your coming there, twice or
+thrice, when we were in possession.  Ah Kit, my dear fellow,
+gentleman in my profession have such painful duties to perform
+sometimes, that you needn't envy us--you needn't indeed!'
+
+'I don't, sir,' said Kit, 'though it isn't for the like of me to
+judge.'
+
+'Our only consolation, Kit,' pursued the lawyer, looking at him in
+a sort of pensive abstraction, 'is, that although we cannot turn
+away the wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so,
+to the shorn lambs.'
+
+'Shorn indeed!' thought Kit.  'Pretty close!' But he didn't say SO.
+
+'On that occasion, Kit,' said Mr Brass, 'on that occasion that I
+have just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr
+Quilp is a very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had.
+It might have cost me a client.  But suffering virtue inspired me,
+and I prevailed.'
+
+'He's not so bad after all,' thought honest Kit, as the attorney
+pursed up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with
+his better feelings.
+
+'I respect you, Kit,' said Brass with emotion.  'I saw enough of
+your conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is
+humble, and your fortune lowly.  It isn't the waistcoat that I look
+at.  It is the heart.  The checks in the waistcoat are but the
+wires of the cage.  But the heart is the bird.  Ah!  How many sich
+birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the
+wires to peck at all mankind!'
+
+This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to
+his own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass's voice and
+manner added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all
+the mild austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the
+waist of his rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be
+completely set up in that line of business.
+
+'Well, well,' said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they
+compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-
+creatures, 'this is wide of the bull's-eye.  You're to take that,
+if you please.'  As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns
+on the desk.
+
+Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.
+
+'For yourself,' said Brass.
+'From--'
+
+'No matter about the person they came from,' replied the lawyer.
+'Say me, if you like.  We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and
+we mustn't ask questions or talk too much--you understand?  You're
+to take them, that's all; and between you and me, I don't think
+they'll be the last you'll have to take from the same place.  I
+hope not.  Good bye, Kit.  Good bye!'
+
+With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such
+slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation
+turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took
+the money and made the best of his way home.  Mr Brass remained
+airing himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his
+seraphic smile, simultaneously.
+
+'May I come in?' said Miss Sally, peeping.
+
+'Oh yes, you may come in,' returned her brother.
+
+'Ahem!' coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.
+
+'Why, yes,' returned Sampson, 'I should say as good as done.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 57
+
+
+Mr Chuckster's indignant apprehensions were not without foundation.
+Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr
+Garland was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and
+flourished exceedingly.  They were soon in habits of constant
+intercourse and communication; and the single gentleman labouring
+at this time under a slight attack of illness--the consequence
+most probably of his late excited feelings and subsequent
+disappointment--furnished a reason for their holding yet more
+frequent correspondence; so that some one of the inmates of Abel
+Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between that place
+and Bevis Marks, almost every day.
+
+As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any
+mincing of the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused
+to be driven by anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether
+old Mr Garland came, or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party.  Of all
+messages and inquiries, Kit was, in right of his position, the
+bearer; thus it came about that, while the single gentleman
+remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis Marks every morning with
+nearly as much regularity as the General Postman.
+
+Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply
+about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony's trot and the
+clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street.  Whenever
+the sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen
+and fall to rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee.
+
+'Ha ha!' he would cry.  'Here's the pony again!  Most remarkable
+pony, extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?'
+
+Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass
+standing on the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of
+the street over the top of the window-blind, would take an
+observation of the visitors.
+
+'The old gentleman again!' he would exclaim, 'a very prepossessing
+old gentleman, Mr Richard--charming countenance sir--extremely
+calm--benevolence in every feature, sir.  He quite realises my
+idea of King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his
+kingdom, Mr Richard--the same good humour, the same white hair and
+partial baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon.  Ah!  A
+sweet subject for contemplation, sir, very sweet!'
+
+Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would
+nod and smile to Kit from the window, and presently walk out into
+the street to greet him, when some such conversation as the
+following would ensue.
+
+'Admirably groomed, Kit'--Mr Brass is patting the pony--'does you
+great credit--amazingly sleek and bright to be sure.  He literally
+looks as if he had been varnished all over.'
+
+Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses
+his conviction, 'that Mr Brass will not find many like him.'
+
+'A beautiful animal indeed!' cries Brass.  'Sagacious too?'
+
+'Bless you!' replies Kit, 'he knows what you say to him as well as
+a Christian does.'
+
+'Does he indeed!' cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the
+same place from the same person in the same words a dozen times,
+but is paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding.  'Dear me!'
+
+'I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,' says Kit, pleased
+with the attorney's strong interest in his favourite, 'that I
+should come to be as intimate with him as I am now.'
+
+'Ah!' rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of
+virtue.  'A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming.
+A subject of proper pride and congratulation, Christopher.  Honesty
+is the best policy. --I always find it so myself.  I lost
+forty-seven pound ten by being honest this morning.  But it's all
+gain, it's gain!'
+
+Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with
+the water standing in his eyes.  Kit thinks that if ever there was
+a good man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass.
+
+'A man,' says Sampson, 'who loses forty-seven pound ten in one
+morning by his honesty, is a man to be envied.  If it had been
+eighty pound, the luxuriousness of feeling would have been
+increased.  Every pound lost, would have been a hundredweight of
+happiness gained.  The still small voice, Christopher,' cries
+Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the bosom, 'is a-singing
+comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy!'
+
+Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so
+completely home to his feelings, that he is considering what he
+shall say, when Mr Garland appears.  The old gentleman is helped
+into the chaise with great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and
+the pony, after shaking his head several times, and standing for
+three or four minutes with all his four legs planted firmly on the
+ground, as if he had made up his mind never to stir from that spot,
+but there to live and die, suddenly darts off, without the smallest
+notice, at the rate of twelve English miles an hour.  Then, Mr
+Brass and his sister (who has joined him at the door) exchange an
+odd kind of smile--not at all a pleasant one in its expression--
+and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, who, during
+their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats of
+pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and
+heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a
+penknife.
+
+Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened
+that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr
+Swiveller, if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some
+pretty distant place from Which he could not be expected to return
+for two or three hours, or in all probability a much longer period,
+as that gentleman was not, to say the truth, renowned for using
+great expedition on such occasions, but rather for protracting and
+spinning out the time to the very utmost limit of possibility.  Mr
+Swiveller out of sight, Miss Sally immediately withdrew.  Mr Brass
+would then set the office-door wide open, hum his old tune with
+great gaiety of heart, and smile seraphically as before.  Kit
+coming down-stairs would be called in; entertained with some moral
+and agreeable conversation; perhaps entreated to mind the office
+for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over the way; and afterwards
+presented with one or two half-crowns as the case might be.  This
+occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but that they came
+from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his mother with
+great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity; and
+bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and
+for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them
+was having some new trifle every day of their lives.
+
+While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the
+office of Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone
+therein, began to find the time hang heavy on his hands.  For the
+better preservation of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent
+his faculties from rusting, he provided himself with a
+cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed himself to play at
+cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes even fifty
+thousand pounds aside, besides many hazardous bets to a
+considerable amount.
+
+As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the
+magnitude of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think
+that on those evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they
+often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing
+sound in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after
+some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always
+had a cold from damp living.  Looking intently that way one night,
+he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the
+keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct,
+he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was
+aware of his approach.
+
+'Oh! I didn't mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn't,' cried
+the small servant, struggling like a much larger one.  'It's so
+very dull, down-stairs, Please don't you tell upon me, please
+don't.'
+
+'Tell upon you!' said Dick.  'Do you mean to say you were looking
+through the keyhole for company?'
+
+'Yes, upon my word I was,' replied the small servant.
+
+'How long have you been cooling your eye there?' said Dick.
+
+'Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long
+before.'
+
+Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he
+had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of
+which, no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted
+Mr Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and
+recovered himself speedily.
+
+'Well--come in'--he said, after a little consideration.  'Here--
+sit down, and I'll teach you how to play.'
+
+'Oh! I durstn't do it,' rejoined the small servant; 'Miss Sally 'ud
+kill me, if she know'd I come up here.'
+
+'Have you got a fire down-stairs?' said Dick.
+
+'A very little one,' replied the small servant.
+
+'Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she know'd I went down there, so
+I'll come,' said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket.  'Why,
+how thin you are!  What do you mean by it?'
+
+'It ain't my fault.'
+
+'Could you eat any bread and meat?' said Dick, taking down his hat.
+'Yes?  Ah! I thought so.  Did you ever taste beer?'
+'I had a sip of it once,' said the small servant.
+
+'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to
+the ceiling.  'She never tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip!
+Why, how old are you?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for
+a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back,
+vanished straightway.
+
+Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public- house,
+who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a
+great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent
+forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a
+particular recipe which Mr Swiveller had imparted to the landlord,
+at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to
+conciliate his friendship.  Relieving the boy of his burden at the
+door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent
+surprise, Mr Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.
+
+'There!' said Richard, putting the plate before her.  'First of all
+clear that off, and then you'll see what's next.'
+
+The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon
+empty.
+
+'Next,' said Dick, handing the purl, 'take a pull at that; but
+moderate your transports, you know, for you're not used to it.
+Well, is it good?'
+
+'Oh! isn't it?' said the small servant.
+
+Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this
+reply, and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his
+companion while he did so.  These preliminaries disposed of, he
+applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt
+tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning.
+
+'Now,' said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and
+trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and
+dealt, 'those are the stakes.  If you win, you get 'em all.  If I
+win, I get 'em.  To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall
+call you the Marchioness, do you hear?'
+
+The small servant nodded.
+
+'Then, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'fire away!'
+
+The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands,
+considered which to play, and Mr Swiveller, assuming the gay and
+fashionable air which such society required, took another pull at
+the tankard, and waited for her lead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 58
+
+
+Mr Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying
+success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of
+the purl, and the striking of ten o'clock, combined to render that
+gentleman mindful of the flight of Time, and the expediency of
+withdrawing before Mr Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned.
+
+'With which object in view, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller
+gravely, 'I shall ask your ladyship's permission to put the board
+in my pocket, and to retire from the presence when I have finished
+this tankard; merely observing, Marchioness, that since life like
+a river is flowing, I care not how fast it rolls on, ma'am, on,
+while such purl on the bank still is growing, and such eyes light
+the waves as they run.  Marchioness, your health.  You will excuse
+my wearing my hat, but the palace is damp, and the marble floor is
+--if I may be allowed the expression--sloppy.'
+
+As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr Swiveller had
+been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which
+attitude he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations,
+and slowly sipped the last choice drops of nectar.
+
+'The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at
+the Play?' said Mr Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the
+table, and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of
+a theatrical bandit.
+
+The Marchioness nodded.
+
+'Ha!' said Mr Swiveller, with a portentous frown.  ''Tis well.
+Marchioness!--but no matter.  Some wine there.  Ho!' He
+illustrated these melodramatic morsels by handing the tankard to
+himself with great humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from
+it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely.
+
+The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical
+conventionalities as Mr Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play,
+or heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors
+and in other forbidden places), was rather alarmed by
+demonstrations so novel in their nature, and showed her concern so
+plainly in her looks, that Mr Swiveller felt it necessary to
+discharge his brigand manner for one more suitable to private life,
+as he asked,
+
+'Do they often go where glory waits 'em, and leave you here?'
+
+'Oh, yes; I believe you they do,' returned the small servant.
+'Miss Sally's such a one-er for that, she is.'
+
+'Such a what?' said Dick.
+
+'Such a one-er,' returned the Marchioness.
+
+After a moment's reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his
+responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk
+on; as it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and
+her opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to
+render a momentary check of little consequence.
+
+'They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,' said the small servant with a
+shrewd look; 'they go to a many places, bless you!'
+
+'Is Mr Brass a wunner?' said Dick.
+
+'Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn't,' replied the small servant,
+shaking her head.  'Bless you, he'd never do anything without her.'
+
+'Oh!  He wouldn't, wouldn't he?' said Dick.
+
+'Miss Sally keeps him in such order,' said the small servant;
+'he always asks her advice, he does; and he catches it
+sometimes.  Bless you, you wouldn't believe how much he catches
+it.'
+
+'I suppose,' said Dick, 'that they consult together, a good deal,
+and talk about a great many people--about me for instance,
+sometimes, eh, Marchioness?'
+
+The Marchioness nodded amazingly.
+
+'Complimentary?' said Mr Swiveller.
+
+The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet
+left off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side,
+with a vehemence which threatened to dislocate her neck.
+
+'Humph!' Dick muttered.  'Would it be any breach of confidence,
+Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who
+has now the honour to--?'
+
+'Miss Sally says you're a funny chap,' replied his friend.
+
+'Well, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that's not
+uncomplimentary.  Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a
+degrading quality.  Old King Cole was himself a merry old soul, if
+we may put any faith in the pages of history.'
+
+'But she says,' pursued his companion, 'that you an't to be
+trusted.'
+
+'Why, really Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully;
+'several ladies and gentlemen--not exactly professional persons,
+but tradespeople, ma'am, tradespeople--have made the same remark.
+The obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined
+strongly to that opinion to-night when I ordered him to prepare the
+banquet.  It's a popular prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure
+I don't know why, for I have been trusted in my time to a
+considerable amount, and I can safely say that I never forsook my
+trust until it deserted me--never.  Mr Brass is of the same
+opinion, I suppose?'
+
+His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint
+that Mr Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his
+sister; and seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, 'But
+don't you ever tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.'
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, rising, 'the word of a gentleman
+is as good as his bond--sometimes better, as in the present case,
+where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security.  I am
+your friend, and I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in
+this same saloon.  But, Marchioness,' added Richard, stopping in
+his way to the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small
+servant, who was following with the candle; 'it occurs to me that
+you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes,
+to know all this.'
+
+'I only wanted,' replied the trembling Marchioness, 'to know where
+the key of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn't have
+taken much, if I had found it--only enough to squench my hunger.'
+
+'You didn't find it then?' said Dick.  'But of course you didn't,
+or you'd be plumper.  Good night, Marchioness.  Fare thee well, and
+if for ever, then for ever fare thee well--and put up the chain,
+Marchioness, in case of accidents.'
+
+With this parting injunction, Mr Swiveller emerged from the house;
+and feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink
+as promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather
+strong and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to
+his lodgings, and to bed at once.  Homeward he went therefore; and
+his apartments (for he still retained the plural fiction) being at
+no great distance from the office, he was soon seated in his own
+bed-chamber, where, having pulled off one boot and forgotten the
+other, he fell into deep cogitation.
+
+'This Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, folding his arms, 'is a very
+extraordinary person--surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the
+taste of beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less
+remarkable), and taking a limited view of society through the
+keyholes of doors--can these things be her destiny, or has some
+unknown person started an opposition to the decrees of fate?  It is
+a most inscrutable and unmitigated staggerer!'
+
+When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he
+became aware of his remaining boot, of which, with unimpaired
+solemnity he proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with
+exceeding gravity all the time, and sighing deeply.
+
+'These rubbers,' said Mr Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in
+exactly the same style as he wore his hat, 'remind me of the
+matrimonial fireside.  Cheggs's wife plays cribbage; all-fours
+likewise.  She rings the changes on 'em now.  From sport to sport
+they hurry her to banish her regrets, and when they win a smile
+from her, they think that she forgets--but she don't.  By this
+time, I should say,' added Richard, getting his left cheek into
+profile, and looking complacently at the reflection of a very
+little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; 'by this time, I
+should say, the iron has entered into her soul.  It serves her
+right!'
+
+Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic
+mood, Mr Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and
+even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought
+better of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead.  At
+last, undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.
+
+Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but
+as Mr Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on
+receiving the news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to
+playing the flute; thinking after mature consideration that it was
+a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own
+sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow- feeling in the
+bosoms of his neighbours.  In pursuance of this resolution, he now
+drew a little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a
+small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from
+its box, and began to play most mournfully.
+
+The air was 'Away with melancholy'--a composition, which, when it
+is played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further
+disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly
+acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many
+times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect.  Yet,
+for half the night, or more, Mr Swiveller, lying sometimes on his
+back with his eyes upon the ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed
+to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune over and
+over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a time
+to take breath and soliloquise about the Marchioness, and then
+beginning again with renewed vigour.  It was not until he had quite
+exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into
+the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs,
+and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the
+next doors, and over the way--that he shut up the music-book,
+extinguished the candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and
+relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep.
+
+He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having taken half an
+hour's exercise at the flute, and graciously received a notice to
+quit from his landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for
+that purpose since the dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks; where
+the beautiful Sally was already at her post, bearing in her looks
+a radiance, mild as that which beameth from the virgin moon.
+
+Mr Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his
+coat for the aquatic jacket; which usually took some time fitting
+on, for in consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only
+to be got into by a series of struggles.  This difficulty overcome,
+he took his seat at the desk.
+
+'I say'--quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, 'you haven't
+seen a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?'
+
+'I didn't meet many in the street,' rejoined Mr Swiveller.  'I saw
+one--a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance--but as he was
+in company with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with
+whom he was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking
+to him.'
+
+'No, but have you?' returned Miss Brass.  'Seriously, you know.'
+
+'What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,'
+said Mr Swiveller.  'Haven't I this moment come?'
+
+'Well, all I know is,' replied Miss Sally, 'that it's not to be
+found, and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on
+the desk.'
+
+'Halloa!' thought Richard, 'I hope the Marchioness hasn't been at
+work here.'
+
+'There was a knife too,' said Miss Sally, 'of the same pattern.
+They were given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone.
+You haven't missed anything yourself, have you?'
+
+Mr Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be
+quite sure that it WAS a jacket and not a skirted coat; and having
+satisfied himself of the safety of this, his only moveable in Bevis
+Marks, made answer in the negative.
+
+'It's a very unpleasant thing, Dick,' said Miss Brass, pulling out
+the tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; 'but
+between you and me--between friends you know, for if Sammy knew
+it, I should never hear the last of it--some of the office- money,
+too, that has been left about, has gone in the same way.  In
+particular, I have missed three half-crowns at three different
+times.'
+
+'You don't mean that?' cried Dick.  'Be careful what you say, old
+boy, for this is a serious matter.  Are you quite sure?  Is there
+no mistake?'
+
+'It is so, and there can't be any mistake at all,' rejoined Miss
+Brass emphatically.
+
+'Then by Jove,' thought Richard, laying down his pen, 'I am afraid
+the Marchioness is done for!'
+
+The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more
+probable it appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was
+the culprit.  When he considered on what a spare allowance of food
+she lived, how neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural
+cunning had been sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely
+doubted it.  And yet he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling
+to have a matter of such gravity disturbing the oddity of their
+acquaintance, that he thought, and thought truly, that rather than
+receive fifty pounds down, he would have the Marchioness proved
+innocent.
+
+While he was plunged in very profound and serious meditation upon
+this theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great
+mystery and doubt; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling
+a cheerful strain, was heard in the passage, and that gentleman
+himself, beaming with virtuous smiles, appeared.
+
+'Mr Richard, sir, good morning!  Here we are again, sir, entering
+upon another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and
+breakfast, and our spirits fresh and flowing.  Here we are, Mr
+Richard, rising with the sun to run our little course--our course
+of duty, sir--and, like him, to get through our day's work with
+credit to ourselves and advantage to our fellow- creatures.  A
+charming reflection sir, very charming!'
+
+While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr Brass was, somewhat
+ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up
+against the light a five-pound bank note, which he had brought in,
+in his hand.
+
+Mr Richard not receiving his remarks with anything like enthusiasm,
+his employer turned his eyes to his face, and observed that it wore
+a troubled expression.
+
+'You're out of spirits, sir,' said Brass.  'Mr Richard, sir, we
+should fall to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state.  It
+becomes us, Mr Richard, sir, to--'
+
+Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh.
+
+'Dear me!' said Mr Sampson, 'you too!  Is anything the matter?  Mr
+Richard, sir--'
+
+Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making signals to
+him, to acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent
+conversation.  As his own position was not a very pleasant one
+until the matter was set at rest one way or other, he did so; and
+Miss Brass, plying her snuff-box at a most wasteful rate,
+corroborated his account.
+
+The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his
+features.  Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money,
+as Miss Sally had expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened
+it, looked outside, shut it softly, returned on tiptoe, and said in
+a whisper,
+
+'This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance--Mr
+Richard, sir, a most painful circumstance.  The fact is, that I
+myself have missed several small sums from the desk, of late, and
+have refrained from mentioning it, hoping that accident would
+discover the offender; but it has not done so--it has not done so.
+Sally--Mr Richard, sir--this is a particularly distressing
+affair!'
+
+As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some
+papers, in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets.
+Richard Swiveller pointed to it, and admonished him to take it up.
+
+'No, Mr Richard, sir,' rejoined Brass with emotion, 'I will not
+take it up.  I will let it lie there, sir.  To take it up, Mr
+Richard, sir, would imply a doubt of you; and in you, sir, I have
+unlimited confidence.  We will let it lie there, Sir, if you
+please, and we will not take it up by any means.'  With that, Mr
+Brass patted him twice or thrice on the shoulder, in a most
+friendly manner, and entreated him to believe that he had as much
+faith in his honesty as he had in his own.
+
+Although at another time Mr Swiveller might have looked upon this
+as a doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then- existing
+circumstances, a great relief to be assured that he was not
+wrongfully suspected.  When he had made a suitable reply, Mr Brass
+wrung him by the hand, and fell into a brown study, as did Miss
+Sally likewise.  Richard too remained in a thoughtful state;
+fearing every moment to hear the Marchioness impeached, and unable
+to resist the conviction that she must be guilty.
+
+When they had severally remained in this condition for some
+minutes, Miss Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with
+her clenched fist, and cried, 'I've hit it!'--as indeed she had,
+and chipped a piece out of it too; but that was not her meaning.
+
+'Well,' cried Brass anxiously.  'Go on, will you!'
+
+'Why,' replied his sister with an air of triumph, 'hasn't there
+been somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last
+three or four weeks; hasn't that somebody been left alone in it
+sometimes--thanks to you; and do you mean to tell me that that
+somebody isn't the thief!'
+
+'What somebody?' blustered Brass.
+
+'Why, what do you call him--Kit.'
+
+'Mr Garland's young man?'
+
+'To be sure.'
+
+'Never!' cried Brass.  'Never.  I'll not hear of it.  Don't tell
+me'-- said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his
+hands as if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs.  'I'll
+never believe it of him.  Never!'
+
+'I say,' repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, 'that
+he's the thief.'
+
+'I say,' returned Sampson violently, 'that he is not.  What do you
+mean?  How dare you?  Are characters to be whispered away like
+this?  Do you know that he's the honestest and faithfullest fellow
+that ever lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name?  Come
+in, come in!'
+
+These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they
+partook of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that
+preceded them had been uttered.  They were addressed to some person
+who had knocked at the office-door; and they had hardly passed the
+lips of Mr Brass, when this very Kit himself looked in.
+
+'Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?'
+
+'Yes, Kit,' said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and
+frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; 'Yes Kit, he is.  I am
+glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you.  Look in again, as
+you come down-stairs, Kit.  That lad a robber!' cried Brass when he
+had withdrawn, 'with that frank and open countenance!  I'd trust
+him with untold gold.  Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step
+directly to Wrasp and Co.'s in Broad Street, and inquire if they
+have had instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter.  THAT lad a
+robber,' sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath.  'Am
+I blind, deaf, silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see
+it before me?  Kit a robber!  Bah!'
+
+Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable
+scorn and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as
+if to shut the base world from his view, and breathed defiance from
+under its half-closed lid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 59
+
+
+When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the
+single gentleman's apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an
+hour or so, Mr Sampson Brass was alone in the office.  He was not
+singing as usual, nor was he seated at his desk.  The open door
+showed him standing before the fire with his back towards it, and
+looking so very strange that Kit supposed he must have been
+suddenly taken ill.
+
+'Is anything the matter, sir?' said Kit.
+
+'Matter!' cried Brass.  'No.  Why anything the matter?'
+
+'You are so very pale,' said Kit, 'that I should hardly have known
+you.'
+
+'Pooh pooh! mere fancy,' cried Brass, stooping to throw up the
+cinders.  'Never better, Kit, never better in all my life.  Merry
+too.  Ha ha!  How's our friend above-stairs, eh?'
+
+'A great deal better,' said Kit.
+
+'I'm glad to hear it,' rejoined Brass; 'thankful, I may say.  An
+excellent gentleman--worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little
+trouble--an admirable lodger.  Ha ha!  Mr Garland--he's well I
+hope, Kit--and the pony--my friend, my particular friend you
+know.  Ha ha!'
+
+Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel
+Cottage.  Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and
+impatient, mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer,
+took him by the button-hole.
+
+'I have been thinking, Kit,' said the lawyer, 'that I could throw
+some little emoluments in your mother's way--You have a mother, I
+think?  If I recollect right, you told me--'
+
+'Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.'
+
+'A widow, I think? an industrious widow?'
+
+'A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.'
+
+'Ah!' cried Brass.  'That's affecting, truly affecting.  A poor
+widow struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is
+a delicious picture of human goodness.--Put down your hat, Kit.'
+
+'Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.'
+
+'Put it down while you stay, at any rate,' said Brass, taking it
+from him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a
+place for it on the desk.  'I was thinking, Kit, that we have often
+houses to let for people we are concerned for, and matters of that
+sort.  Now you know we're obliged to put people into those houses
+to take care of 'em--very often undeserving people that we can't
+depend upon.  What's to prevent our having a person that we CAN
+depend upon, and enjoying the delight of doing a good action at the
+same time?  I say, what's to prevent our employing this worthy
+woman, your mother?  What with one job and another, there's lodging--
+and good lodging too--pretty well all the year round, rent free,
+and a weekly allowance besides, Kit, that would provide her with a
+great many comforts she don't at present enjoy.  Now what do you
+think of that?  Do you see any objection?  My only desire is to serve
+you, Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.'
+
+As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled
+among the papers again, as if in search of something.
+
+'How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?' replied
+Kit with his whole heart.  'I don't know how to thank you sir, I
+don't indeed.'
+
+'Why then,' said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his
+face close to Kit's with such a repulsive smile that the latter,
+even in the very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite
+startled.  'Why then, it's done.'
+
+Kit looked at him in some confusion.
+
+'Done, I say,' added Sampson, rubbing his hands and veiling himself
+again in his usual oily manner.  'Ha ha! and so you shall find Kit,
+so you shall find.  But dear me,' said Brass, 'what a time Mr
+Richard is gone!  A sad loiterer to be sure!  Will you mind the
+office one minute, while I run up-stairs?  Only one minute.  I'll
+not detain you an instant longer, on any account, Kit.'
+
+Talking as he went, Mr Brass bustled out of the office, and in a
+very short time returned.  Mr Swiveller came back, almost at the
+same instant; and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up
+for lost time, Miss Brass herself encountered him in the doorway.
+
+'Oh!' sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered.  'There goes
+your pet, Sammy, eh?'
+
+'Ah!  There he goes,' replied Brass.  'My pet, if you please.  An
+honest fellow, Mr Richard, sir--a worthy fellow indeed!'
+
+'Hem!' coughed Miss Brass.
+
+'I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,' said the angry Sampson,
+'that I'd stake my life upon his honesty.  Am I never to hear the
+last of this?  Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean
+suspicions?  Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant
+fellow?  If you come to that, I'd sooner suspect your honesty than
+his.'
+
+Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow
+pinch, regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time.
+
+'She drives me wild, Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass, 'she exasperates
+me beyond all bearing.  I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am.
+These are not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she
+carries me out of myself.'
+
+'Why don't you leave him alone?' said Dick.
+
+'Because she can't, sir,' retorted Brass; 'because to chafe and vex
+me is a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I
+don't believe she'd have her health.  But never mind,' said Brass,
+'never mind.  I've carried my point.  I've shown my confidence in
+the lad.  He has minded the office again.  Ha ha!  Ugh, you viper!'
+
+The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff-box in
+her pocket; still looking at her brother with perfect composure.
+
+'He has minded the office again,' said Brass triumphantly; 'he has
+had my confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he--why,
+where's the--'
+
+'What have you lost?' inquired Mr Swiveller.
+
+'Dear me!' said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another,
+and looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly
+tossing the papers about, 'the note, Mr Richard, sir, the
+five-pound note--what can have become of it?  I laid it down here--
+God bless me!'
+
+'What!' cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and
+scattering the papers on the floor.  'Gone!  Now who's right?  Now
+who's got it?  Never mind five pounds--what's five pounds?  He's
+honest, you know, quite honest.  It would be mean to suspect him.
+Don't run after him.  No, no, not for the world!'
+
+'Is it really gone though?' said Dick, looking at Brass with a face
+as pale as his own.
+
+'Upon my word, Mr Richard, Sir,' replied the lawyer, feeling in all
+his pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, 'I fear this is
+a black business.  It's certainly gone, Sir.  What's to be done?'
+
+'Don't run after him,' said Miss Sally, taking more snuff.  'Don't
+run after him on any account.  Give him time to get rid of it, you
+know.  It would be cruel to find him out!'
+
+Mr Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each
+other, in a state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse,
+caught up their hats and rushed out into the street--darting along
+in the middle of the road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as
+though they were running for their lives.
+
+It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and
+having the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance
+ahead.  As they were pretty certain of the road he must have taken,
+however, and kept on at a great pace, they came up with him, at the
+very moment when he had taken breath, and was breaking into a run
+again.
+
+'Stop!' cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr
+Swiveller pounced upon the other.  'Not so fast sir.  You're in a
+hurry?'
+
+'Yes, I am,' said Kit, looking from one to the other in great
+surprise.
+
+'I--I--can hardly believe it,' panted Sampson, 'but something of
+value is missing from the office.  I hope you don't know what.'
+
+'Know what! good Heaven, Mr Brass!' cried Kit, trembling from head
+to foot; 'you don't suppose--'
+
+'No, no,' rejoined Brass quickly, 'I don't suppose anything.  Don't
+say I said you did.  You'll come back quietly, I hope?'
+
+'Of course I will,' returned Kit.  'Why not?'
+
+'To be sure!' said Brass.  'Why not?  I hope there may turn out to
+be no why not.  If you knew the trouble I've been in, this morning,
+through taking your part, Christopher, you'd be sorry for it.'
+
+'And I am sure you'll be sorry for having suspected me sir,'
+replied Kit.  'Come.  Let us make haste back.'
+
+'Certainly!' cried Brass, 'the quicker, the better.  Mr Richard--
+have the goodness, sir, to take that arm.  I'll take this one.
+It's not easy walking three abreast, but under these circumstances
+it must be done, sir; there's no help for it.'
+
+Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when
+they secured him thus, and for a moment seemed disposed to resist.
+But, quickly recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made
+any struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the
+public streets, he only repeated, with great earnestness and with
+the tears standing in his eyes, that they would be sorry for this--
+and suffered them to lead him off.  While they were on the way
+back, Mr Swiveller, upon whom his present functions sat very
+irksomely, took an opportunity of whispering in his ear that if he
+would confess his guilt, even by so much as a nod, and promise not
+to do so any more, he would connive at his kicking Sampson Brass on
+the shins and escaping up a court; but Kit indignantly rejecting
+this proposal, Mr Richard had nothing for it, but to hold him tight
+until they reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into the presence
+of the charming Sarah, who immediately took the precaution of
+locking the door.
+
+'Now, you know,' said Brass, 'if this is a case of innocence, it is
+a case of that description, Christopher, where the fullest
+disclosure is the best satisfaction for everybody.  Therefore if
+you'll consent to an examination,' he demonstrated what kind of
+examination he meant by turning back the cuffs of his coat, 'it
+will be a comfortable and pleasant thing for all parties.'
+
+'Search me,' said Kit, proudly holding up his arms.  'But mind, sir--
+I know you'll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.'
+
+'It is certainly a very painful occurrence,' said Brass with a
+sigh, as he dived into one of Kit's pockets, and fished up a
+miscellaneous collection of small articles; 'very painful.  Nothing
+here, Mr Richard, Sir, all perfectly satisfactory.  Nor here, sir.
+Nor in the waistcoat, Mr Richard, nor in the coat tails.  So far,
+I am rejoiced, I am sure.'
+
+Richard Swiveller, holding Kit's hat in his hand, was watching the
+proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the
+slightest possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of
+his eyes, looked with the other up the inside of one of the poor
+fellow's sleeves as if it were a telescope--when Sampson turning
+hastily to him, bade him search the hat.
+
+'Here's a handkerchief,' said Dick.
+
+'No harm in that sir,' rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the
+other sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was
+contemplating an immense extent of prospect.  'No harm in a
+handkerchief Sir, whatever.  The faculty don't consider it a
+healthy custom, I believe, Mr Richard, to carry one's handkerchief
+in one's hat--I have heard that it keeps the head too warm--but
+in every other point of view, its being there, is extremely
+satisfactory--extremely so.'
+
+An exclamation, at once from Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit
+himself, cut the lawyer short.  He turned his head, and saw Dick
+standing with the bank-note in his hand.
+
+'In the hat?' cried Brass in a sort of shriek.
+
+'Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,' said Dick,
+aghast at the discovery.
+
+Mr Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the
+ceiling, at the floor--everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite
+stupefied and motionless.
+
+'And this,' cried Sampson, clasping his hands, 'is the world that
+turns upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions
+round Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort!  This is
+human natur, is it!  Oh natur, natur!  This is the miscreant that
+I was going to benefit with all my little arts, and that, even now,
+I feel so much for, as to wish to let him go!  But,' added Mr Brass
+with greater fortitude, 'I am myself a lawyer, and bound to set an
+example in carrying the laws of my happy country into effect.
+Sally my dear, forgive me, and catch hold of him on the other side.
+Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to run and fetch a constable.
+The weakness is past and over sir, and moral strength returns.  A
+constable, sir, if you please!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 60
+
+
+Kit stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed
+upon the ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr
+Brass maintained on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp
+of Miss Sally upon the other; although this latter detention was in
+itself no small inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides
+screwing her knuckles inconveniently into his throat from time to
+time, had fastened upon him in the first instance with so tight a
+grip that even in the disorder and distraction of his thoughts he
+could not divest himself of an uneasy sense of choking.  Between
+the brother and sister he remained in this posture, quite
+unresisting and passive, until Mr Swiveller returned, with a police
+constable at his heels.
+
+This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes;
+looking upon all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to
+housebreaking or ventures on the highway, as matters in the regular
+course of business; and regarding the perpetrators in the light of
+so many customers coming to be served at the wholesale and retail
+shop of criminal law where he stood behind the counter; received Mr
+Brass's statement of facts with about as much interest and
+surprise, as an undertaker might evince if required to listen to a
+circumstantial account of the last illness of a person whom he was
+called in to wait upon professionally; and took Kit into custody
+with a decent indifference.
+
+'We had better,' said this subordinate minister of justice, 'get to
+the office while there's a magistrate sitting.  I shall want you to
+come along with us, Mr Brass, and the--' he looked at Miss Sally as
+if in some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other
+fabulous monster.
+
+'The lady, eh?' said Sampson.
+
+'Ah!' replied the constable.  'Yes--the lady.  Likewise the young
+man that found the property.'
+
+'Mr Richard, Sir,' said Brass in a mournful voice.  'A sad
+necessity.  But the altar of our country sir--'
+
+'You'll have a hackney-coach, I suppose?' interrupted the
+constable, holding Kit (whom his other captors had released)
+carelessly by the arm, a little above the elbow.  'Be so good as
+send for one, will you?'
+
+'But, hear me speak a word,' cried Kit, raising his eyes and
+looking imploringly about him.  'Hear me speak a word.  I am no
+more guilty than any one of you.  Upon my soul I am not.  I a
+thief!  Oh, Mr Brass, you know me better.  I am sure you know me
+better.  This is not right of you, indeed.'
+
+'I give you my word, constable--' said Brass.  But here the
+constable interposed with the constitutional principle 'words be
+blowed;' observing that words were but spoon-meat for babes and
+sucklings, and that oaths were the food for strong men.
+
+'Quite true, constable,' assented Brass in the same mournful tone.
+'Strictly correct.  I give you my oath, constable, that down to a
+few minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such
+confidence in that lad, that I'd have trusted him with--a
+hackney-coach, Mr Richard, sir; you're very slow, Sir.'
+
+'Who is there that knows me,' cried Kit, 'that would not trust me--
+that does not? ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me;
+whether I have ever wronged them of a farthing.  Was I ever once
+dishonest when I was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would
+begin now!  Oh consider what you do.  How can I meet the kindest
+friends that ever human creature had, with this dreadful charge
+upon me!'
+
+Mr Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if
+he had thought of that, before, and was about to make some other
+gloomy observations when the voice of the single gentleman was
+heard, demanding from above-stairs what was the matter, and what
+was the cause of all that noise and hurry.  Kit made an involuntary
+start towards the door in his anxiety to answer for himself, but
+being speedily detained by the constable, had the agony of seeing
+Sampson Brass run out alone to tell the story in his own way.
+
+'And he can hardly believe it, either,' said Sampson, when he
+returned, 'nor nobody will.  I wish I could doubt the evidence of
+my senses, but their depositions are unimpeachable.  It's of no use
+cross-examining my eyes,' cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them,
+'they stick to their first account, and will.  Now, Sarah, I hear
+the coach in the Marks; get on your bonnet, and we'll be off.  A
+sad errand! a moral funeral, quite!'
+
+'Mr Brass,' said Kit.  'do me one favour.  Take me to Mr
+Witherden's first.'
+
+Sampson shook his head irresolutely.
+
+'Do,' said Kit.  'My master's there.  For Heaven's sake, take me
+there, first.'
+
+'Well, I don't know,' stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons
+for wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary.
+'How do we stand in point of time, constable, eh?'
+
+The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with
+great philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would
+have time enough, but that if they stood shilly-shallying there,
+any longer, they must go straight to the Mansion House; and finally
+expressed his opinion that that was where it was, and that was all
+about it.
+
+Mr Richard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still
+remaining immoveable in the most commodious corner with his face to
+the horses, Mr Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner,
+and declared himself quite ready.  Therefore, the constable, still
+holding Kit in the same manner, and pushing him on a little before
+him, so as to keep him at about three-quarters of an arm's length
+in advance (which is the professional mode), thrust him into the
+vehicle and followed himself.  Miss Sally entered next; and there
+being now four inside, Sampson Brass got upon the box, and made the
+coachman drive on.
+
+Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which
+had taken place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach
+window, almost hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon in the
+streets which might give him reason to believe he was in a dream.
+Alas!  Everything was too real and familiar: the same succession of
+turnings, the same houses, the same streams of people running side
+by side in different directions upon the pavement, the same bustle
+of carts and carriages in the road, the same well-remembered
+objects in the shop windows: a regularity in the very noise and
+hurry which no dream ever mirrored.  Dream-like as the story was,
+it was true.  He stood charged with robbery; the note had been
+found upon him, though he was innocent in thought and deed; and
+they were carrying him back, a prisoner.
+
+Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping
+heart of his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the
+consciousness of innocence would be insufficient to support him in
+the presence of his friends if they believed him guilty, and
+sinking in hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to
+the notary's, poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window,
+observant of nothing,--when all at once, as though it had been
+conjured up by magic, he became aware of the face of Quilp.
+
+And what a leer there was upon the face!  It was from the open
+window of a tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread
+himself over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head
+resting on both his hands, that what between this attitude and his
+being swoln with suppressed laughter, he looked puffed and bloated
+into twice his usual breadth.  Mr Brass, on recognising him,
+immediately stopped the coach.  As it came to a halt directly
+opposite to where he stood, the dwarf pulled off his hat, and
+saluted the party with a hideous and grotesque politeness.
+'Aha!' he cried.  'Where now, Brass? where now?  Sally with you
+too?  Sweet Sally!  And Dick?  Pleasant Dick!  And Kit!  Honest
+Kit!'
+
+'He's extremely cheerful!' said Brass to the coachman.  'Very much
+so!  Ah, sir--a sad business!  Never believe in honesty any more,
+sir.'
+
+'Why not?' returned the dwarf.  'Why not, you rogue of a lawyer,
+why not?'
+
+'Bank-note lost in our office sir,' said Brass, shaking his head.
+'Found in his hat sir--he previously left alone there--no mistake
+at all sir--chain of evidence complete--not a link wanting.'
+
+'What!' cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window.  'Kit
+a thief!  Kit a thief!  Ha ha ha!  Why, he's an uglier-looking
+thief than can be seen anywhere for a penny.  Eh, Kit--eh?  Ha ha
+ha!  Have you taken Kit into custody before he had time and
+opportunity to beat me!  Eh, Kit, eh?'  And with that, he burst
+into a yell of laughter, manifestly to the great terror of the
+coachman, and pointed to a dyer's pole hard by, where a dangling
+suit of clothes bore some resemblance to a man upon a gibbet.
+
+'Is it coming to that, Kit!' cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands
+violently.  'Ha ha ha ha!  What a disappointment for little Jacob,
+and for his darling mother!  Let him have the Bethel minister to
+comfort and console him, Brass.  Eh, Kit, eh?  Drive on coachey,
+drive on.  Bye bye, Kit; all good go with you; keep up your
+spirits; my love to the Garlands--the dear old lady and gentleman.
+Say I inquired after 'em, will you?  Blessings on 'em, on you, and
+on everybody, Kit.  Blessings on all the world!'
+
+With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent
+until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and
+when he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled
+upon the ground in an ecstacy of enjoyment.
+
+When they reached the notary's, which they were not long in doing,
+for they had encountered the dwarf in a bye street at a very little
+distance from the house, Mr Brass dismounted; and opening the coach
+door with a melancholy visage, requested his sister to accompany
+him into the office, with the view of preparing the good people
+within, for the mournful intelligence that awaited them.  Miss
+Sally complying, he desired Mr Swiveller to accompany them.  So,
+into the office they went; Mr Sampson and his sister arm-in-arm;
+and Mr Swiveller following, alone.
+
+The notary was standing before the fire in the outer office,
+talking to Mr Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat
+writing at the desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation
+as happened to fall in his way.  This posture of affairs Mr Brass
+observed through the glass-door as he was turning the handle, and
+seeing that the notary recognised him, he began to shake his head
+and sigh deeply while that partition yet divided them.
+
+'Sir,' said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two fore-
+fingers of his right hand beaver glove, 'my name is Brass--Brass
+of Bevis Marks, Sir.  I have had the honour and pleasure, Sir, of
+being concerned against you in some little testamentary matters.
+How do you do, sir?'
+
+'My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr
+Brass,' said the notary, turning away.
+
+'Thank you Sir,' said Brass, 'thank you, I am sure.  Allow me, Sir,
+to introduce my sister--quite one of us Sir, although of the
+weaker sex--of great use in my business Sir, I assure you.  Mr
+Richard, sir, have the goodness to come foward if you please--No
+really,' said Brass, stepping between the notary and his private
+office (towards which he had begun to retreat), and speaking in the
+tone of an injured man, 'really Sir, I must, under favour, request
+a word or two with you, indeed.'
+
+'Mr Brass,' said the other, in a decided tone, 'I am engaged.  You
+see that I am occupied with these gentlemen.  If you will
+communicate your business to Mr Chuckster yonder, you will receive
+every attention.'
+
+'Gentlemen,' said Brass, laying his right hand on his waistcoat,
+and looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile--
+'Gentlemen, I appeal to you--really, gentlemen--consider, I beg
+of you.  I am of the law.  I am styled "gentleman" by Act of
+Parliament.  I maintain the title by the annual payment of twelve
+pound sterling for a certificate.  I am not one of your players of
+music, stage actors, writers of books, or painters of pictures, who
+assume a station that the laws of their country don't recognise.
+I am none of your strollers or vagabonds.  If any man brings his
+action against me, he must describe me as a gentleman, or his
+action is null and void.  I appeal to you--is this quite
+respectful?  Really gentlemen--'
+
+'Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr
+Brass?' said the notary.
+
+'Sir,' rejoined Brass, 'I will.  Ah Mr Witherden! you little know
+the--but I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir, I
+believe the name of one of these gentlemen is Garland.'
+
+'Of both,' said the notary.
+
+'In-deed!' rejoined Brass, cringing excessively.  'But I might have
+known that, from the uncommon likeness.  Extremely happy, I am
+sure, to have the honour of an introduction to two such gentlemen,
+although the occasion is a most painful one.  One of you gentlemen
+has a servant called Kit?'
+
+'Both,' replied the notary.
+'Two Kits?' said Brass smiling.  'Dear me!'
+
+'One Kit, sir,' returned Mr Witherden angrily, 'who is employed by
+both gentlemen.  What of him?'
+
+'This of him, sir,' rejoined Brass, dropping his voice
+impressively.  'That young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and
+unlimited confidence in, and always behaved to as if he was my
+equal--that young man has this morning committed a robbery in my
+office, and been taken almost in the fact.'
+
+'This must be some falsehood!' cried the notary.
+
+'It is not possible,' said Mr Abel.
+
+'I'll not believe one word of it,' exclaimed the old gentleman.
+
+Mr Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined,
+
+'Mr Witherden, sir, YOUR words are actionable, and if I was a man
+of low and mean standing, who couldn't afford to be slandered, I
+should proceed for damages.  Hows'ever, sir, being what I am, I
+merely scorn such expressions.  The honest warmth of the other
+gentleman I respect, and I'm truly sorry to be the messenger of
+such unpleasant news.  I shouldn't have put myself in this painful
+position, I assure you, but that the lad himself desired to be
+brought here in the first instance, and I yielded to his prayers.
+Mr Chuckster, sir, will you have the goodness to tap at the window
+for the constable that's waiting in the coach?'
+
+The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when
+these words were uttered, and Mr Chuckster, doing as he was
+desired, and leaping off his stool with something of the excitement
+of an inspired prophet whose foretellings had in the fulness of
+time been realised, held the door open for the entrance of the
+wretched captive.
+
+Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the
+rude eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called
+Heaven to witness that he was innocent, and that how the property
+came to be found upon him he knew not!  Such a confusion of
+tongues, before the circumstances were related, and the proofs
+disclosed!  Such a dead silence when all was told, and his three
+friends exchanged looks of doubt and amazement!
+
+'Is it not possible,' said Mr Witherden, after a long pause, 'that
+this note may have found its way into the hat by some accident,--
+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,
+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
+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 appearances 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.
+
+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?'
+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.
+
+While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about
+his employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion
+concerning him; but all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself
+broken the intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and
+delicacy, late on the previous night, but had himself expressed no
+opinion of his innocence or guilt.  Kit was on the point of
+mustering courage to ask Barbara's mother about Barbara, when the
+turnkey who had conducted him, reappeared, a second turnkey
+appeared behind his visitors, and the third turnkey with the
+newspaper cried 'Time's up!'--adding in the same breath 'Now for
+the next party!' and then plunging deep into his newspaper again.
+Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from his mother,
+and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears.  As he was
+crossing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the
+guidance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to
+stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand.
+
+'This is Christopher Nubbles, isn't it, that come in last night for
+felony?' said the man.
+
+His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question.
+
+'Then here's your beer,' said the other man to Christopher.  'What
+are you looking at?  There an't a discharge in it.'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said Kit.  'Who sent it me?'
+
+'Why, your friend,' replied the man.  'You're to have it every day,
+he says.  And so you will, if he pays for it.'
+
+'My friend!' repeated Kit.
+
+'You're all abroad, seemingly,' returned the other man.  'There's
+his letter.  Take hold!'
+
+Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows.
+
+'Drink of this cup, you'll find there's a spell in its every drop
+'gainst the ills of mortality.  Talk of the cordial that sparkled
+for Helen!  HER cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and
+Co.'s).--If they ever send it in a flat state, complain to the
+Governor.  Yours, R.  S.'
+
+'R.  S.!' said Kit, after some consideration.  'It must be Mr
+Richard Swiveller.  Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him
+heartily.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 62.
+
+
+A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on
+Quilp's wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog,
+as though it suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson
+Brass, as he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that
+the excellent proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and
+probably waiting with his accustomed patience and sweetness of
+temper the fulfilment of the appointment which now brought Mr Brass
+within his fair domain.
+
+'A treacherous place to pick one's steps in, of a dark night,'
+muttered Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some
+stray lumber, and limped in pain.  'I believe that boy strews the
+ground differently every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one;
+unless his master does it with his own hands, which is more than
+likely.  I hate to come to this place without Sally.  She's more
+protection than a dozen men.'
+
+As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr
+Brass came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and
+over his shoulder.
+
+'What's he about, I wonder?' murmured the lawyer, standing on
+tiptoe, and endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing
+inside, which at that distance was impossible--'drinking, I
+suppose,--making himself more fiery and furious, and heating his
+malice and mischievousness till they boil.  I'm always afraid to
+come here by myself, when his account's a pretty large one.  I
+don't believe he'd mind throttling me, and dropping me softly into
+the river when the tide was at its strongest, any more than he'd
+mind killing a rat--indeed I don't know whether he wouldn't
+consider it a pleasant joke.  Hark!  Now he's singing!'
+
+Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise,
+but it was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous
+repetition of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long
+stress upon the last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar.
+Nor did the burden of this performance bear any reference to love,
+or war, or wine, or loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of
+song, but to a subject not often set to music or generally known in
+ballads; the words being these:--'The worthy magistrate, after
+remarking that the prisoner would find some difficulty in
+persuading a jury to believe his tale, committed him to take his
+trial at the approaching sessions; and directed the customary
+recognisances to be entered into for the pros-e-cu-tion.'
+
+Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all
+possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and
+began again.
+
+'He's dreadfully imprudent,' muttered Brass, after he had listened
+to two or three repetitions of the chant.  'Horribly imprudent.  I
+wish he was dumb.  I wish he was deaf.  I wish he was blind.  Hang
+him,' cried Brass, as the chant began again.  'I wish he was dead!'
+
+Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his
+client, Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of
+smoothness, and waiting until the shriek came again and was dying
+away, went up to the wooden house, and knocked at the door.
+
+'Come in!' cried the dwarf.
+
+'How do you do to-night sir?' said Sampson, peeping in.  'Ha ha ha!
+How do you do sir?  Oh dear me, how very whimsical!  Amazingly
+whimsical to be sure!'
+
+'Come in, you fool!' returned the dwarf, 'and don't stand there
+shaking your head and showing your teeth.  Come in, you false
+witness, you perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!'
+
+'He has the richest humour!' cried Brass, shutting the door behind
+him; 'the most amazing vein of comicality!  But isn't it rather
+injudicious, sir--?'
+
+'What?' demanded Quilp.  'What, Judas?'
+
+'Judas!' cried Brass.  'He has such extraordinary spirits!  His
+humour is so extremely playful!  Judas!  Oh yes--dear me, how very
+good!  Ha ha ha!'
+All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with
+ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed
+figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall
+in a corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol
+whom the dwarf worshipped.  A mass of timber on its head, carved
+into the dim and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with
+a representation of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the
+shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the effigy of some
+famous admiral; but, without those helps, any observer might have
+supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman, or
+great sea-monster.  Being originally much too large for the
+apartment which it was now employed to decorate, it had been sawn
+short off at the waist.  Even in this state it reached from floor
+to ceiling; and thrusting itself forward, with that excessively
+wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive politeness, by
+which figure-heads are usually characterised, seemed to reduce
+everything else to mere pigmy proportions.
+
+'Do you know it?' said the dwarf, watching Sampson's eyes.  'Do you
+see the likeness?'
+
+'Eh?' said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a
+little back, as connoisseurs do.  'Now I look at it again, I fancy
+I see a--yes, there certainly is something in the smile that
+reminds me of--and yet upon my word I--'
+
+Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the
+smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much
+perplexed; being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like
+himself, and had therefore bought it for a family portrait; or
+whether he was pleased to consider it as the likeness of some
+enemy.  He was not very long in doubt; for, while he was surveying
+it with that knowing look which people assume when they are
+contemplating for the first time portraits which they ought to
+recognise but don't, the dwarf threw down the newspaper from which
+he had been chanting the words already quoted, and seizing a rusty
+iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the figure such a
+stroke on the nose that it rocked again.
+
+'Is it like Kit--is it his picture, his image, his very self?'
+cried the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible
+countenance, and covering it with deep dimples.  'Is it the exact
+model and counterpart of the dog--is it--is it--is it?'  And
+with every repetition of the question, he battered the great image,
+until the perspiration streamed down his face with the violence of
+the exercise.
+
+Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from
+a secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable
+spectacle by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is
+better than a play to people who don't live near it, there was
+something in the earnestness of Mr Quilp's manner which made his
+legal adviser feel that the counting-house was a little too small,
+and a deal too lonely, for the complete enjoyment of these humours.
+Therefore, he stood as far off as he could, while the dwarf was
+thus engaged; whimpering out but feeble applause; and when Quilp
+left off and sat down again from pure exhaustion, approached with
+more obsequiousness than ever.
+
+'Excellent indeed!' cried Brass.  'He he!  Oh, very good Sir.  You
+know,' said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised
+animal, 'he's quite a remarkable man--quite!'
+
+'Sit down,' said the dwarf.  'I bought the dog yesterday.  I've
+been screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and
+cutting my name on him.  I mean to burn him at last.'
+
+'Ha ha!' cried Brass.  'Extremely entertaining, indeed!'
+
+'Come here,' said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near.  'What's
+injudicious, hey?'
+
+'Nothing Sir--nothing.  Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I
+thought that song--admirably humorous in itself you know--was
+perhaps rather--'
+
+'Yes,' said Quilp, 'rather what?'
+
+'Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the
+confines of injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,' returned Brass, looking
+timidly at the dwarf's cunning eyes, which were turned towards the
+fire and reflected its red light.
+
+'Why?' inquired Quilp, without looking up.
+
+'Why, you know, sir,' returned Brass, venturing to be more
+familiar: '--the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little
+combinings together, of friends, for objects in themselves
+extremely laudable, but which the law terms conspiracies, are--you
+take me, sir?--best kept snug and among friends, you know.'
+
+'Eh!' said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance.
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!' cried
+Brass, nodding his head.  'Mum, sir, even here--my meaning, sir,
+exactly.'
+
+'YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,--what's your
+meaning?' retorted Quilp.  'Why do you talk to me of combining
+together?  Do I combine?  Do I know anything about your
+combinings?'
+
+'No no, sir--certainly not; not by any means,' returned Brass.
+
+'if you so wink and nod at me,' said the dwarf, looking about him
+as if for his poker, 'I'll spoil the expression of your monkey's
+face, I will.'
+'Don't put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,' rejoined Brass,
+checking himself with great alacrity.  'You're quite right, sir,
+quite right.  I shouldn't have mentioned the subject, sir.  It's
+much better not to.  You're quite right, sir.  Let us change it, if
+you please.  You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger.
+He has not returned, sir.'
+
+'No?' said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and
+watching it to prevent its boiling over.  'Why not?'
+
+'Why, sir,' returned Brass, 'he--dear me, Mr Quilp, sir--'
+
+'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act
+of carrying the saucepan to his mouth.
+
+'You have forgotten the water, sir,' said Brass.  'And--excuse me,
+sir--but it's burning hot.'
+
+Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr
+Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank
+off all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity
+about half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took
+it off the fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely.  Having swallowed
+this gentle stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade
+Mr Brass proceed.
+
+'But first,' said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, 'have a drop
+yourself--a nice drop--a good, warm, fiery drop.'
+
+'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'if there was such a thing as a mouthful
+of water that could be got without trouble--'
+
+'There's no such thing to be had here,' cried the dwarf.  'Water
+for lawyers!  Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot
+blistering pitch and tar--that's the thing for them--eh, Brass,
+eh?'
+
+'Ha ha ha!' laughed Mr Brass.  'Oh very biting! and yet it's like
+being tickled--there's a pleasure in it too, sir!'
+
+'Drink that,' said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some
+more.  'Toss it off, don't leave any heeltap, scorch your throat
+and be happy!'
+
+The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which
+immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form
+came rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the
+colour of his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a
+violent fit of coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard
+to declare, with the constancy of a martyr, that it was 'beautiful
+indeed!'  While he was yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf
+renewed their conversation.
+
+'The lodger,' said Quilp, '--what about him?'
+'He is still, sir,' returned Brass, with intervals of coughing,
+'stopping with the Garland family.  He has only been home once,
+Sir, since the day of the examination of that culprit.  He informed
+Mr Richard, sir, that he couldn't bear the house after what had
+taken place; that he was wretched in it; and that he looked upon
+himself as being in a certain kind of way the cause of the
+occurrence.--A very excellent lodger Sir.  I hope we may not lose
+him.'
+
+'Yah!' cried the dwarf.  'Never thinking of anybody but yourself--
+why don't you retrench then--scrape up, hoard, economise, eh?'
+
+'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'upon my word I think Sarah's as good an
+economiser as any going.  I do indeed, Mr Quilp.'
+
+'Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink, man!' cried the
+dwarf.  'You took a clerk to oblige me.'
+
+'Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,' replied Sampson.  'Yes,
+Sir, I did.'
+
+'Then now you may discharge him,' said Quilp.  'There's a means of
+retrenchment for you at once.'
+
+'Discharge Mr Richard, sir?' cried Brass.
+
+'Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the
+question?  Yes.'
+
+'Upon my word, Sir,' said Brass, 'I wasn't prepared for this-'
+
+'How could you be?' sneered the dwarf, 'when I wasn't?  How often
+am I to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have
+my eye on him and know where he was--and that I had a plot, a
+scheme, a little quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very
+cream and essence was, that this old man and grandchild (who have
+sunk underground I think) should be, while he and his precious
+friend believed them rich, in reality as poor as frozen rats?'
+
+'I quite understood that, sir,' rejoined Brass.  'Thoroughly.'
+
+'Well, Sir,' retorted Quilp, 'and do you understand now, that
+they're not poor--that they can't be, if they have such men as
+your lodger searching for them, and scouring the country far and
+wide?'
+
+'Of course I do, Sir,' said Sampson.
+
+'Of course you do,' retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his
+words.  'Of course do you understand then, that it's no matter what
+comes of this fellow? of course do you understand that for any
+other purpose he's no man for me, nor for you?'
+
+'I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,' returned Brass, 'that he
+was of no use at all in the business.  You can't put any confidence
+in him, sir.  If you'll believe me I've found that fellow, in the
+commonest little matters of the office that have been trusted to
+him, blurting out the truth, though expressly cautioned.  The
+aggravation of that chap sir, has exceeded anything you can
+imagine, it has indeed.  Nothing but the respect and obligation I
+owe to you, sir--'
+
+As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue,
+unless he received a timely interruption, Mr Quilp politely tapped
+him on the crown of his head with the little saucepan, and
+requested that he would be so obliging as to hold his peace.
+
+'Practical, sir, practical,' said Brass, rubbing the place and
+smiling; 'but still extremely pleasant--immensely so!'
+
+'Hearken to me, will you?' returned Quilp, 'or I'll be a little
+more pleasant, presently.  There's no chance of his comrade and
+friend returning.  The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn,
+for some knavery, and has found his way abroad.  Let him rot
+there.'
+
+'Certainly, sir.  Quite proper.--Forcible!' cried Brass, glancing
+at the admiral again, as if he made a third in company.  'Extremely
+forcible!'
+
+'I hate him,' said Quilp between his teeth, 'and have always hated
+him, for family reasons.  Besides, he was an intractable ruffian;
+otherwise he would have been of use.  This fellow is pigeon-hearted
+and light-headed.  I don't want him any longer.  Let him hang or
+drown--starve--go to the devil.'
+
+'By all means, sir,' returned Brass.  'When would you wish him,
+sir, to--ha, ha!--to make that little excursion?'
+
+'When this trial's over,' said Quilp.  'As soon as that's ended,
+send him about his business.'
+
+'It shall be done, sir,' returned Brass; 'by all means.  It will be
+rather a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under
+control.  Ah, Mr Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased
+Providence to bring you and Sarah together, in earlier life, what
+blessed results would have flowed from such a union!  You never saw
+our dear father, sir?--A charming gentleman.  Sarah was his pride
+and joy, sir.  He would have closed his eyes in bliss, would Foxey,
+Mr Quilp, if he could have found her such a partner.  You esteem
+her, sir?'
+
+'I love her,' croaked the dwarf.
+
+'You're very good, Sir,' returned Brass, 'I am sure.  Is there any
+other order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little
+matter of Mr Richard?'
+
+'None,' replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan.  'Let us drink the
+lovely Sarah.'
+
+'If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn't quite boiling,'
+suggested Brass humbly, 'perhaps it would be better.  I think it
+will be more agreeable to Sarah's feelings, when she comes to hear
+from me of the honour you have done her, if she learns it was in
+liquor rather cooler than the last, Sir.'
+
+But to these remonstrances, Mr Quilp turned a deaf ear.  Sampson
+Brass, who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled
+to take further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that,
+instead of at all contributing to his recovery, they had the novel
+effect of making the counting-house spin round and round with
+extreme velocity, and causing the floor and ceiling to heave in a
+very distressing manner.  After a brief stupor, he awoke to a
+consciousness of being partly under the table and partly under the
+grate.  This position not being the most comfortable one he could
+have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger to his feet, and,
+holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host.
+
+Mr Brass's first impression was, that his host was gone and had
+left him there alone--perhaps locked him in for the night.  A
+strong smell of tobacco, however, suggested a new train of ideas,
+he looked upward, and saw that the dwarf was smoking in his
+hammock.
+
+'Good bye, Sir,' cried Brass faintly.  'Good bye, Sir.'
+
+'Won't you stop all night?' said the dwarf, peeping out.  'Do stop
+all night!'
+
+'I couldn't indeed, Sir,' replied Brass, who was almost dead from
+nausea and the closeness of the room.  'If you'd have the goodness
+to show me a light, so that I may see my way across the yard,
+sir--'
+
+Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head
+first, or his arms first, but bodily--altogether.
+
+'To be sure,' he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only
+light in the place.  'Be careful how you go, my dear friend.  Be
+sure to pick your way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are
+upwards.  There's a dog in the lane.  He bit a man last night, and
+a woman the night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child--but
+that was in play.  Don't go too near him.'
+
+'Which side of the road is he, sir?' asked Brass, in great dismay.
+
+'He lives on the right hand,' said Quilp, 'but sometimes he hides
+on the left, ready for a spring.  He's uncertain in that respect.
+Mind you take care of yourself.  I'll never forgive you if you
+don't.  There's the light out--never mind--you know the way--
+straight on!'
+Quilp had slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast,
+and now stood chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture
+of delight, as he heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now
+and then falling heavily down.  At length, however, he got quit of
+the place, and was out of hearing.
+
+The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his
+hammock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 63
+
+
+The professional gentleman who had given Kit the consolatory piece
+of information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business
+at the Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon
+disposed of, turned out to be quite correct in his
+prognostications.  In eight days' time, the sessions commenced.  In
+one day afterwards, the Grand jury found a True Bill against
+Christopher Nubbles for felony; and in two days from that finding,
+the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called upon to plead Guilty
+or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the said Christopher did
+feloniously abstract and steal from the dwelling-house and office
+of one Sampson Brass, gentleman, one Bank Note for Five Pounds
+issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England; in
+contravention of the Statutes in that case made and provided, and
+against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and
+dignity.
+
+To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trembling
+voice, pleaded Not Guilty; and here, let those who are in the habit
+of forming hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had
+Christopher, if innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe,
+that confinement and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and
+that to one who has been close shut up, though it be only for ten
+or eleven days, seeing but stone walls and a very few stony faces,
+the sudden entrance into a great hall filled with life, is a rather
+disconcerting and startling circumstance.  To this, it must be
+added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more
+terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair; and
+if, in addition to these considerations, there be taken into
+account Kit's natural emotion on seeing the two Mr Garlands and the
+little Notary looking on with pale and anxious faces, it will
+perhaps seem matter of no very great wonder that he should have
+been rather out of sorts, and unable to make himself quite at home.
+
+Although he had never seen either of the Mr Garlands, or Mr
+Witherden, since the time of his arrest, he had been given to
+understand that they had employed counsel for him.  Therefore, when
+one of the gentlemen in wigs got up and said 'I am for the
+prisoner, my Lord,' Kit made him a bow; and when another gentleman
+in a wig got up and said 'And I'm against him, my Lord,' Kit
+trembled very much, and bowed to him too.  And didn't he hope in
+his own heart that his gentleman was a match for the other
+gentleman, and would make him ashamed of himself in no time!
+
+The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in
+dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly
+procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the
+misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure;
+telling the jury that if they acquitted this prisoner they must
+expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the
+other jury they would certainly undergo if they convicted that
+prisoner.  And when he had told them all about the case, and that
+he had never known a worse case, he stopped a little while, like a
+man who had something terrible to tell them, and then said that he
+understood an attempt would be made by his learned friend (and here
+he looked sideways at Kit's gentleman) to impeach the testimony of
+those immaculate witnesses whom he should call before them; but he
+did hope and trust that his learned friend would have a greater
+respect and veneration for the character of the prosecutor; than
+whom, as he well knew, there did not exist, and never had existed,
+a more honourable member of that most honourable profession to
+which he was attached.  And then he said, did the jury know Bevis
+Marks?  And if they did know Bevis Marks (as he trusted for their
+own character, they did) did they know the historical and elevating
+associations connected with that most remarkable spot?  Did they
+believe that a man like Brass could reside in a place like Bevis
+Marks, and not be a virtuous and most upright character?  And when
+he had said a great deal to them on this point, he remembered that
+it was an insult to their understandings to make any remarks on
+what they must have felt so strongly without him, and therefore
+called Sampson Brass into the witness-box, straightway.
+
+Then up comes Mr Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to
+the judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him
+before, and who hopes he has been pretty well since their last
+meeting, folds his arms, and looks at his gentleman as much as to
+say 'Here I am--full of evidence--Tap me!'  And the gentleman
+does tap him presently, and with great discretion too; drawing off
+the evidence by little and little, and making it run quite clear
+and bright in the eyes of all present.  Then, Kit's gentleman takes
+him in hand, but can make nothing of him; and after a great many
+very long questions and very short answers, Mr Sampson Brass goes
+down in glory.
+
+To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by
+Mr Brass's gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit's.  In short, Kit's
+gentleman can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she
+has said before (only a little stronger this time, as against his
+client), and therefore lets her go, in some confusion.  Then, Mr
+Brass's gentleman calls Richard Swiveller, and Richard Swiveller
+appears accordingly.
+
+Now, Mr Brass's gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this
+witness is disposed to be friendly to the prisoner--which, to say
+the truth, he is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered
+to lie in what is familiarly termed badgering.  Wherefore, he
+begins by requesting the officer to be quite sure that this witness
+kisses the book, then goes to work at him, tooth and nail.
+
+'Mr Swiveller,' says this gentleman to Dick, when he had told his
+tale with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it:
+'Pray sir, where did you dine yesterday?'--'Where did I dine
+yesterday?'--'Aye, sir, where did you dine yesterday--was it near
+here, sir?'--'Oh to be sure--yes--just over the way.'--'To be sure.
+Yes.  just over the way,' repeats Mr Brass's gentleman, with a
+glance at the court.--'Alone, sir?'--'I beg your pardon,' says Mr
+Swiveller, who has not caught the question--'Alone, sir?' repeats
+Mr Brass's gentleman in a voice of thunder, 'did you dine alone?
+Did you treat anybody, sir? Come!'--'Oh yes, to be sure--yes, I
+did,' says Mr Swiveller with a smile.--'Have the goodness to banish
+a levity, sir, which is very ill-suited to the place in which you
+stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful that it's only
+that place),' says Mr Brass's gentleman, with a nod of the head,
+insinuating that the dock is Mr Swiveller's legitimate sphere of
+action; 'and attend to me.  You were waiting about here, yesterday,
+in expectation that this trial was coming on.  You dined over the
+way.  You treated somebody.  Now, was that somebody brother to the
+prisoner at the bar?'--Mr Swiveller is proceeding to explain--'Yes
+or No, sir,' cries Mr Brass's gentleman--'But will you allow me--'
+--'Yes or No, sir'--'Yes it was, but--'--'Yes it was,' cries the
+gentleman, taking him up short.  'And a very pretty witness YOU
+are!'
+
+Down sits Mr Brass's gentleman.  Kit's gentleman, not knowing how
+the matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject.  Richard
+Swiveller retires abashed.  Judge, jury and spectators have visions
+of his lounging about, with an ill-looking, large-whiskered,
+dissolute young fellow of six feet high.  The reality is, little
+Jacob, with the calves of his legs exposed to the open air, and
+himself tied up in a shawl.  Nobody knows the truth; everybody
+believes a falsehood; and all because of the ingenuity of Mr
+Brass's gentleman.
+
+Then come the witnesses to character, and here Mr Brass's gentleman
+shines again.  It turns out that Mr Garland has had no character
+with Kit, no recommendation of him but from his own mother, and
+that he was suddenly dismissed by his former master for unknown
+reasons.  'Really Mr Garland,' says Mr Brass's gentleman, 'for a
+person who has arrived at your time of life, you are, to say the
+least of it, singularly indiscreet, I think.'  The jury think so
+too, and find Kit guilty.  He is taken off, humbly protesting his
+innocence.  The spectators settle themselves in their places with
+renewed attention, for there are several female witnesses to be
+examined in the next case, and it has been rumoured that Mr Brass's
+gentleman will make great fun in cross-examining them for the
+prisoner.
+
+Kit's mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs,
+accompanied by Barbara's mother (who, honest soul! never does
+anything but cry, and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues.
+The newspaper-reading turnkey has told them all.  He don't think it
+will be transportation for life, because there's time to prove the
+good character yet, and that is sure to serve him.  He wonders what
+he did it for.  'He never did it!' cries Kit's mother.  'Well,'
+says the turnkey, 'I won't contradict you.  It's all one, now,
+whether he did it or not.'
+
+Kit's mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it--
+God, and those to whom he has given such tenderness, only know in
+how much agony.  Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under
+pretence of having the children lifted up to kiss him, prays
+Barbara's mother in a whisper to take her home.
+
+'Some friend will rise up for us, mother,' cried Kit, 'I am sure.
+If not now, before long.  My innocence will come out, mother, and
+I shall be brought back again; I feel confidence in that.  You must
+teach little Jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they
+thought I had ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to
+understand, it would break my heart to know it, if I was thousands
+of miles away.--Oh! is there no good gentleman here, who will
+take care of her!'
+
+The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon
+the earth, insensible.  Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows
+the bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in
+one arm after the manner of theatrical ravishers, and, nodding to
+Kit, and commanding Barbara's mother to follow, for he has a coach
+waiting, bears her swiftly off.
+
+Well; Richard took her home.  And what astonishing absurdities in
+the way of quotation from song and poem he perpetrated on the road,
+no man knows.  He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered;
+and, having no money to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis
+Marks, bidding the driver (for it was Saturday night) wait at the
+door while he went in for 'change.'
+
+'Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass cheerfully, 'Good evening!'
+
+Monstrous as Kit's tale had appeared, at first, Mr Richard did,
+that night, half suspect his affable employer of some deep villany.
+Perhaps it was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his
+careless nature this impulse; but, be that as it may, it was very
+strong upon him, and he said in as few words as possible, what he
+wanted.
+
+'Money?' cried Brass, taking out his purse.  'Ha ha!  To be sure,
+Mr Richard, to be sure, sir.  All men must live.  You haven't
+change for a five-pound note, have you sir?'
+
+'No,' returned Dick, shortly.
+
+'Oh!' said Brass, 'here's the very sum.  That saves trouble.
+You're very welcome I'm sure.--Mr Richard, sir--'
+Dick, who had by this time reached the door, turned round.
+
+'You needn't,' said Brass, 'trouble yourself to come back any more,
+Sir.'
+
+'Eh?'
+
+'You see, Mr Richard,' said Brass, thrusting his hands in his
+pockets, and rocking himself to and fro on his stool, 'the fact is,
+that a man of your abilities is lost, Sir, quite lost, in our dry
+and mouldy line.  It's terrible drudgery--shocking.  I should say,
+now, that the stage, or the--or the army, Mr Richard--or
+something very superior in the licensed victualling way--was the
+kind of thing that would call out the genius of such a man as you.
+I hope you'll look in to see us now and then.  Sally, Sir, will be
+delighted I'm sure.  She's extremely sorry to lose you, Mr Richard,
+but a sense of her duty to society reconciles her.  An amazing
+creature that, sir!  You'll find the money quite correct, I think.
+There's a cracked window sir, but I've not made any deduction on
+that account.  Whenever we part with friends, Mr Richard, let us
+part liberally.  A delightful sentiment, sir!'
+
+To all these rambling observations, Mr Swiveller answered not one
+word, but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight
+round ball: looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some
+intention of bowling him down with it.  He only took it under his
+arm, however, and marched out of the office in profound silence.
+When he had closed the door, he re-opened it, stared in again for
+a few moments with the same portentous gravity, and nodding his
+head once, in a slow and ghost-like manner, vanished.
+
+He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with
+great designs for the comforting of Kit's mother and the aid of Kit
+himself.
+
+But the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard
+Swiveller, are extremely precarious.  The spiritual excitement of
+the last fortnight, working upon a system affected in no slight
+degree by the spirituous excitement of some years, proved a little
+too much for him.  That very night, Mr Richard was seized with an
+alarming illness, and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a
+raging fever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 64
+
+Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce
+thirst which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change
+of posture, a moment's peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through
+deserts of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or
+sound suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull
+eternal weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his
+miserable body, and the weary wandering of his mind, constant still
+to one ever-present anxiety--to a sense of something left undone,
+of some fearful obstacle to be surmounted, of some carking care
+that would not be driven away, and which haunted the distempered
+brain, now in this form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but
+recognisable for the same phantom in every shape it took: darkening
+every vision like an evil conscience, and making slumber horrible--
+in these slow tortures of his dread disease, the unfortunate
+Richard lay wasting and consuming inch by inch, until, at last,
+when he seemed to fight and struggle to rise up, and to be held
+down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and dreamed no more.
+
+He awoke.  With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than
+sleep itself, he began gradually to remember something of these
+sufferings, and to think what a long night it had been, and whether
+he had not been delirious twice or thrice.  Happening, in the midst
+of these cogitations, to raise his hand, he was astonished to find
+how heavy it seemed, and yet how thin and light it really was.
+Still, he felt indifferent and happy; and having no curiosity to
+pursue the subject, remained in the same waking slumber until his
+attention was attracted by a cough.  This made him doubt whether he
+had locked his door last night, and feel a little surprised at
+having a companion in the room.  Still, he lacked energy to follow
+up this train of thought; and unconsciously fell, in a luxury of
+repose, to staring at some green stripes on the bed-furniture, and
+associating them strangely with patches of fresh turf, while the
+yellow ground between made gravel-walks, and so helped out a long
+perspective of trim gardens.
+
+He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite
+lost himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more.
+The walks shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising
+himself a little in the bed, and holding the curtain open with one
+hand, he looked out.
+
+The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but with what
+unbounded astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins,
+and articles of linen airing by the fire, and such-like furniture
+of a sick chamber--all very clean and neat, but all quite
+different from anything he had left there, when he went to bed!
+The atmosphere, too, filled with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar;
+the floor newly sprinkled; the--the what?  The Marchioness?
+
+Yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table.  There she sat,
+intent upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as
+if she feared to disturb him--shuffling the cards, cutting,
+dealing, playing, counting, pegging--going through all the
+mysteries of cribbage as if she had been in full practice from her
+cradle!  Mr Swiveller contemplated these things for a short time,
+and suffering the curtain to fall into its former position, laid
+his head on the pillow again.
+
+'I'm dreaming,' thought Richard, 'that's clear.  When I went to
+bed, my hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see
+through 'em.  If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake,
+in an Arabian Night, instead of a London one.  But I have no doubt
+I'm asleep.  Not the least.'
+
+Here the small servant had another cough.
+
+'Very remarkable!' thought Mr Swiveller.  'I never dreamt such a
+real cough as that before.  I don't know, indeed, that I ever
+dreamt either a cough or a sneeze.  Perhaps it's part of the
+philosophy of dreams that one never does.  There's another--and
+another--I say!--I'm dreaming rather fast!'
+
+For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr Swiveller, after
+some reflection, pinched himself in the arm.
+
+'Queerer still!' he thought.  'I came to bed rather plump than
+otherwise, and now there's nothing to lay hold of.  I'll take
+another survey.'
+
+The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr
+Swiveller that the objects by which he was surrounded were real,
+and that he saw them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes.
+
+'It's an Arabian Night; that's what it is,' said Richard.  'I'm in
+Damascus or Grand Cairo.  The Marchioness is a Genie, and having
+had a wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young
+man alive, and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of
+China, has brought me away, room and all, to compare us together.
+Perhaps,' said Mr Swiveller, turning languidly round on his pillow,
+and looking on that side of his bed which was next the wall, 'the
+Princess may be still--No, she's gone.'
+
+Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking
+it to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and
+doubt, Mr Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take
+the first favourable opportunity of addressing his companion.  An
+occasion presented itself.  The Marchioness dealt, turned up a
+knave, and omitted to take the usual advantage; upon which Mr
+Swiveller called out as loud as he could--'Two for his heels!'
+
+The Marchioness jumped up quickly and clapped her hands.  'Arabian
+Night, certainly,' thought Mr Swiveller; 'they always clap their
+hands instead of ringing the bell.  Now for the two thousand black
+slaves, with jars of jewels on their heads!'
+
+It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy;
+for directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry;
+declaring, not in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she
+was 'so glad, she didn't know what to do.'
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully, 'be pleased to draw
+nearer.  First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me
+where I shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my
+flesh?'
+
+The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again;
+whereupon Mr Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected
+likewise.
+
+'I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appearances,
+Marchioness,' said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a
+trembling lip, 'that I have been ill.'
+
+'You just have!' replied the small servant, wiping her eyes.  'And
+haven't you been a talking nonsense!'
+
+'Oh!' said Dick.  'Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?'
+
+'Dead, all but,' replied the small servant.  'I never thought you'd
+get better.  Thank Heaven you have!'
+
+Mr Swiveller was silent for a long while.  By and bye, he began to
+talk again, inquiring how long he had been there.
+
+'Three weeks to-morrow,' replied the servant.
+
+'Three what?' said Dick.
+
+'Weeks,' returned the Marchioness emphatically; 'three long, slow
+weeks.'
+
+The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard
+to fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his
+full length.  The Marchioness, having arranged the bed-clothes more
+comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool--
+a discovery that filled her with delight--cried a little more,
+and then applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin
+dry toast.
+
+While she was thus engaged, Mr Swiveller looked on with a grateful
+heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made
+herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally
+Brass, whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough.  When the
+Marchioness had finished her toasting, she spread a clean cloth on
+a tray, and brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak
+tea, with which (she said) the doctor had left word he might
+refresh himself when he awoke.  She propped him up with pillows, if
+not as skilfully as if she had been a professional nurse all her
+life, at least as tenderly; and looked on with unutterable
+satisfaction while the patient--stopping every now and then to
+shake her by the hand--took his poor meal with an appetite and
+relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under any other
+circumstances, would have failed to provoke.  Having cleared away,
+and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down
+at the table to take her own tea.
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'how's Sally?'
+
+The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very
+uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.
+
+'What, haven't you seen her lately?' said Dick.
+
+'Seen her!' cried the small servant.  'Bless you, I've run away!'
+
+Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so
+remained for about five minutes.  By slow degrees he resumed his
+sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:
+
+'And where do you live, Marchioness?'
+
+'Live!' cried the small servant.  'Here!'
+
+'Oh!' said Mr Swiveller.
+
+And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had
+been shot.  Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech,
+until she had finished her meal, put everything in its place, and
+swept the hearth; when he motioned her to bring a chair to the
+bedside, and, being propped up again, opened a farther
+conversation.
+
+'And so,' said Dick, 'you have run away?'
+
+'Yes,' said the Marchioness, 'and they've been a tizing of me.'
+
+'Been--I beg your pardon,' said Dick--'what have they been doing?'
+
+'Been a tizing of me--tizing you know--in the newspapers,'
+rejoined the Marchioness.
+
+'Aye, aye,' said Dick, 'advertising?'
+
+The small servant nodded, and winked.  Her eyes were so red with
+waking and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with
+greater consistency.  And so Dick felt.
+
+'Tell me,' said he, 'how it was that you thought of coming here.'
+
+'Why, you see,' returned the Marchioness, 'when you was gone, I
+hadn't any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back,
+and I didn't know where either him or you was to be found, you
+know.  But one morning, when I was-'
+
+'Was near a keyhole?' suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she
+faltered.
+
+'Well then,' said the small servant, nodding; 'when I was near the
+office keyhole--as you see me through, you know--I heard somebody
+saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged
+at, and that you was took very bad, and wouldn't nobody come and
+take care of you.  Mr Brass, he says, "It's no business of mine,"
+he says; and Miss Sally, she says, "He's a funny chap, but it's no
+business of mine;" and the lady went away, and slammed the door to,
+when she went out, I can tell you.  So I run away that night, and
+come here, and told 'em you was my brother, and they believed me,
+and I've been here ever since.'
+
+'This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death!'
+cried Dick.
+
+'No I haven't,' she returned, 'not a bit of it.  Don't you mind
+about me.  I like sitting up, and I've often had a sleep, bless
+you, in one of them chairs.  But if you could have seen how you
+tried to jump out o' winder, and if you could have heard how you
+used to keep on singing and making speeches, you wouldn't have
+believed it--I'm so glad you're better, Mr Liverer.'
+
+'Liverer indeed!' said Dick thoughtfully.  'It's well I am a
+liverer.  I strongly suspect I should have died, Marchioness, but
+for you.'
+
+At this point, Mr Swiveller took the small servant's hand in his
+again, and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling
+to express his thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that
+she quickly changed the theme by making him lie down, and urging
+him to keep very quiet.
+
+'The doctor,' she told him, 'said you was to be kept quite still,
+and there was to be no noise nor nothing.  Now, take a rest, and
+then we'll talk again.  I'll sit by you, you know.  If you shut
+your eyes, perhaps you'll go to sleep.  You'll be all the better
+for it, if you do.'
+
+The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to
+the bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the
+concoction of some cooling drink, with the address of a score of
+chemists.  Richard Swiveller being indeed fatigued, fell into a
+slumber, and waking in about half an hour, inquired what time it
+was.
+
+'Just gone half after six,' replied his small friend, helping him
+to sit up again.
+
+'Marchioness,' said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead and
+turning suddenly round, as though the subject but that moment
+flashed upon him, 'what has become of Kit?'
+
+He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she
+said.
+
+'Has he gone?' asked Dick--'his mother--how is she,--what has
+become of her?'
+
+His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about
+them.  'But, if I thought,' said she, very slowly, 'that you'd keep
+quiet, and not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you--
+but I won't now.'
+
+'Yes, do,' said Dick.  'It will amuse me.'
+
+'Oh! would it though!' rejoined the small servant, with a horrified
+look.  'I know better than that.  Wait till you're better and then
+I'll tell you.'
+
+
+Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes,
+being large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so
+much, that she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think
+any more about it.  What had already fallen from her, however, had
+not only piqued his curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore
+he urged her to tell him the worst at once.
+
+'Oh there's no worst in it,' said the small servant.  'It hasn't
+anything to do with you.'
+
+'Has it anything to do with--is it anything you heard through
+chinks or keyholes--and that you were not intended to hear?' asked
+Dick, in a breathless state.
+
+'Yes,' replied the small servant.
+
+'In--in Bevis Marks?' pursued Dick hastily.  'Conversations
+between Brass and Sally?'
+
+'Yes,' cried the small servant again.
+
+Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her
+by the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it,
+and freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being
+wholly unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation.
+She, seeing that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of
+postponing her revelation might be much more injurious than any
+that were likely to ensue from its being made at once, promised
+compliance, on condition that the patient kept himself perfectly
+quiet, and abstained from starting up or tossing about.
+
+'But if you begin to do that,' said the small servant, 'I'll leave
+off.  And so I tell you.'
+
+'You can't leave off, till you have gone on,' said Dick.  'And do
+go on, there's a darling.  Speak, sister, speak.  Pretty Polly say.
+Oh tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech
+you!'
+
+Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller
+poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn
+and tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:
+
+'Well!  Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen--where
+we played cards, you know.  Miss Sally used to keep the key of the
+kitchen door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to
+take away the candle and rake out the fire.  When she had done
+that, she left me to go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the
+outside, put the key in her pocket again, and kept me locked up
+till she come down in the morning--very early I can tell you--and
+let me out.  I was terrible afraid of being kept like this, because
+if there was a fire, I thought they might forget me and only take
+care of themselves you know.  So, whenever I see an old rusty key
+anywhere, I picked it up and tried if it would fit the door, and at
+last I found in the dust cellar a key that did fit it.'
+
+Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs.  But
+the small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided
+again, and pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact,
+entreated her to proceed.
+
+'They kept me very short,' said the small servant.  'Oh! you can't
+think how short they kept me!  So I used to come out at night after
+they'd gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit,
+or sangwitches that you'd left in the office, or even pieces of
+orange peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine.
+Did you ever taste orange peel and water?'
+
+Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor;
+and once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her
+narrative.
+
+'If you make believe very much, it's quite nice,' said the small
+servant, 'but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear
+a little more seasoning, certainly.  Well, sometimes I used to come
+out after they'd gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and
+one or two nights before there was all that precious noise in the
+office--when the young man was took, I mean--I come upstairs
+while Mr Brass and Miss Sally was a-sittin' at the office fire; and
+I tell you the truth, that I come to listen again, about the key of
+the safe.'
+
+Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of
+the bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of
+the utmost concern.  But the small servant pausing, and holding up
+her finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern
+did not.
+
+'There was him and her,' said the small servant, 'a-sittin' by the
+fire, and talking softly together.  Mr Brass says to Miss Sally,
+"Upon my word," he says "it's a dangerous thing, and it might get
+us into a world of trouble, and I don't half like it." She says--
+you know her way--she says, "You're the chickenest-hearted,
+feeblest, faintest man I ever see, and I think," she says, "that I
+ought to have been the brother, and you the sister.  Isn't Quilp,"
+she says, "our principal support?" "He certainly is," says Mr
+Brass, "And an't we," she says, "constantly ruining somebody or
+other in the way of business?" "We certainly are," says Mr Brass.
+"Then does it signify," she says, "about ruining this Kit when
+Quilp desires it?" "It certainly does not signify," says Mr Brass.
+Then they whispered and laughed for a long time about there being
+no danger if it was well done, and then Mr Brass pulls out his
+pocket-book, and says, "Well," he says, 'here it is--Quilp's own
+five-pound note.  We'll agree that way, then," he says.  "Kit's
+coming to-morrow morning, I know.  While he's up-stairs, you'll get
+out of the way, and I'll clear off Mr Richard.  Having Kit alone,
+I'll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat.
+I'll manage so, besides," he says, 'that Mr Richard shall find it
+there, and be the evidence.  And if that don't get Christopher out
+of Mr Quilp's way, and satisfy Mr Quilp's grudges," he says, "the
+Devil's in it." Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and
+as they seemed to be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any
+longer, I went down-stairs again.--There!'
+
+The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much
+agitation as Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain
+him when he sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story
+had been told to anybody.
+
+'How could it be?' replied his nurse.  'I was almost afraid to
+think about it, and hoped the young man would be let off.  When I
+heard 'em say they had found him guilty of what he didn't do, you
+was gone, and so was the lodger--though I think I should have been
+frightened to tell him, even if he'd been there.  Ever since I come
+here, you've been out of your senses, and what would have been the
+good of telling you then?'
+
+'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and
+flinging it to the other end of the room; 'if you'll do me the
+favour to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it
+is, I'll get up.'
+
+'You mustn't think of such a thing,' cried his nurse.
+
+'I must indeed,' said the patient, looking round the room.
+'Whereabouts are my clothes?'
+
+'Oh, I'm so glad--you haven't got any,' replied the Marchioness.
+
+'Ma'am!' said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.
+
+'I've been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that
+was ordered for you.  But don't take on about that,' urged the
+Marchioness, as Dick fell back upon his pillow.  'You're too weak
+to stand, indeed.'
+
+'I am afraid,' said Richard dolefully, 'that you're right.  What
+ought I to do! what is to be done!'
+
+It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the
+first step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr
+Garlands instantly.  It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet
+left the office.  In as little time as it takes to tell it, the
+small servant had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a
+verbal description of father and son, which would enable her to
+recognise either, without difficulty; and a special caution to be
+shy of Mr Chuckster, in consequence of that gentleman's known
+antipathy to Kit.  Armed with these slender powers, she hurried
+away, commissioned to bring either old Mr Garland or Mr Abel,
+bodily, to that apartment.
+
+'I suppose,' said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped
+into the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, 'I
+suppose there's nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat even?'
+
+'No, nothing.'
+
+'It's embarrassing,' said Mr Swiveller, 'in case of fire--even an
+umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear
+Marchioness.  I should have died without you!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 65
+
+
+It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick
+nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very
+neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear,
+would probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the
+supreme authority over her person.  Not unmindful of the risk she
+ran, however, the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she
+dived into the first dark by-way that presented itself, and,
+without any present reference to the point to which her journey
+tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of brick
+and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.
+
+When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her
+course for the notary's office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of
+apple-women and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than
+in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of
+attracting notice--she easily procured a direction.  As carrier-
+pigeons, on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air
+at random for a short time before darting off towards the spot for
+which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and
+round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly
+down upon the port for which she was bound.
+
+She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in
+some old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in
+head-dresses was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was
+rather retarded than assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely
+large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult
+to find again, among the crowd of passengers.  Indeed, the poor
+little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having
+to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and
+suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing, squeezing
+and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the
+street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out and
+exhausted, and could not refrain from tears.
+
+But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as
+there were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore
+some hope that she was not too late.  So the Marchioness dried her
+eyes with the backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the
+steps, peeped in through the glass door.
+
+Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such
+preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down
+his wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck
+more gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers
+by the aid of a little triangular bit of looking glass.  Before the
+ashes of the fire stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly
+judged to be the notary, and the other (who was buttoning his
+great-coat and was evidently about to depart immediately) Mr Abel
+Garland.
+
+Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with
+herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out,
+as there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr
+Chuckster, and less difficulty in delivering her message.  With
+this purpose she slipped out again, and crossing the road, sat down
+upon a door-step just opposite.
+
+She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the
+street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns,
+a pony.  This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in
+it; but neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the
+least, as he reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or
+stood still again, or backed, or went side-ways, without the
+smallest reference to them--just as the fancy seized him, and as
+if he were the freest animal in creation.  When they came to the
+notary's door, the man called out in a very respectful manner, 'Woa
+then'--intimating that if he might venture to express a wish, it
+would be that they stopped there.  The pony made a moment's pause;
+but, as if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required
+might be to establish an inconvenient and dangerous precedent, he
+immediately started off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street
+corner, wheeled round, came back, and then stopped of his own
+accord.
+
+'Oh! you're a precious creatur!' said the man--who didn't venture
+by the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the
+pavement.  'I wish I had the rewarding of you--I do.'
+
+'What has he been doing?' said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his
+neck as he came down the steps.
+
+'He's enough to fret a man's heart out,' replied the hostler.  'He
+is the most wicious rascal--Woa then, will you?'
+
+'He'll never stand still, if you call him names,' said Mr Abel,
+getting in, and taking the reins.  'He's a very good fellow if you
+know how to manage him.  This is the first time he has been out,
+this long while, for he has lost his old driver and wouldn't stir
+for anybody else, till this morning.  The lamps are right, are
+they?  That's well.  Be here to take him to-morrow, if you please.
+Good night!'
+
+And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention,
+the pony yielded to Mr Abel's mildness, and trotted gently off.
+
+All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the
+small servant had been afraid to approach.  She had nothing for it
+now, therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel
+to stop.  Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was
+unable to make him hear.  The case was desperate; for the pony was
+quickening his pace.  The Marchioness hung on behind for a few
+moments, and, feeling that she could go no farther, and must soon
+yield, clambered by a vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in
+so doing lost one of the shoes for ever.
+
+Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite
+enough to do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without
+looking round: little dreaming of the strange figure that was close
+behind him, until the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered
+her breath, and the loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her
+position, uttered close into his ear, the words--'I say, Sir'--
+
+He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony,
+cried, with some trepidation, 'God bless me, what is this!'
+
+'Don't be frightened, Sir,' replied the still panting messenger.
+'Oh I've run such a way after you!'
+
+'What do you want with me?' said Mr Abel.  'How did you come here?'
+
+'I got in behind,' replied the Marchioness.  'Oh please drive on,
+sir--don't stop--and go towards the City, will you?  And oh do
+please make haste, because it's of consequence.  There's somebody
+wants to see you there.  He sent me to say would you come directly,
+and that he knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove
+his innocence.'
+
+'What do you tell me, child?'
+
+'The truth, upon my word and honour I do.  But please to drive on--
+quick, please!  I've been such a time gone, he'll think I'm
+lost.'
+
+Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward.  The pony, impelled
+by some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great
+pace, and neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric
+performances, until they arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller's
+lodging, where, marvellous to relate, he consented to stop when Mr
+Abel checked him.
+
+'See!  It's the room up there,' said the Marchioness, pointing to
+one where there was a faint light.  'Come!'
+
+Mr Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in
+existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated; for he had heard
+of people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and
+murdered, under circumstances very like the present, and, for
+anything he knew to the contrary, by guides very like the
+Marchioness.  His regard for Kit, however, overcame every other
+consideration.  So, entrusting Whisker to the charge of a man who
+was lingering hard by in expectation of the Job, he suffered his
+companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the dark and narrow
+stairs.
+
+He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a
+dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in
+bed.
+
+'An't it nice to see him lying there so quiet?' said his guide, in
+an earnest whisper.  'Oh! you'd say it was, if you had only seen
+him two or three days ago.'
+
+Mr Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from
+the bed and very near the door.  His guide, who appeared to
+understand his reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her
+hand, approached the bed.  As she did so, the sleeper started up,
+and he recognised in the wasted face the features of Richard
+Swiveller.
+
+'Why, how is this?' said Mr Abel kindly, as he hurried towards him.
+'You have been ill?'
+
+'Very,' replied Dick.  'Nearly dead.  You might have chanced to
+hear of your Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to
+fetch you.  Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please.
+Sit down, Sir.'
+
+Mr Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his
+guide, and took a chair by the bedside.
+
+'I have sent for you, Sir,' said Dick--'but she told you on what
+account?'
+
+'She did.  I am quite bewildered by all this.  I really don't know
+what to say or think,' replied Mr Abel.
+
+'You'll say that presently,' retorted Dick.  'Marchioness, take a
+seat on the bed, will you?  Now, tell this gentleman all that you
+told me; and be particular.  Don't you speak another word, Sir.'
+
+The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as
+before, without any deviation or omission.  Richard Swiveller kept
+his eyes fixed on his visitor during its narration, and directly it
+was concluded, took the word again.
+
+'You have heard it all, and you'll not forget it.  I'm too giddy
+and too queer to suggest anything; but you and your friends will
+know what to do.  After this long delay, every minute is an age.
+If ever you went home fast in your life, go home fast to-night.
+Don't stop to say one word to me, but go.  She will be found here,
+whenever she's wanted; and as to me, you're pretty sure to find me
+at home, for a week or two.  There are more reasons than one for
+that.  Marchioness, a light!  If you lose another minute in looking
+at me, sir, I'll never forgive you!'
+
+Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion.  He was gone in
+an instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him
+down-stairs, reported that the pony, without any preliminary
+objection whatever, had dashed away at full gallop.
+
+'That's right!' said Dick; 'and hearty of him; and I honour him
+from this time.  But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am
+sure you must be tired.  Do have a mug of beer.  It will do me as
+much good to see you take it as if I might drink it myself.'
+
+Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small
+nurse to indulge in such a luxury.  Having eaten and drunk to Mr
+Swiveller's extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put
+everything in neat order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet
+and lay down upon the rug before the fire.
+
+Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, 'Strew then,
+oh strew, a bed of rushes.  Here will we stay, till morning
+blushes.  Good night, Marchioness!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 66
+
+
+On awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by
+slow degrees, of whispering voices in his room.  Looking out
+between the curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary,
+and the single gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and
+talking to her with great earnestness but in very subdued tones--
+fearing, no doubt, to disturb him.  He lost no time in letting them
+know that this precaution was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen
+directly approached his bedside.  Old Mr Garland was the first to
+stretch out his hand, and inquire how he felt.
+
+Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as
+weak as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside
+and pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their
+interference, set his breakfast before him, and insisted on his
+taking it before he underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being
+spoken to.  Mr Swiveller, who was perfectly ravenous, and had had,
+all night, amazingly distinct and consistent dreams of mutton
+chops, double stout, and similar delicacies, felt even the weak tea
+and dry toast such irresistible temptations, that he consented to
+eat and drink on one condition.
+
+'And that is,' said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland's
+hand, 'that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit
+or drop.  Is it too late?'
+
+'For completing the work you began so well last night?' returned
+the old gentleman.  'No.  Set your mind at rest on that point.  It
+is not, I assure you.'
+
+Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his
+food with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest
+in the eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat.
+The manner of this meal was this:--Mr Swiveller, holding the slice
+of toast or cup of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or
+drink, as the case might be, constantly kept, in his right, one
+palm of the Marchioness tight locked; and to shake, or even to kiss
+this imprisoned hand, he would stop every now and then, in the very
+act of swallowing, with perfect seriousness of intention, and the
+utmost gravity.  As often as he put anything into his mouth,
+whether for eating or drinking, the face of the Marchioness lighted
+up beyond all description; but whenever he gave her one or other of
+these tokens of recognition, her countenance became overshadowed,
+and she began to sob.  Now, whether she was in her laughing joy, or
+in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help turning to the
+visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say, 'You see this
+fellow--can I help this?'--and they, being thus made, as it were,
+parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look, 'No.
+Certainly not.'  This dumb-show, taking place during the whole time
+of the invalid's breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and
+emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly
+questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was
+spoken from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in
+themselves so slight and unimportant.
+
+At length--and to say the truth before very long--Mr Swiveller
+had despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his
+recovery it was discreet to let him have.  But the cares of the
+Marchioness did not stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and
+presently returning with a basin of fair water, she laved his face
+and hands, brushed his hair, and in short made him as spruce and
+smart as anybody under such circumstances could be made; and all
+this, in as brisk and business-like a manner, as if he were a very
+little boy, and she his grown-up nurse.  To these various
+attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in a kind of grateful
+astonishment beyond the reach of language.  When they were at last
+brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn into a distant
+corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by that time),
+he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook hands
+heartily with the air.
+
+'Gentlemen,' said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and
+turning round again, 'you'll excuse me.  Men who have been brought
+so low as I have been, are easily fatigued.  I am fresh again now,
+and fit for talking.  We're short of chairs here, among other
+trifles, but if you'll do me the favour to sit upon the bed--'
+
+'What can we do for you?' said Mr Garland, kindly.
+
+'if you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real,
+sober earnest,' returned Dick, 'I'd thank you to get it done
+off-hand.  But as you can't, and as the question is not what you
+will do for me, but what you will do for somebody else who has a
+better claim upon you, pray sir let me know what you intend doing.'
+
+'It's chiefly on that account that we have come just now,' said the
+single gentleman, 'for you will have another visitor presently.  We
+feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what
+steps we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we
+stirred in the matter.'
+
+'Gentlemen,' returned Dick, 'I thank you.  Anybody in the helpless
+state that you see me in, is naturally anxious.  Don't let me
+interrupt you, sir.'
+
+'Then, you see, my good fellow,' said the single gentleman, 'that
+while we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure,
+which has so providentially come to light--'
+
+'Meaning hers?' said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.
+
+'--Meaning hers, of course.  While we have no doubt of that, or
+that a proper use of it would procure the poor lad's immediate
+pardon and liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by
+itself, enable us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany.
+I should tell you that this doubt has been confirmed into something
+very nearly approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been
+enabled, in this short space of time, to take upon the subject.
+You'll agree with us, that to give him even the most distant chance
+of escape, if we could help it, would be monstrous.  You say with
+us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.'
+
+'Yes,' returned Dick, 'certainly.  That is if somebody must--but
+upon my word, I'm unwilling that Anybody should.  Since laws were
+made for every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me--
+and so forth you know--doesn't it strike you in that light?'
+
+The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller
+had put the question were not the clearest in the world, and
+proceeded to explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem
+in the first instance; and that their design was to endeavour to
+extort a confession from the gentle Sarah.
+
+'When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,' he said,
+'and that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without
+strong hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the
+other two effectually.  If we could do that, she might go scot-free
+for aught I cared.'
+
+Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner,
+representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing,
+that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to
+manage than Quilp himself--that, for any tampering, terrifying, or
+cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject--that
+she was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape--
+in short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally
+defeated.  But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other
+course.  The single gentleman has been described as explaining
+their joint intentions, but it should have been written that they
+all spoke together; that if any one of them by chance held his
+peace for a moment, he stood gasping and panting for an opportunity
+to strike in again: in a word, that they had reached that pitch of
+impatience and anxiety where men can neither be persuaded nor
+reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to turn the most
+impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to reconsider
+their determination.  So, after telling Mr Swiveller how they had
+not lost sight of Kit's mother and the children; how they had never
+once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in
+their endeavours to procure a mitigation of his sentence; how they
+had been perfectly distracted between the strong proofs of his
+guilt, and their own fading hopes of his innocence; and how he,
+Richard Swiveller, might keep his mind at rest, for everything
+should be happily adjusted between that time and night;--after
+telling him all this, and adding a great many kind and cordial
+expressions, personal to himself, which it is unnecessary to
+recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single gentleman, took
+their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard Swiveller must
+assuredly have been driven into another fever, whereof the results
+might have been fatal.
+
+Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the
+room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the
+setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of
+a porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and
+made the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again.
+Directly this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and
+hobbled to the door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a
+strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room
+and presently unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and
+coffee, and wine, and rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls
+ready trussed for boiling, and calves'-foot jelly, and arrow-root,
+and sago, and other delicate restoratives, that the small servant,
+who had never thought it possible that such things could be, except
+in shops, stood rooted to the spot in her one shoe, with her mouth
+and eyes watering in unison, and her power of speech quite gone.
+But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man who emptied the hamper, big
+as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the nice old lady, who
+appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the hamper too
+(it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about on tiptoe and
+without noise--now here, now there, now everywhere at once--began
+to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken broth in
+small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to cut
+them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses
+of wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat
+could be prepared for her refreshment.  The whole of which
+appearances were so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller,
+when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the
+strong man walk off with the empty basket, plainly leaving all that
+abundance for his use and benefit, was fain to lie down and fall
+asleep again, from sheer inability to entertain such wonders in his
+mind.
+
+Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland,
+repaired to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and
+sent a letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms
+mysterious and brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to
+consult her, with her company there, as speedily as possible.  The
+communication performed its errand so well, that within ten minutes
+of the messenger's return and report of its delivery, Miss Brass
+herself was announced.
+
+'Pray ma'am,' said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in
+the room, 'take a chair.'
+
+Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and
+seemed--as indeed she was--not a little astonished to find that
+the lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same
+person.
+
+'You did not expect to see me?' said the single gentleman.
+
+'I didn't think much about it,' returned the beauty.  'I supposed
+it was business of some kind or other.  If it's about the
+apartments, of course you'll give my brother regular notice, you
+know--or money.  That's very easily settled.  You're a responsible
+party, and in such a case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty
+much the same.'
+
+'I am obliged to you for your good opinion,' retorted the single
+gentleman, 'and quite concur in these sentiments.  But that is not
+the subject on which I wish to speak with you.'
+
+'Oh!' said Sally.  'Then just state the particulars, will you?  I
+suppose it's professional business?'
+
+'Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.'
+
+'Very well,' returned Miss Brass.  'My brother and I are just the
+same.  I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.'
+
+'As there are other parties interested besides myself,' said the
+single gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, 'we
+had better confer together.  Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.'
+Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and,
+drawing up two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman,
+formed a kind of fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into
+a corner.  Her brother Sampson under such circumstances would
+certainly have evinced some confusion or anxiety, but she--all
+composure--pulled out the tin box, and calmly took a pinch of
+snuff.
+
+'Miss Brass,' said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, 'we
+professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can
+say what we have to say, in very few words.  You advertised a
+runaway servant, the other day?'
+
+'Well,' returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her
+features, 'what of that?'
+
+'She is found, ma'am,' said the Notary, pulling out his pocket-
+handkerchief with a flourish.  'She is found.'
+
+'Who found her?' demanded Sarah hastily.
+
+'We did, ma'am--we three.  Only last night, or you would have
+heard from us before.'
+
+'And now I have heard from you,' said Miss Brass, folding her arms
+as though she were about to deny something to the death, 'what have
+you got to say?  Something you have got into your heads about her,
+of course.  Prove it, will you--that's all.  Prove it.  You have
+found her, you say.  I can tell you (if you don't know it) that you
+have found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx
+that was ever born.--Have you got her here?' she added, looking
+sharply round.
+
+'No, she is not here at present,' returned the Notary.  'But she is
+quite safe.'
+
+'Ha!' cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as
+spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the
+small servant's nose; 'she shall be safe enough from this time, I
+warrant you.'
+
+'I hope so,' replied the Notary.  'Did it occur to you for the
+first time, when you found she had run away, that there were two
+keys to your kitchen door?'
+
+Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side,
+looked at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her
+mouth, but with a cunning aspect of immense expression.
+
+'Two keys,' repeated the Notary; 'one of which gave her the
+opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you
+supposed her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential
+consultations--among others, that particular conference, to be
+described to-day before a justice, which you will have an
+opportunity of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr
+Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and
+innocent young man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of
+which I will only say that it may be characterised by the epithets
+which you have applied to this wretched little witness, and by a
+few stronger ones besides.'
+
+Sally took another pinch.  Although her face was wonderfully
+composed, it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise,
+and that what she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with
+her small servant, was something very different from this.
+
+'Come, come, Miss Brass,' said the Notary, 'you have great command
+of feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never
+entered your imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of
+its plotters must be brought to justice.  Now, you know the pains
+and penalties you are liable to, and so I need not dilate upon
+them, but I have a proposal to make to you.  You have the honour of
+being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I
+may venture to say so to a lady, you are in every respect quite
+worthy of him.  But connected with you two is a third party, a
+villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole
+diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either.  For his
+sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history of
+this affair.  Let me remind you that your doing so, at our
+instance, will place you in a safe and comfortable position--your
+present one is not desirable--and cannot injure your brother; for
+against him and you we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear)
+already.  I will not say to you that we suggest this course in
+mercy (for, to tell you the truth, we do not entertain any regard
+for you), but it is a necessity to which we are reduced, and I
+recommend it to you as a matter of the very best policy.  Time,'
+said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, 'in a business like this,
+is exceedingly precious.  Favour us with your decision as speedily
+as possible, ma'am.'
+
+With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by
+turns, Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and
+having by this time very little left, travelled round and round the
+box with her forefinger and thumb, scraping up another.  Having
+disposed of this likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket,
+she said,--
+
+'I am to accept or reject at once, am I?'
+
+'Yes,' said Mr Witherden.
+
+The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when
+the door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was
+thrust into the room.
+
+'Excuse me,' said the gentleman hastily.  'Wait a bit!'
+
+So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence
+occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as
+servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.
+
+'Sarah,' said Brass, 'hold your tongue if you please, and let me
+speak.  Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to
+see three such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of
+sentiment, I think you would hardly believe me.  But though I am
+unfortunate--nay, gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh
+expressions in a company like this--still, I have my feelings like
+other men.  I have heard of a poet, who remarked that feelings were
+the common lot of all.  If he could have been a pig, gentlemen, and
+have uttered that sentiment, he would still have been immortal.'
+
+'If you're not an idiot,' said Miss Brass harshly, 'hold your
+peace.'
+
+'Sarah, my dear,' returned her brother, 'thank you.  But I know
+what I am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing
+myself accordingly.  Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is
+hanging out of your pocket--would you allow me to--,
+
+As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk
+from him with an air of disgust.  Brass, who over and above his
+usual prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade
+over one eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and
+looked round with a pitiful smile.
+
+'He shuns me,' said Sampson, 'even when I would, as I may say, heap
+coals of fire upon his head.  Well!  Ah! But I am a falling house,
+and the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a
+gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me!
+Gentlemen--regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see
+my sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going
+to, and being--may I venture to say?--naturally of a suspicious
+turn, followed her.  Since then, I have been listening.'
+
+'If you're not mad,' interposed Miss Sally, 'stop there, and say no
+more.'
+
+'Sarah, my dear,' rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, 'I
+thank you kindly, but will still proceed.  Mr Witherden, sir, as we
+have the honour to be members of the same profession--to say
+nothing of that other gentleman having been my lodger, and having
+partaken, as one may say, of the hospitality of my roof--I think
+you might have given me the refusal of this offer in the first
+instance.  I do indeed.  Now, my dear Sir,' cried Brass, seeing
+that the Notary was about to interrupt him, 'suffer me to speak, I
+beg.'
+
+Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.
+
+'If you will do me the favour,' he said, holding up the green
+shade, and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, 'to look at
+this, you will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get
+it.  If you look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could
+have been the cause of all these scratches.  And if from them to my
+hat, how it came into the state in which you see it.  Gentlemen,'
+said Brass, striking the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, 'to
+all these questions I answer--Quilp!'
+
+The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.
+
+'I say,' pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he
+were talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling
+malignity, in violent contrast to his usual smoothness, 'that I
+answer to all these questions,--Quilp--Quilp, who deludes me into
+his infernal den, and takes a delight in looking on and chuckling
+while I scorch, and burn, and bruise, and maim myself--Quilp, who
+never once, no never once, in all our communications together, has
+treated me otherwise than as a dog--Quilp, whom I have always
+hated with my whole heart, but never so much as lately.  He gives
+me the cold shoulder on this very matter as if he had had nothing
+to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it.  I can't
+trust him.  In one of his howling, raving, blazing humours, I
+believe he'd let it out, if it was murder, and never think of
+himself so long as he could terrify me.  Now,' said Brass, picking
+up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually
+crouching down, in the excess of his servility, 'What does all this
+lead to?--what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?--could you
+guess at all near the mark?'
+
+Nobody spoke.  Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he
+had propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:
+
+'To be short with you, then, it leads me to this.  If the truth has
+come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there's no standing up
+against--and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen,
+in its way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as
+thunder-storms and that, we're not always over and above glad to
+see it--I had better turn upon this man than let this man turn
+upon me.  It's clear to me that I am done for.  Therefore, if
+anybody is to split, I had better be the person and have the
+advantage of it.  Sarah, my dear, comparatively speaking you're
+safe.  I relate these circumstances for my own profit.'
+
+With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story;
+bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making
+himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though
+subject--he acknowledged--to human weaknesses.  He concluded
+thus:
+
+'Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves.  Being
+in for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound.
+You must do with me what you please, and take me where you please.
+If you wish to have this in writing, we'll reduce it into
+manuscript immediately.  You will be tender with me, I am sure.  I
+am quite confident you will be tender with me.  You are men of
+honour, and have feeling hearts.  I yielded from necessity to
+Quilp, for though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers.  I
+yield to you from necessity too; from policy besides; and because
+of feelings that have been a pretty long time working within me.
+Punish Quilp, gentlemen.  Weigh heavily upon him.  Grind him down.
+Tread him under foot.  He has done as much by me, for many and many
+a day.'
+
+Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson
+checked the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and
+smiled as only parasites and cowards can.
+
+'And this,' said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had
+hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to
+foot with a bitter sneer, 'this is my brother, is it!  This is my
+brother, that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have
+had something of the man in him!'
+
+'Sarah, my dear,' returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; you
+disturb our friends.  Besides you--you're disappointed, Sarah,
+and, not knowing what you say, expose yourself.'
+
+'Yes, you pitiful dastard,' retorted the lovely damsel, 'I
+understand you.  You feared that I should be beforehand with you.
+But do you think that I would have been enticed to say a word!  I'd
+have scorned it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty
+years.'
+
+'He he!' simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed
+to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her
+any spark of manliness he might have possessed.  'You think so,
+Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite
+different, my good fellow.  You will not have forgotten that it was
+a maxim with Foxey--our revered father, gentlemen--"Always
+suspect everybody."  That's the maxim to go through life with!  If
+you were not actually about to purchase your own safety when I
+showed myself, I suspect you'd have done it by this time.  And
+therefore I've done it myself, and spared you the trouble as well
+as the shame.  The shame, gentlemen,' added Brass, allowing himself
+to be slightly overcome, 'if there is any, is mine.  It's better
+that a female should be spared it.'
+
+With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more
+particularly to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be
+doubted, with humility, whether the elevating principle laid down
+by the latter gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is
+always a prudent one, or attended in practice with the desired
+results.  This is, beyond question, a bold and presumptuous doubt,
+inasmuch as many distinguished characters, called men of the world,
+long-headed customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands
+at business, and the like, have made, and do daily make, this axiom
+their polar star and compass.  Still, the doubt may be gently
+insinuated.  And in illustration it may be observed, that if Mr
+Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without prying and
+listening, left his sister to manage the conference on their joint
+behalf, or prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty
+hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his
+distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much
+better off in the end.  Thus, it will always happen that these men
+of the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from
+quite as much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and
+absurdity of mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of
+wearing a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions.
+
+The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments.  At
+the end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary
+pointed to the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr
+Brass that if he wished to make any statement in writing, he had
+the opportunity of doing so.  At the same time he felt bound to
+tell him that they would require his attendance, presently, before
+a justice of the peace, and that in what he did or said, he was
+guided entirely by his own discretion.
+
+'Gentlemen,' said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in
+spirit upon the ground before them, 'I will justify the tenderness
+with which I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness,
+I should, now that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst
+position of the three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean
+breast.  Mr Witherden, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits--
+if you would do me the favour to ring the bell and order up a
+glass of something warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what
+has passed, have a melancholy pleasure in drinking your good
+health.  I had hoped,' said Brass, looking round with a mournful
+smile, 'to have seen you three gentlemen, one day or another, with
+your legs under the mahogany in my humble parlour in the Marks.
+But hopes are fleeting.  Dear me!'
+
+Mr Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that
+he could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived.
+Having partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state,
+he sat down to write.
+
+The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands
+clasped behind her, paced the room with manly strides while her
+brother was thus employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her
+snuff-box and bite the lid.  She continued to pace up and down
+until she was quite tired, and then fell asleep on a chair near the
+door.
+
+It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was
+a sham or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the
+dusk of the afternoon.  Whether this was an intentional and waking
+departure, or a somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her
+sleep, may remain a subject of contention; but, on one point (and
+indeed the main one) all parties are agreed.  In whatever state she
+walked away, she certainly did not walk back again.
+
+Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be
+inferred that Mr Brass's task occupied some time in the completion.
+It was not finished until evening; but, being done at last, that
+worthy person and the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to
+the private office of a justice, who, giving Mr Brass a warm
+reception and detaining him in a secure place that he might insure
+to himself the pleasure of seeing him on the morrow, dismissed the
+others with the cheering assurance that a warrant could not fail to
+be granted next day for the apprehension of Mr Quilp, and that a
+proper application and statement of all the circumstances to the
+secretary of state (who was fortunately in town), would no doubt
+procure Kit's free pardon and liberation without delay.
+
+And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp's malignant career was
+drawing to a close, and that retribution, which often travels
+slowly--especially when heaviest--had tracked his footsteps with
+a sure and certain scent and was gaining on him fast.  Unmindful of
+her stealthy tread, her victim holds his course in fancied triumph.
+Still at his heels she comes, and once afoot, is never turned
+aside!
+
+Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the
+lodgings of Mr Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favourably
+in his recovery as to have been able to sit up for half an hour,
+and to have conversed with cheerfulness.  Mrs Garland had gone home
+some time since, but Mr Abel was still sitting with him.  After
+telling him all they had done, the two Mr Garlands and the single
+gentleman, as if by some previous understanding, took their leaves
+for the night, leaving the invalid alone with the Notary and the
+small servant.
+
+'As you are so much better,' said Mr Witherden, sitting down at the
+bedside, 'I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which
+has come to me professionally.'
+
+The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman
+connected with legal matters, appeared to afford Richard any-thing
+but a pleasing anticipation.  Perhaps he connected it in his own
+mind with one or two outstanding accounts, in reference to which he
+had already received divers threatening letters.  His countenance
+fell as he replied,
+
+'Certainly, sir.  I hope it's not anything of a very disagreeable
+nature, though?'
+
+'if I thought it so, I should choose some better time for
+communicating it,' replied the Notary.  'Let me tell you, first,
+that my friends who have been here to-day, know nothing of it, and
+that their kindness to you has been quite spontaneous and with no
+hope of return.  It may do a thoughtless, careless man, good, to
+know that.'
+
+Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would.
+
+'I have been making some inquiries about you,' said Mr Witherden,
+'little thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as
+those which have brought us together.  You are the nephew of
+Rebecca Swiveller, spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in
+Dorsetshire.'
+
+'Deceased!' cried Dick.
+
+'Deceased.  If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have
+come into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to
+doubt it) of five-and-twenty thousand pounds.  As it is, you have
+fallen into an annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but
+I think I may congratulate you even upon that.'
+
+'Sir,' said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, 'you may.  For,
+please God, we'll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet!  And
+she shall walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I
+never rise from this bed again!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 67
+
+
+Unconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last
+chapter, and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung
+beneath him (for, to the end that he should have no warning of the
+business a-foot, the profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole
+transaction), Mr Quilp remained shut up in his hermitage,
+undisturbed by any suspicion, and extremely well satisfied with the
+result of his machinations.  Being engaged in the adjustment of
+some accounts--an occupation to which the silence and solitude of
+his retreat were very favourable--he had not strayed from his den
+for two whole days.  The third day of his devotion to this pursuit
+found him still hard at work, and little disposed to stir abroad.
+
+It was the day next after Mr Brass's confession, and consequently,
+that which threatened the restriction of Mr Quilp's liberty, and
+the abrupt communication to him of some very unpleasant and
+unwelcome facts.  Having no intuitive perception of the cloud which
+lowered upon his house, the dwarf was in his ordinary state of
+cheerfulness; and, when he found he was becoming too much engrossed
+by business with a due regard to his health and spirits, he varied
+its monotonous routine with a little screeching, or howling, or
+some other innocent relaxation of that nature.
+
+He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the
+fire after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his
+master's back was turned, imitating his grimaces with a fearful
+exactness.  The figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained
+in its old place.  The face, horribly seared by the frequent
+application of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the
+insertion, in the tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled
+blandly in its less lacerated parts, and seemed, like a sturdy
+martyr, to provoke its tormentor to the commission of new outrages
+and insults.
+The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of the town, was
+damp, dark, cold and gloomy.  In that low and marshy spot, the fog
+filled every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud.  Every
+object was obscure at one or two yards' distance.  The warning
+lights and fires upon the river were powerless beneath this pall,
+and, but for a raw and piercing chillness in the air, and now and
+then the cry of some bewildered boatman as he rested on his oars
+and tried to make out where he was, the river itself might have
+been miles away.
+
+The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly
+searching kind.  No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out.
+It seemed to penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking
+wayfarers, and to rack them with cold and pains.  Everything was
+wet and clammy to the touch.  The warm blaze alone defied it, and
+leaped and sparkled merrily.  It was a day to be at home, crowding
+about the fire, telling stories of travellers who had lost their
+way in such weather on heaths and moors; and to love a warm hearth
+more than ever.
+
+The dwarf's humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself;
+and when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone.
+By no means insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he
+ordered Tom Scott to pile the little stove with coals, and,
+dismissing his work for that day, determined to be jovial.
+
+To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on
+the fire; and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself
+in somewhat of a savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great
+bowl of hot punch, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the
+evening.
+
+At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his
+attention.  When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly
+opened the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who
+was there.
+
+'Only me, Quilp,' replied a woman's voice.
+
+'Only you!' cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better
+view of his visitor.  'And what brings you here, you jade?  How
+dare you approach the ogre's castle, eh?'
+
+'I have come with some news,' rejoined his spouse.  'Don't be angry
+with me.'
+
+'Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap
+his fingers?' said the dwarf.  'Is the dear old lady dead?'
+
+'I don't know what news it is, or whether it's good or bad,'
+rejoined his wife.
+
+'Then she's alive,' said Quilp, 'and there's nothing the matter
+with her.  Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home!'
+'I have brought a letter,' cried the meek little woman.
+
+'Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,' said Quilp,
+interrupting her, 'or I'll come out and scratch you.'
+
+'No, but please, Quilp--do hear me speak,' urged his submissive
+wife, in tears.  'Please do!'
+
+'Speak then,' growled the dwarf with a malicious grin.  'Be quick
+and short about it.  Speak, will you?'
+
+'It was left at our house this afternoon,' said Mrs Quilp,
+trembling, 'by a boy who said he didn't know from whom it came, but
+that it was given to him to leave, and that he was told to say it
+must be brought on to you directly, for it was of the very greatest
+consequence.--But please,' she added, as her husband stretched
+out his hand for it, 'please let me in.  You don't know how wet and
+cold I am, or how many times I have lost my way in coming here
+through this thick fog.  Let me dry myself at the fire for five
+minutes.  I'll go away directly you tell me to, Quilp.  Upon my
+word I will.'
+
+Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments; but, bethinking
+himself that the letter might require some answer, of which she
+could be the bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade
+her enter.  Mrs Quilp obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down
+before the fire to warm her hands, delivered into his a little
+packet.
+
+'I'm glad you're wet,' said Quilp, snatching it, and squinting at
+her.  'I'm glad you're cold.  I'm glad you lost your way.  I'm glad
+your eyes are red with crying.  It does my heart good to see your
+little nose so pinched and frosty.'
+
+'Oh Quilp!' sobbed his wife.  'How cruel it is of you!'
+
+'Did she think I was dead?' said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a
+most extraordinary series of grimaces.  'Did she think she was
+going to have all the money, and to marry somebody she liked?  Ha
+ha ha!  Did she?'
+
+These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who
+remained on her knees, warming her hands, and sobbing, to Mr
+Quilp's great delight.  But, just as he was contemplating her, and
+chuckling excessively, he happened to observe that Tom Scott was
+delighted too; wherefore, that he might have no presumptuous
+partner in his glee, the dwarf instantly collared him, dragged him
+to the door, and after a short scuffle, kicked him into the yard.
+In return for this mark of attention, Tom immediately walked upon
+his hands to the window, and--if the expression be allowable--
+looked in with his shoes: besides rattling his feet upon the glass
+like a Banshee upside down.  As a matter of course, Mr Quilp lost
+no time in resorting to the infallible poker, with which, after
+some dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his young friend one or
+two such unequivocal compliments that he vanished precipitately,
+and left him in quiet possession of the field.
+
+'So!  That little job being disposed of,' said the dwarf, coolly,
+'I'll read my letter.  Humph!' he muttered, looking at the
+direction.  'I ought to know this writing.  Beautiful Sally!'
+
+Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows:
+
+'Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence.  It has
+all come out.  You had better not be in the way, for strangers are
+going to call upon you.  They have been very quiet as yet, because
+they mean to surprise you.  Don't lose time.  I didn't.  I am not
+to be found anywhere.  If I was you, I wouldn't either.  S.  B.,
+late of B.  M.'
+
+To describe the changes that passed over Quilp's face, as he read
+this letter half-a-dozen times, would require some new language:
+such, for power of expression, as was never written, read, or
+spoken.  For a long time he did not utter one word; but, after a
+considerable interval, during which Mrs Quilp was almost paralysed
+with the alarm his looks engendered, he contrived to gasp out,
+
+'If I had him here.  If I only had him here--'
+
+'Oh Quilp!' said his wife, 'what's the matter?  Who are you angry
+with?'
+
+'--I should drown him,' said the dwarf, not heeding her.  'Too easy
+a death, too short, too quick--but the river runs close at hand.
+Oh! if I had him here! just to take him to the brink coaxingly and
+pleasantly,--holding him by the button-hole--joking with him,--
+and, with a sudden push, to send him splashing down!  Drowning men
+come to the surface three times they say.  Ah!  To see him those
+three times, and mock him as his face came bobbing up,--oh, what
+a rich treat that would be!'
+
+'Quilp!' stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch
+him on the shoulder: 'what has gone wrong?'
+
+She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this
+pleasure to himself that she could scarcely make herself
+intelligible.
+
+'Such a bloodless cur!' said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly,
+and pressing them tight together.  'I thought his cowardice and
+servility were the best guarantee for his keeping silence.  Oh
+Brass, Brass--my dear, good, affectionate, faithful,
+complimentary, charming friend--if I only had you here!'
+
+His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these
+mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak,
+when he hurried to the door, and called Tom Scott, who, remembering
+his late gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear
+immediately.
+
+'There!' said the dwarf, pulling him in.  'Take her home.  Don't
+come here to-morrow, for this place will be shut up.  Come back no
+more till you hear from me or see me.  Do you mind?'
+
+Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs Quilp to lead the way.
+
+'As for you,' said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, 'ask no
+questions about me, make no search for me, say nothing concerning
+me.  I shall not be dead, mistress, and that'll comfort you.  He'll
+take care of you.'
+
+'But, Quilp?  What is the matter?  Where are you going?  Do say
+something more?'
+
+'I'll say that,' said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, 'and do
+that too, which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you
+go directly.'
+
+'Has anything happened?' cried his wife.  'Oh!  Do tell me that?'
+
+'Yes,' snarled the dwarf.  'No.  What matter which?  I have told
+you what to do.  Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me
+by a hair's breadth.  Will you go!'
+
+'I am going, I'll go directly; but,' faltered his wife, 'answer me
+one question first.  Has this letter any connexion with dear little
+Nell?  I must ask you that--I must indeed, Quilp.  You cannot
+think what days and nights of sorrow I have had through having once
+deceived that child.  I don't know what harm I may have brought
+about, but, great or little, I did it for you, Quilp.  My
+conscience misgave me when I did it.  Do answer me this question,
+if you please?'
+
+The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and
+caught up his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott
+dragged his charge away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could.
+It was well he did so, for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage,
+pursued them to the neighbouring lane, and might have prolonged the
+chase but for the dense mist which obscured them from his view and
+appeared to thicken every moment.
+
+'It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,' he said, as
+he returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run.
+'Stay.  We may look better here.  This is too hospitable and free.'
+
+By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which
+were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam.
+That done, he shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried
+them.--Strong and fast.
+
+'The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,' said
+the dwarf, when he had taken these precautions.  'There's a back
+lane, too, from there.  That shall be my way out.  A man need know
+his road well, to find it in this lovely place to-night.  I need
+fear no unwelcome visitors while this lasts, I think.'
+
+Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands
+(it had grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he
+returned to his lair; and, after musing for some time over the
+fire, busied himself in preparations for a speedy departure.
+
+While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into
+his pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low
+voice, or unclenched his teeth, which he had ground together on
+finishing Miss Brass's note.
+
+'Oh Sampson!' he muttered, 'good worthy creature--if I could but
+hug you!  If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your
+ribs, as I COULD squeeze them if I once had you tight--what a
+meeting there would be between us!  If we ever do cross each other
+again, Sampson, we'll have a greeting not easily to be forgotten,
+trust me.  This time, Sampson, this moment when all had gone on so
+well, was so nicely chosen!  It was so thoughtful of you, so
+penitent, so good.  oh, if we were face to face in this room again,
+my white-livered man of law, how well contented one of us would
+be!'
+
+There he stopped; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank
+a long deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his
+parched mouth.  Setting it down abruptly, and resuming his
+preparations, he went on with his soliloquy.
+
+'There's Sally,' he said, with flashing eyes; 'the woman has
+spirit, determination, purpose--was she asleep, or petrified?  She
+could have stabbed him--poisoned him safely.  She might have seen
+this coming on.  Why does she give me notice when it's too late?
+When he sat there,--yonder there, over there,--with his white
+face, and red head, and sickly smile, why didn't I know what was
+passing in his heart?  It should have stopped beating, that night,
+if I had been in his secret, or there are no drugs to lull a man to
+sleep, or no fire to burn him!'
+
+Another draught from the bowl; and, cowering over the fire with a
+ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again.
+
+'And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late
+times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child--two
+wretched feeble wanderers!  I'll be their evil genius yet.  And
+you, sweet Kit, honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to
+yourself.  Where I hate, I bite.  I hate you, my darling fellow,
+with good cause, and proud as you are to-night, I'll have my turn.
+--What's that?'
+
+A knocking at the gate he had closed.  A loud and violent knocking.
+Then, a pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen.
+Then, the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before.
+'So soon!' said the dwarf.  'And so eager!  I am afraid I shall
+disappoint you.  It's well I'm quite prepared.  Sally, I thank
+you!'
+
+As he spoke, he extinguished the candle.  In his impetuous attempts
+to subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which
+came tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning
+embers it had shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy
+darkness.  The noise at the gate still continuing, he felt his way
+to the door, and stepped into the open air.
+
+At that moment the knocking ceased.  It was about eight o'clock;
+but the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in
+comparison with the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth,
+and shrouded everything from view.  He darted forward for a few
+paces, as if into the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern; then,
+thinking he had gone wrong, changed the direction of his steps;
+then stood still, not knowing where to turn.
+
+'If they would knock again,' said Quilp, trying to peer into the
+gloom by which he was surrounded, 'the sound might guide me!  Come!
+Batter the gate once more!'
+
+He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed.
+Nothing was to be heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals,
+the distant barkings of dogs.  The sound was far away--now in one
+quarter, now answered in another--nor was it any guide, for it
+often came from shipboard, as he knew.
+
+'If I could find a wall or fence,' said the dwarf, stretching out
+his arms, and walking slowly on, 'I should know which way to turn.
+A good, black, devil's night this, to have my dear friend here!  If
+I had but that wish, it might, for anything I cared, never be day
+again.'
+
+As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell--and next
+moment was fighting with the cold dark water!
+
+For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the
+knocking at the gate again--could hear a shout that followed it--
+could recognise the voice.  For all his struggling and plashing, he
+could understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered
+back to the point from which they started; that they were all but
+looking on, while he was drowned; that they were close at hand, but
+could not make an effort to save him; that he himself had shut and
+barred them out.  He answered the shout--with a yell, which seemed
+to make the hundred fires that danced before his eyes tremble and
+flicker, as if a gust of wind had stirred them.  It was of no
+avail.  The strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on, upon
+its rapid current.
+
+Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water
+with his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that
+showed him some black object he was drifting close upon.  The hull
+of a ship!  He could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his
+hand.  One loud cry, now--but the resistless water bore him down
+before he could give it utterance, and, driving him under it,
+carried away a corpse.
+
+It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it
+against the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass,
+now dragging it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning
+to yield it to its own element, and in the same action luring it
+away, until, tired of the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp--
+a dismal place where pirates had swung in chains through many a
+wintry night--and left it there to bleach.
+
+And there it lay alone.  The sky was red with flame, and the water
+that bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it
+flowed along.  The place the deserted carcass had left so recently,
+a living man, was now a blazing ruin.  There was something of the
+glare upon its face.  The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played
+in a kind of mockery of death--such a mockery as the dead man
+himself would have delighted in when alive--about its head, and
+its dress fluttered idly in the night wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 68
+
+
+Lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad
+voices, words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of
+happiness--what a change is this!  But it is to such delights that
+Kit is hastening.  They are awaiting him, he knows.  He fears he
+will die of joy, before he gets among them.
+
+They have prepared him for this, all day.  He is not to be carried
+off to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first.  By degrees they
+let him know that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be
+made, and perhaps he may be pardoned after all.  At last, the
+evening being come, they bring him to a room where some gentlemen
+are assembled.  Foremost among them is his good old master, who
+comes and takes him by the hand.  He hears that his innocence is
+established, and that he is pardoned.  He cannot see the speaker,
+but he turns towards the voice, and in trying to answer, falls down
+insensible.
+
+They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear
+this like a man.  Somebody says he must think of his poor mother.
+It is because he does think of her so much, that the happy news had
+overpowered him.  They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth
+has gone abroad, and that all the town and country ring with
+sympathy for his misfortunes.  He has no ears for this.  His
+thoughts, as yet, have no wider range than home.  Does she know it?
+what did she say? who told her?  He can speak of nothing else.
+
+They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a
+while, until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them.
+He is free to go.  Mr Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is
+time they went away.  The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake
+hands with him.  He feels very grateful to them for the interest
+they have in him, and for the kind promises they make; but the
+power of speech is gone again, and he has much ado to keep his
+feet, even though leaning on his master's arm.
+
+As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail
+who are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on
+his release.  The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is
+not quite hearty--there is something of surliness in his
+compliments.  He looks upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has
+obtained admission to that place on false pretences, who has
+enjoyed a privilege without being duly qualified.  He may be a very
+good sort of young man, he thinks, but he has no business there,
+and the sooner he is gone, the better.
+
+The last door shuts behind them.  They have passed the outer wall,
+and stand in the open air--in the street he has so often pictured
+to himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been
+in all his dreams.  It seems wider and more busy than it used to
+be.  The night is bad, and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes!
+One of the gentlemen, in taking leave of him, pressed some money
+into his hand.  He has not counted it; but when they have gone a
+few paces beyond the box for poor Prisoners, he hastily returns and
+drops it in.
+
+Mr Garland has a coach waiting in a neighbouring street, and,
+taking Kit inside with him, bids the man drive home.  At first,
+they can only travel at a foot pace, and then with torches going on
+before, because of the heavy fog.  But, as they get farther from
+the river, and leave the closer portions of the town behind, they
+are able to dispense with this precaution and to proceed at a
+brisker rate.  On the road, hard galloping would be too slow for
+Kit; but, when they are drawing near their journey's end, he begs
+they may go more slowly, and, when the house appears in sight, that
+they may stop--only for a minute or two, to give him time to
+breathe.
+
+But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly
+to him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the
+garden-gate.  Next minute, they are at the door.  There is a noise
+of tongues, and tread of feet, inside.  It opens.  Kit rushes in,
+and finds his mother clinging round his neck.
+
+And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara's mother, still
+holding the baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day
+when they little hoped to have such joy as this--there she is,
+Heaven bless her, crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman
+sobbed before; and there is little Barbara--poor little Barbara,
+so much thinner and so much paler, and yet so very pretty--
+trembling like a leaf and supporting herself against the wall; and
+there is Mrs Garland, neater and nicer than ever, fainting away
+stone dead with nobody to help her; and there is Mr Abel, violently
+blowing his nose, and wanting to embrace everybody; and there is
+the single gentleman hovering round them all, and constant to
+nothing for an instant; and there is that good, dear, thoughtful
+little Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on the bottom stair,
+with his hands on his knees like an old man, roaring fearfully
+without giving any trouble to anybody; and each and all of them are
+for the time clean out of their wits, and do jointly and severally
+commit all manner of follies.
+
+And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves
+again, and can find words and smiles, Barbara--that soft-hearted,
+gentle, foolish little Barbara--is suddenly missed, and found to
+be in a swoon by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she
+falls into hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again,
+and is, indeed, so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar
+and cold water she is hardly a bit better at last than she was at
+first.  Then, Kit's mother comes in and says, will he come and
+speak to her; and Kit says 'Yes,' and goes; and he says in a kind
+voice 'Barbara!' and Barbara's mother tells her that 'it's only
+Kit;' and Barbara says (with her eyes closed all the time) 'Oh! but
+is it him indeed?' and Barbara's mother says 'To be sure it is, my
+dear; there's nothing the matter now.'  And in further assurance
+that he's safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again; and then Barbara
+goes off into another fit of laughter, and then into another fit of
+crying; and then Barbara's mother and Kit's mother nod to each
+other and pretend to scold her--but only to bring her to herself
+the faster, bless you!--and being experienced matrons, and acute
+at perceiving the first dawning symptoms of recovery, they comfort
+Kit with the assurance that 'she'll do now,' and so dismiss him to
+the place from whence he came.
+
+Well!  In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters
+of wine, and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and
+his friends were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob,
+walking, as the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum-cake, at
+a most surprising pace, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges
+which are to follow, and making the best use of his time, you may
+believe.  Kit no sooner comes in, than that single gentleman (never
+was such a busy gentleman) charges all the glasses--bumpers--and
+drinks his health, and tells him he shall never want a friend while
+he lives; and so does Mr Garland, and so does Mrs Garland, and so
+does Mr Abel.  But even this honour and distinction is not all, for
+the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of his pocket a massive
+silver watch--going hard, and right to half a second--and upon
+the back of this watch is engraved Kit's name, with flourishes all
+over; and in short it is Kit's watch, bought expressly for him, and
+presented to him on the spot.  You may rest assured that Mr and Mrs
+Garland can't help hinting about their present, in store, and that
+Mr Abel tells outright that he has his; and that Kit is the
+happiest of the happy.
+
+There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be
+conveniently introduced into the family circle, by reason of his
+being an iron-shod quadruped, Kit takes the first opportunity of
+slipping away and hurrying to the stable.  The moment he lays his
+hand upon the latch, the pony neighs the loudest pony's greeting;
+before he has crossed the threshold, the pony is capering about his
+loose box (for he brooks not the indignity of a halter), mad to
+give him welcome; and when Kit goes up to caress and pat him, the
+pony rubs his nose against his coat, and fondles him more lovingly
+than ever pony fondled man.  It is the crowning circumstance of his
+earnest, heartfelt reception; and Kit fairly puts his arm round
+Whisker's neck and hugs him.
+
+But how comes Barbara to trip in there? and how smart she is again!
+she has been at her glass since she recovered.  How comes Barbara
+in the stable, of all places in the world?  Why, since Kit has been
+away, the pony would take his food from nobody but her, and
+Barbara, you see, not dreaming that Christopher was there, and just
+looking in, to see that everything was right, has come upon him
+unawares.  Blushing little Barbara!
+
+It may be that Kit has caressed the pony enough; it may be that
+there are even better things to caress than ponies.  He leaves him
+for Barbara at any rate, and hopes she is better.  Yes.  Barbara is
+a great deal better.  She is afraid--and here Barbara looks down
+and blushes more--that he must have thought her very foolish.
+'Not at all,' says Kit.  Barbara is glad of that, and coughs--Hem!--
+just the slightest cough possible--not more than that.
+
+What a discreet pony when he chooses!  He is as quiet now as if he
+were of marble.  He has a very knowing look, but that he always
+has.  'We have hardly had time to shake hands, Barbara,' says Kit.
+Barbara gives him hers.  Why, she is trembling now!  Foolish,
+fluttering Barbara!
+
+Arm's length?  The length of an arm is not much.  Barbara's was not
+a long arm, by any means, and besides, she didn't hold it out
+straight, but bent a little.  Kit was so near her when they shook
+hands, that he could see a small tiny tear, yet trembling on an
+eyelash.  It was natural that he should look at it, unknown to
+Barbara.  It was natural that Barbara should raise her eyes
+unconsciously, and find him out.  Was it natural that at that
+instant, without any previous impulse or design, Kit should kiss
+Barbara?  He did it, whether or no.  Barbara said 'for shame,' but
+let him do it too--twice.  He might have done it thrice, but the
+pony kicked up his heels and shook his head, as if he were suddenly
+taken with convulsions of delight, and Barbara being frightened,
+ran away--not straight to where her mother and Kit's mother were,
+though, lest they should see how red her cheeks were, and should
+ask her why.  Sly little Barbara!
+
+When the first transports of the whole party had subsided, and Kit
+and his mother, and Barbara and her mother, with little Jacob and
+the baby to boot, had had their suppers together--which there was
+no hurrying over, for they were going to stop there all night--Mr
+Garland called Kit to him, and taking him into a room where they
+could be alone, told him that he had something yet to say, which
+would surprise him greatly.  Kit looked so anxious and turned so
+pale on hearing this, that the old gentleman hastened to add, he
+would be agreeably surprised; and asked him if he would be ready
+next morning for a journey.
+
+'For a journey, sir!' cried Kit.
+
+'In company with me and my friend in the next room.  Can you guess
+its purpose?'
+
+Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head.
+
+'Oh yes.  I think you do already,' said his master.  'Try.'
+
+Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he
+plainly pronounced the words 'Miss Nell,' three or four times--
+shaking his head while he did so, as if he would add that there was
+no hope of that.
+
+But Mr Garland, instead of saying 'Try again,' as Kit had made sure
+he would, told him very seriously, that he had guessed right.
+
+'The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,' he said, 'at
+last.  And that is our journey's end.'
+
+Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it
+been found, and how long since, and was she well and happy?
+
+'Happy she is, beyond all doubt,' said Mr Garland.  'And well, I--
+I trust she will be soon.  She has been weak and ailing, as I
+learn, but she was better when I heard this morning, and they were
+full of hope.  Sit you down, and you shall hear the rest.'
+
+Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told.  Mr
+Garland then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would
+remember to have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when he
+was a young man, hung in the best room), and how this brother lived
+a long way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who had
+been his early friend.  How, although they loved each other as
+brothers should, they had not met for many years, but had
+communicated by letter from time to time, always looking forward to
+some period when they would take each other by the hand once more,
+and still letting the Present time steal on, as it was the habit
+for men to do, and suffering the Future to melt into the Past.  How
+this brother, whose temper was very mild and quiet and retiring--
+such as Mr Abel's--was greatly beloved by the simple people among
+whom he dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor (for so they called
+him), and had every one experienced his charity and benevolence.
+How even those slight circumstances had come to his knowledge, very
+slowly and in course of years, for the Bachelor was one of those
+whose goodness shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in
+discovering and extolling the good deeds of others, than in
+trumpeting their own, be they never so commendable.  How, for that
+reason, he seldom told them of his village friends; but how, for
+all that, his mind had become so full of two among them--a child
+and an old man, to whom he had been very kind--that, in a letter
+received a few days before, he had dwelt upon them from first to
+last, and had told such a tale of their wandering, and mutual love,
+that few could read it without being moved to tears.  How he, the
+recipient of that letter, was directly led to the belief that these
+must be the very wanderers for whom so much search had been made,
+and whom Heaven had directed to his brother's care.  How he had
+written for such further information as would put the fact beyond
+all doubt; how it had that morning arrived; had confirmed his first
+impression into a certainty; and was the immediate cause of that
+journey being planned, which they were to take to-morrow.
+
+'In the meantime,' said the old gentleman rising, and laying his
+hand on Kit's shoulder, 'you have a great need of rest; for such a
+day as this would wear out the strongest man.  Good night, and
+Heaven send our journey may have a prosperous ending!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 69
+
+
+Kit was no sluggard next morning, but, springing from his bed some
+time before day, began to prepare for his welcome expedition.  The
+hurry of spirits consequent upon the events of yesterday, and the
+unexpected intelligence he had heard at night, had troubled his
+sleep through the long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams
+about his pillow that it was rest to rise.
+
+But, had it been the beginning of some great labour with the same
+end in view--had it been the commencement of a long journey, to be
+performed on foot in that inclement season of the year, to be
+pursued under very privation and difficulty, and to be achieved
+only with great distress, fatigue, and suffering--had it been the
+dawn of some painful enterprise, certain to task his utmost powers
+of resolution and endurance, and to need his utmost fortitude, but
+only likely to end, if happily achieved, in good fortune and
+delight to Nell--Kit's cheerful zeal would have been as highly
+roused: Kit's ardour and impatience would have been, at least, the
+same.
+
+Nor was he alone excited and eager.  Before he had been up a
+quarter of an hour the whole house were astir and busy.  Everybody
+hurried to do something towards facilitating the preparations.  The
+single gentleman, it is true, could do nothing himself, but he
+overlooked everybody else and was more locomotive than anybody.
+The work of packing and making ready went briskly on, and by
+daybreak every preparation for the journey was completed.  Then Kit
+began to wish they had not been quite so nimble; for the
+travelling-carriage which had been hired for the occasion was not
+to arrive until nine o'clock, and there was nothing but breakfast
+to fill up the intervening blank of one hour and a half.
+Yes there was, though.  There was Barbara.  Barbara was busy, to be
+sure, but so much the better--Kit could help her, and that would
+pass away the time better than any means that could be devised.
+Barbara had no objection to this arrangement, and Kit, tracking out
+the idea which had come upon him so suddenly overnight, began to
+think that surely Barbara was fond of him, and surely he was fond
+of Barbara.
+
+Now, Barbara, if the truth must.be told--as it must and ought to
+be--Barbara seemed, of all the little household, to take least
+pleasure in the bustle of the occasion; and when Kit, in the
+openness of his heart, told her how glad and overjoyed it made him,
+Barbara became more downcast still, and seemed to have even less
+pleasure in it than before!
+
+'You have not been home so long, Christopher,' said Barbara--and
+it is impossible to tell how carelessly she said it--'You have not
+been home so long, that you need to be glad to go away again, I
+should think.'
+
+'But for such a purpose,' returned Kit.  'To bring back Miss Nell!
+To see her again!  Only think of that!  I am so pleased too, to
+think that you will see her, Barbara, at last.'
+
+Barbara did not absolutely say that she felt no gratification on
+this point, but she expressed the sentiment so plainly by one
+little toss of her head, that Kit was quite disconcerted, and
+wondered, in his simplicity, why she was so cool about it.
+
+'You'll say she has the sweetest and beautifullest face you ever
+saw, I know,' said Kit, rubbing his hands.  'I'm sure you'll say
+that.'
+
+Barbara tossed her head again.
+
+'What's the matter, Barbara?' said Kit.
+
+'Nothing,' cried Barbara.  And Barbara pouted--not sulkily, or in
+an ugly manner, but just enough to make her look more cherry-lipped
+than ever.
+
+There is no school in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in
+which Kit became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss.  He saw
+what Barbara meant now--he had his lesson by heart all at once--
+she was the book--there it was before him, as plain as print.
+
+'Barbara,' said Kit, 'you're not cross with me?'
+
+Oh dear no!  Why should Barbara be cross?  And what right had she
+to be cross?  And what did it matter whether she was cross or not?
+Who minded her!
+
+'Why, I do,' said Kit.  'Of course I do.'
+
+Barbara didn't see why it was of course, at all.
+
+Kit was sure she must.  Would she think again?
+
+Certainly, Barbara would think again.  No, she didn't see why it
+was of course.  She didn't understand what Christopher meant.  And
+besides she was sure they wanted her up stairs by this time, and
+she must go, indeed--
+
+'No, but Barbara,' said Kit, detaining her gently, 'let us part
+friends.  I was always thinking of you, in my troubles.  I should
+have been a great deal more miserable than I was, if it hadn't been
+for you.'
+
+Goodness gracious, how pretty Barbara was when she coloured--and
+when she trembled, like a little shrinking bird!
+
+'I am telling you the truth, Barbara, upon my word, but not half so
+strong as I could wish,' said Kit.  'When I want you to be pleased
+to see Miss Nell, it's only because I like you to be pleased with
+what pleases me--that's all.  As to her, Barbara, I think I could
+almost die to do her service, but you would think so too, if you
+knew her as I do.  I am sure you would.'
+
+Barbara was touched, and sorry to have appeared indifferent.
+
+'I have been used, you see,' said Kit, 'to talk and think of her,
+almost as if she was an angel.  When I look forward to meeting her
+again, I think of her smiling as she used to do, and being glad to
+see me, and putting out her hand and saying, "It's my own old Kit,"
+or some such words as those--like what she used to say.  I think
+of seeing her happy, and with friends about her, and brought up as
+she deserves, and as she ought to be.  When I think of myself, it's
+as her old servant, and one that loved her dearly, as his kind,
+good, gentle mistress; and who would have gone--yes, and still
+would go--through any harm to serve her.  Once, I couldn't help
+being afraid that if she came back with friends about her she might
+forget, or be ashamed of having known, a humble lad like me, and so
+might speak coldly, which would have cut me, Barbara, deeper than
+I can tell.  But when I came to think again, I felt sure that I was
+doing her wrong in this; and so I went on, as I did at first,
+hoping to see her once more, just as she used to be.  Hoping this,
+and remembering what she was, has made me feel as if I would always
+try to please her, and always be what I should like to seem to her
+if I was still her servant.  If I'm the better for that--and I
+don't think I'm the worse--I am grateful to her for it, and love
+and honour her the more.  That's the plain honest truth, dear
+Barbara, upon my word it is!'
+
+Little Barbara was not of a wayward or capricious nature, and,
+being full of remorse, melted into tears.  To what more
+conversation this might have led, we need not stop to inquire; for
+the wheels of the carriage were heard at that moment, and, being
+followed by a smart ring at the garden gate, caused the bustle in
+the house, which had laid dormant for a short time, to burst again
+into tenfold life and vigour.
+
+Simultaneously with the travelling equipage, arrived Mr Chuckster
+in a hackney cab, with certain papers and supplies of money for the
+single gentleman, into whose hands he delivered them.  This duty
+discharged, he subsided into the bosom of the family; and,
+entertaining himself with a strolling or peripatetic breakfast,
+watched, with genteel indifference, the process of loading the
+carriage.
+
+'Snobby's in this, I see, Sir?' he said to Mr Abel Garland.  'I
+thought he wasn't in the last trip because it was expected that his
+presence wouldn't be acceptable to the ancient buffalo.'
+
+'To whom, Sir?' demanded Mr Abel.
+
+'To the old gentleman,' returned Mr Chuckster, slightly abashed.
+
+'Our client prefers to take him now,' said Mr Abel, drily.  'There
+is no longer any need for that precaution, as my father's
+relationship to a gentleman in whom the objects of his search have
+full confidence, will be a sufficient guarantee for the friendly
+nature of their errand.'
+
+'Ah!' thought Mr Chuckster, looking out of window, 'anybody but me!
+Snobby before me, of course.  He didn't happen to take that
+particular five-pound note, but I have not the smallest doubt that
+he's always up to something of that sort.  I always said it, long
+before this came out.  Devilish pretty girl that!  'Pon my soul, an
+amazing little creature!'
+
+Barbara was the subject of Mr Chuckster's commendations; and as she
+was lingering near the carriage (all being now ready for its
+departure), that gentleman was suddenly seized with a strong
+interest in the proceedings, which impelled him to swagger down the
+garden, and take up his position at a convenient ogling distance.
+Having had great experience of the sex, and being perfectly
+acquainted with all those little artifices which find the readiest
+road to their hearts, Mr Chuckster, on taking his ground, planted
+one hand on his hip, and with the other adjusted his flowing hair.
+This is a favourite attitude in the polite circles, and, accompanied
+with a graceful whistling, has been known to do immense execution.
+
+Such, however, is the difference between town and country, that
+nobody took the smallest notice of this insinuating figure; the
+wretches being wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell,
+in kissing hands to each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like
+tame and vulgar practices.  For now the single gentleman and Mr
+Garland were in the carriage, and the post-boy was in the saddle,
+and Kit, well wrapped and muffled up, was in the rumble behind; and
+Mrs Garland was there, and Mr Abel was there, and Kit's mother was
+there, and little Jacob was there, and Barbara's mother was visible
+in remote perspective, nursing the ever-wakeful baby; and all were
+nodding, beckoning, curtseying, or crying out, 'Good bye!' with all
+the energy they could express.  In another minute, the carriage was
+out of sight; and Mr Chuckster remained alone on the spot where it
+had lately been, with a vision of Kit standing up in the rumble
+waving his hand to Barbara, and of Barbara in the full light and
+lustre of his eyes--his eyes--Chuckster's--Chuckster the
+successful--on whom ladies of quality had looked with favour from
+phaetons in the parks on Sundays--waving hers to Kit!
+
+How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some
+time rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was
+the Prince of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul
+of Snobs, and how he clearly traced this revolting circumstance
+back to that old villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to
+our purpose; which is to track the rolling wheels, and bear the
+travellers company on their cold, bleak journey.
+
+It was a bitter day.  A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against
+them fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost
+from the trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust.  But
+little cared Kit for weather.  There was a freedom and freshness in
+the wind, as it came howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp,
+was welcome.  As it swept on with its cloud of frost, bearing down
+the dry twigs and boughs and withered leaves, and carrying them
+away pell-mell, it seemed as though some general sympathy had got
+abroad, and everything was in a hurry, like themselves.  The harder
+the gusts, the better progress they appeared to make.  It was a
+good thing to go struggling and fighting forward, vanquishing them
+one by one; to watch them driving up, gathering strength and fury
+as they came along; to bend for a moment, as they whistled past;
+and then to look back and see them speed away, their hoarse noise
+dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering down before
+them.
+
+All day long, it blew without cessation.  The night was clear and
+starlight, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing.
+Sometimes--towards the end of a long stage--Kit could not help
+wishing it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change
+horses, and he had had a good run, and what with that, and the
+bustle of paying the old postilion, and rousing the new one, and
+running to and fro again until the horses were put to, he was so
+warm that the blood tingled and smarted in his fingers' ends--
+then, he felt as if to have it one degree less cold would be to
+lose half the delight and glory of the journey: and up he jumped
+again, right cheerily, singing to the merry music of the wheels as
+they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople in their warm beds,
+pursued their course along the lonely road.
+
+Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to
+sleep, beguiled the time with conversation.  As both were anxious
+and expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their
+expedition, on the manner in which it had been brought about, and
+on the hopes and fears they entertained respecting it.  Of the
+former they had many, of the latter few--none perhaps beyond that
+indefinable uneasiness which is inseparable from suddenly awakened
+hope, and protracted expectation.
+
+In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night
+had worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more
+and more silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said
+abruptly:
+
+'Are you a good listener?'
+
+'Like most other men, I suppose,' returned Mr Garland, smiling.  'I
+can be, if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still
+try to appear so.  Why do you ask?'
+
+'I have a short narrative on my lips,' rejoined his friend, 'and
+will try you with it.  It is very brief.'
+
+Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman's
+sleeve, and proceeded thus:
+
+'There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly.  There
+was a disparity in their ages--some twelve years.  I am not sure
+but they may insensibly have loved each other the better for that
+reason.  Wide as the interval between them was, however, they
+became rivals too soon.  The deepest and strongest affection of
+both their hearts settled upon one object.
+
+'The youngest--there were reasons for his being sensitive and
+watchful--was the first to find this out.  I will not tell you
+what misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his
+mental struggle was.  He had been a sickly child.  His brother,
+patient and considerate in the midst of his own high health and
+strength, had many and many a day denied himself the sports he
+loved, to sit beside his couch, telling him old stories till his
+pale face lighted up with an unwonted glow; to carry him in his
+arms to some green spot, where he could tend the poor pensive boy
+as he looked upon the bright summer day, and saw all nature healthy
+but himself; to be, in any way, his fond and faithful nurse.  I may
+not dwell on all he did, to make the poor, weak creature love him,
+or my tale would have no end.  But when the time of trial came, the
+younger brother's heart was full of those old days.  Heaven
+strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of inconsiderate youth by
+one of thoughtful manhood.  He left his brother to be happy.  The
+truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the country, hoping to
+die abroad.
+
+'The elder brother married her.  She was in Heaven before long, and
+left him with an infant daughter.
+
+'If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you
+will remember how the same face and figure--often the fairest and
+slightest of them all--come upon you in different generations; and
+how you trace the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits--
+never growing old or changing--the Good Angel of the race--
+abiding by them in all reverses--redeeming all their sins--
+
+'In this daughter the mother lived again.  You may judge with what
+devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to
+this girl, her breathing image.  She grew to womanhood, and gave
+her heart to one who could not know its worth.  Well!  Her fond
+father could not see her pine and droop.  He might be more
+deserving than he thought him.  He surely might become so, with a
+wife like her.  He joined their hands, and they were married.
+
+'Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the
+cold neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he
+brought upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life,
+too mean and pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled
+on, in the deep devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature,
+as only women can.  Her means and substance wasted; her father
+nearly beggared by her husband's hand, and the hourly witness (for
+they lived now under one roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,--
+she never, but for him, bewailed her fate.  Patient, and upheld by
+strong affection to the last, she died a widow of some three weeks'
+date, leaving to her father's care two orphans; one a son of ten or
+twelve years old; the other a girl--such another infant child--
+the same in helplessness, in age, in form, in feature--as she had
+been herself when her young mother died.
+
+'The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a
+broken man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years
+than by the heavy hand of sorrow.  With the wreck of his
+possessions, he began to trade--in pictures first, and then in
+curious ancient things.  He had entertained a fondness for such
+matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated were now to
+yield him an anxious and precarious subsistence.
+
+'The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like
+her mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked
+into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched
+dream, and his daughter were a little child again.  The wayward boy
+soon spurned the shelter of his roof, and sought associates more
+congenial to his taste.  The old man and the child dwelt alone
+together.
+
+'It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest
+and dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight
+creature; when her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from
+hour to hour, of the too early change he had seen in such another--
+of all the sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child
+had undergone; when the young man's profligate and hardened course
+drained him of money as his father's had, and even sometimes
+occasioned them temporary privation and distress; it was then that
+there began to beset him, and to be ever in his mind, a gloomy
+dread of poverty and want.  He had no thought for himself in this.
+His fear was for the child.  It was a spectre in his house, and
+haunted him night and day.
+
+'The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and
+had made his pilgrimage through life alone.  His voluntary
+banishment had been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without
+pain) reproach and slight for doing that which had wrung his heart,
+and cast a mournful shadow on his path.  Apart from this,
+communication between him and the elder was difficult, and
+uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not so wholly broken off
+but that he learnt--with long blanks and gaps between each
+interval of information--all that I have told you now.
+
+'Then, dreams of their young, happy life--happy to him though
+laden with pain and early care--visited his pillow yet oftener
+than before; and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother's
+side.  With the utmost speed he could exert, he settled his
+affairs; converted into money all the goods he had; and, with
+honourable wealth enough for both, with open heart and hand, with
+limbs that trembled as they bore him on, with emotion such as men
+can hardly bear and live, arrived one evening at his brother's
+door!'
+
+The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.
+
+'The rest,' said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, 'I
+know.'
+
+'Yes,' rejoined his friend, 'we may spare ourselves the sequel.
+You know the poor result of all my search.  Even when by dint of
+such inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on
+foot, we found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen--
+and in time discovered the men themselves--and in time, the
+actual place of their retreat; even then, we were too late.  Pray
+God, we are not too late again!'
+
+'We cannot be,' said Mr Garland.  'This time we must succeed.'
+
+'I have believed and hoped so,' returned the other.  'I try to
+believe and hope so still.  But a heavy weight has fallen on my
+spirits, my good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will
+yield to neither hope nor reason.'
+
+'That does not surprise me,' said Mr Garland; 'it is a natural
+consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time
+and place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night.  A dismal
+night, indeed!  Hark! how the wind is howling!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 70
+
+
+Day broke, and found them still upon their way.  Since leaving
+home, they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and
+had frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by
+waiting for fresh horses.  They had made no other stoppages, but
+the weather continued rough, and the roads were often steep and
+heavy.  It would be night again before they reached their place of
+destination.
+
+Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and,
+having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to
+himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look
+about him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for
+thinking of discomforts.  Though his impatience, and that of his
+fellow-travellers, rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours
+did not stand still.  The short daylight of winter soon faded away,
+and it was dark again when they had yet many miles to travel.
+
+As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low
+and mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling
+covertly among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some
+great phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled
+as it stalked along.  By degrees it lulled and died away, and then
+it came on to snow.
+
+The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some
+inches deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness.  The rolling
+wheels were noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the
+horses' hoofs, became a dull, muffled tramp.  The life of their
+progress seemed to be slowly hushed, and something death-like to
+usurp its place.
+
+Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their
+lashes and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the
+earliest glimpse of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to
+some not distant town.  He could descry objects enough at such
+times, but none correctly.  Now, a tall church spire appeared in
+view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a shadow on the
+ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps.  Now, there were
+horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, or meeting
+them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them, turned
+to shadows too.  A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise up
+in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be
+the road itself.  Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of
+water, appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful
+and uncertain; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these
+things, like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim
+illusions.
+
+He descended slowly from his seat--for his limbs were numbed--
+when they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far
+they had to go to reach their journey's end.  It was a late hour in
+such by-places, and the people were abed; but a voice answered from
+an upper window, Ten miles.  The ten minutes that ensued appeared
+an hour; but at the end of that time, a shivering figure led out
+the horses they required, and after another brief delay they were
+again in motion.
+It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four
+miles, of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow,
+were so many pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to
+keep a footpace.  As it was next to impossible for men so much
+agitated as they were by this time, to sit still and move so
+slowly, all three got out and plodded on behind the carriage.  The
+distance seemed interminable, and the walk was most laborious.  As
+each was thinking within himself that the driver must have lost his
+way, a church bell, close at hand, struck the hour of midnight, and
+the carriage stopped.  It had moved softly enough, but when it
+ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as startling as if some
+great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness.
+
+'This is the place, gentlemen,' said the driver, dismounting from
+his horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn.  'Halloa!
+Past twelve o'clock is the dead of night here.'
+
+The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy
+inmates.  All continued dark and silent as before.  They fell back
+a little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black
+patches in the whitened house front.  No light appeared.  The house
+might have been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life
+it had about it.
+
+They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers;
+unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now
+raised.
+
+'Let us go on,' said the younger brother, 'and leave this good
+fellow to wake them, if he can.  I cannot rest until I know that we
+are not too late.  Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!'
+
+They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as
+the house afforded, and to renew his knocking.  Kit accompanied
+them with a little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when
+they left home, and had not forgotten since--the bird in his old
+cage--just as she had left him.  She would be glad to see her
+bird, he knew.
+
+The road wound gently downward.  As they proceeded, they lost sight
+of the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village
+clustering round it.  The knocking, which was now renewed, and
+which in that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them.
+They wished the man would forbear, or that they had told him not to
+break the silence until they returned.
+
+The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white,
+again rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close
+beside it.  A venerable building--grey, even in the midst of the
+hoary landscape.  An ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly
+hidden by the snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was.
+Time itself seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were
+ever to displace the melancholy night.
+
+A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path
+across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to
+take, they came to a stand again.
+
+The village street--if street that could be called which was an
+irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some
+with their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends
+towards the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed
+encroaching on the path--was close at hand.  There was a faint
+light in a chamber window not far off, and Kit ran towards that
+house to ask their way.
+
+His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently
+appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as
+a protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that
+unseasonable hour, wanting him.
+
+''Tis hard weather this,' he grumbled, 'and not a night to call me
+up in.  My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from
+bed.  The business on which folks want me, will keep cold,
+especially at this season.  What do you want?'
+
+'I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,'
+said Kit.
+
+'Old!' repeated the other peevishly.  'How do you know I am old?
+Not so old as you think, friend, perhaps.  As to being ill, you
+will find many young people in worse case than I am.  More's the
+pity that it should be so--not that I should be strong and hearty
+for my years, I mean, but that they should be weak and tender.  I
+ask your pardon though,' said the old man, 'if I spoke rather rough
+at first.  My eyes are not good at night--that's neither age nor
+illness; they never were--and I didn't see you were a stranger.'
+
+'I am sorry to call you from your bed,' said Kit, 'but those
+gentlemen you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too,
+who have just arrived from a long journey, and seek the
+parsonage-house.  You can direct us?'
+
+'I should be able to,' answered the old man, in a trembling voice,
+'for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years.
+The right hand path, friend, is the road.--There is no ill news
+for our good gentleman, I hope?'
+
+Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he
+was turning back, when his attention was caught
+by the voice of a child.  Looking up, he saw a very little creature
+at a neighbouring window.
+
+'What is that?' cried the child, earnestly.  'Has my dream come
+true?  Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.'
+
+'Poor boy!' said the sexton, before Kit could answer, 'how goes it,
+darling?'
+'Has my dream come true?' exclaimed the child again, in a voice so
+fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener.
+'But no, that can never be!  How could it be--Oh! how could it!'
+
+'I guess his meaning,' said the sexton.  'To bed again, poor boy!'
+
+'Ay!' cried the child, in a burst of despair.  'I knew it could
+never be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked!  But, all
+to-night, and last night too, it was the same.  I never fall
+asleep, but that cruel dream comes back.'
+
+'Try to sleep again,' said the old man, soothingly.  'It will go in
+time.'
+
+'No no, I would rather that it staid--cruel as it is, I would
+rather that it staid,' rejoined the child.  'I am not afraid to
+have it in my sleep, but I am so sad--so very, very sad.'
+
+The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and
+Kit was again alone.
+
+He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the
+child's manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was
+hidden from him.  They took the path indicated by the sexton, and
+soon arrived before the parsonage wall.  Turning round to look
+about them when they had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined
+buildings at a distance, one single solitary light.
+
+It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being
+surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like
+a star.  Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads,
+lonely and motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with
+the eternal lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them.
+
+'What light is that!' said the younger brother.
+
+'It is surely,' said Mr Garland, 'in the ruin where they live.  I
+see no other ruin hereabouts.'
+
+'They cannot,' returned the brother hastily, 'be waking at this
+late hour--'
+
+Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and
+waited at the gate, they would let him make his way to where this
+light was shining, and try to ascertain if any people were about.
+Obtaining the permission he desired, he darted off with breathless
+eagerness, and, still carrying the birdcage in his hand, made
+straight towards the spot.
+
+It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another
+time he might have gone more slowly, or round by the path.
+Unmindful of all obstacles, however, he pressed forward without
+slackening his speed, and soon arrived within a few yards of the
+window.
+He approached as softly as he could, and advancing so near the wall
+as to brush the whitened ivy with his dress, listened.  There was
+no sound inside.  The church itself was not more quiet.  Touching
+the glass with his cheek, he listened again.  No.  And yet there
+was such a silence all around, that he felt sure he could have
+heard even the breathing of a sleeper, if there had been one there.
+
+A strange circumstance, a light in such a place at that time of
+night, with no one near it.
+
+A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he
+could not see into the room.  But there was no shadow thrown upon
+it from within.  To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to
+look in from above, would have been attended with some danger--
+certainly with some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child,
+if that really were her habitation.  Again and again he listened;
+again and again the same wearisome blank.
+
+Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the
+ruin for a few paces, he came at length to a door.  He knocked.  No
+answer.  But there was a curious noise inside.  It was difficult to
+determine what it was.  It bore a resemblance to the low moaning of
+one in pain, but it was not that, being far too regular and
+constant.  Now it seemed a kind of song, now a wail--seemed, that
+is, to his changing fancy, for the sound itself was never changed
+or checked.  It was unlike anything he had ever heard; and in its
+tone there was something fearful, chilling, and unearthly.
+
+The listener's blood ran colder now than ever it had done in frost
+and snow, but he knocked again.  There was no answer, and the sound
+went on without any interruption.  He laid his
+hand softly upon the latch, and put his knee against the door.  It
+was secured on the inside, but yielded to the pressure, and turned
+upon its hinges.  He saw the glimmering of a fire upon the old
+walls, and entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 71
+
+
+The dull, red glow of a wood fire--for no lamp or candle burnt
+within the room--showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with
+its back towards him, bending over the fitful light.  The attitude
+was that of one who sought the heat.  It was, and yet was not.  The
+stooping posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands
+were stretched out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver
+compared its luxury with the piercing cold outside.  With limbs
+huddled together, head bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast,
+and fingers tightly clenched, it rocked to and fro upon its seat
+without a moment's pause, accompanying the action with the mournful
+sound he had heard.
+
+The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash
+that made him start.  The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look,
+nor gave in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the
+noise.  The form was that of an old man, his white head akin in
+colour to the mouldering embers upon which he gazed.  He, and the
+failing light and dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the
+wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellowship.  Ashes, and dust,
+and ruin!
+
+Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they
+were he scarcely knew.  Still the same terrible low cry went on--
+still the same rocking in the chair--the same stricken figure was
+there, unchanged and heedless of his presence.
+
+He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form--
+distinctly seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed
+up--arrested it.  He returned to where he had stood before--
+advanced a pace--another--another still.  Another, and he saw the
+face.  Yes!  Changed as it was, he knew it well.
+
+'Master!' he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand.
+'Dear master.  Speak to me!'
+
+The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow
+voice,
+
+'This is another!--How many of these spirits there have been
+to-night!'
+
+'No spirit, master.  No one but your old servant.  You know me now,
+I am sure?  Miss Nell--where is she--where is she?'
+
+'They all say that!' cried the old man.  'They all ask the same
+question.  A spirit!'
+
+'Where is she?' demanded Kit.  'Oh tell me but that,--but that,
+dear master!'
+
+'She is asleep--yonder--in there.'
+
+'Thank God!'
+
+'Aye!  Thank God!' returned the old man.  'I have prayed to Him,
+many, and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been
+asleep, He knows.  Hark!  Did she call?'
+
+'I heard no voice.'
+
+'You did.  You hear her now.  Do you tell me that you don't hear
+THAT?'
+
+He started up, and listened again.
+
+'Nor that?' he cried, with a triumphant smile, 'Can any body know
+that voice so well as I?  Hush!  Hush!'
+Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber.
+After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in
+a softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp.
+
+'She is still asleep,' he whispered.  'You were right.  She did not
+call--unless she did so in her slumber.  She has called to me in
+her sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen
+her lips move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that
+she spoke of me.  I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake
+her, so I brought it here.'
+
+He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put
+the lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some
+momentary recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face.
+Then, as if forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned
+away and put it down again.
+
+'She is sleeping soundly,' he said; 'but no wonder.  Angel hands
+have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep
+may be lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not
+wake her.  She used to feed them, Sir.  Though never so cold and
+hungry, the timid things would fly from us.  They never flew from
+her!'
+
+Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened
+for a long, long time.  That fancy past, he opened an old chest,
+took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things,
+and began to smooth and brush them with his hand.
+
+'Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,' he murmured, 'when
+there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck
+them!  Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends
+come creeping to the door, crying "where is Nell--sweet Nell?"--
+and sob, and weep, because they do not see thee.  She was always
+gentle with children.  The wildest would do her bidding--she had
+a tender way with them, indeed she had!'
+
+Kit had no power to speak.  His eyes were filled with tears.
+
+'Her little homely dress,--her favourite!' cried the old man,
+pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand.
+'She will miss it when she wakes.  They have hid it here in sport,
+but she shall have it--she shall have it.  I would not vex my
+darling, for the wide world's riches.  See here--these shoes--how
+worn they are--she kept them to remind her of our last
+long journey.  You see where the little feet went bare upon the
+ground.  They told me, afterwards, that the stones had cut and
+bruised them.  She never told me that.  No, no, God bless her! and,
+I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might
+not see how lame she was--but yet she had my hand in hers, and
+seemed to lead me still.'
+
+He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back
+again, went on communing with himself--looking wistfully from time
+to time towards the chamber he had lately visited.
+
+'She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then.  We must
+have patience.  When she is well again, she will rise early, as she
+used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time.  I often
+tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no
+print upon the dewy ground, to guide me.  Who is that?  Shut the
+door.  Quick!--Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble
+cold, and keep her warm!'
+
+The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his
+friend, accompanied by two other persons.  These were the
+schoolmaster, and the bachelor.  The former held a light in his
+hand.  He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish
+the exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit came up and found the
+old man alone.
+
+He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside
+the angry manner--if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can
+be applied--in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed
+his former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old
+action, and the old, dull, wandering sound.
+
+Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever.  He had seen them, but
+appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity.  The younger
+brother stood apart.  The bachelor drew a chair towards the old
+man, and sat down close beside him.  After a long silence, he
+ventured to speak.
+
+'Another night, and not in bed!' he said softly; 'I hoped you would
+be more mindful of your promise to me.  Why do you not take some
+rest?'
+
+'Sleep has left me,' returned the old man.  'It is all with her!'
+
+'It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,'
+said the bachelor.  'You would not give her pain?'
+
+'I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her.  She has
+slept so very long.  And yet I am rash to say so.  It is a good and
+happy sleep--eh?'
+
+'Indeed it is,' returned the bachelor.  'Indeed, indeed, it is!'
+
+'That's well!--and the waking--' faltered the old man.
+
+'Happy too.  Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man
+conceive.'
+
+They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other
+chamber where the lamp had been replaced.  They listened as he
+spoke again within its silent walls.  They looked into the faces of
+each other, and no man's cheek was free from tears.  He came back,
+whispering that she was still asleep, but that he thought she had
+moved.  It was her hand, he said--a little--a very, very little--
+but he was pretty sure she had moved it--perhaps in seeking his.
+He had known her do that, before now, though in the deepest sleep
+the while.  And when he had said this, he dropped into his chair
+again, and clasping his hands above his head, uttered a cry never
+to be forgotten.
+
+The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come
+on the other side, and speak to him.  They gently unlocked his
+fingers, which he had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in
+their own.
+
+'He will hear me,' said the schoolmaster, 'I am sure.  He will hear
+either me or you if we beseech him.  She would, at all times.'
+
+'I will hear any voice she liked to hear,' cried the old man.  'I
+love all she loved!'
+
+'I know you do,' returned the schoolmaster.  'I am certain of it.
+Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have
+shared together; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures,
+you have jointly known.'
+
+'I do.  I do.  I think of nothing else.'
+
+'I would have you think of nothing else to-night--of nothing but
+those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it
+to old affections and old times.  It is so that she would speak to
+you herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.'
+
+'You do well to speak softly,' said the old man.  'We will not wake
+her.  I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile.
+There is a smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and
+changeless.  I would have it come and go.  That shall be in
+Heaven's good time.  We will not wake her.'
+
+'Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when
+you were Journeying together, far away--as she was at home, in the
+old house from which you fled together--as she was, in the old
+cheerful time,' said the schoolmaster.
+
+'She was always cheerful--very cheerful,' cried the old man,
+looking steadfastly at him.  'There was ever something mild and
+quiet about her, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy
+nature.'
+
+'We have heard you say,' pursued the schoolmaster, 'that in this
+and in all goodness, she was like her mother.  You can think of,
+and remember her?'
+
+He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer.
+
+'Or even one before her,' said the bachelor.  'it is many years
+ago, and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not
+forgotten her whose death contributed to make this child so dear to
+you, even before you knew her worth or could read her heart?  Say,
+that you could carry back your thoughts to very distant days--to
+the time of your early life--when, unlike this fair flower, you
+did not pass your youth alone.  Say, that you could remember, long
+ago, another child who loved you dearly, you being but a child
+yourself.  Say, that you had a brother, long forgotten, long
+unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, in your utmost
+need came back to comfort and console you--'
+
+'To be to you what you were once to him,' cried the younger,
+falling on his knee before him; 'to repay your old affection,
+brother dear, by constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at
+your right hand, what he has never ceased to be when oceans rolled
+between us; to call to witness his unchanging truth and mindfulness
+of bygone days, whole years of desolation.  Give me but one word of
+recognition, brother--and never--no never, in the brightest
+moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly boys, we thought to
+pass our lives together--have we been half as dear and precious to
+each other as we shall be from this time hence!'
+
+The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no
+sound came from them in reply.
+
+'If we were knit together then,' pursued the younger brother, 'what
+will be the bond between us now!  Our love and fellowship began in
+childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we
+have proved it, and are but children at the last.  As many restless
+spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the
+world, retire in their decline to where they first drew breath,
+vainly seeking to be children once again before they die, so we,
+less fortunate than they in early life, but happier in its closing
+scenes, will set up our rest again among our boyish haunts, and
+going home with no hope realised, that had its growth in manhood--
+carrying back nothing that we brought away, but our old yearnings
+to each other--saving no fragment from the wreck of life, but that
+which first endeared it--may be, indeed, but children as at first.
+And even,' he added in an altered voice, 'even if what I dread to
+name has come to pass--even if that be so, or is to be (which
+Heaven forbid and spare us!)--still, dear brother, we are not
+apart, and have that comfort in our great affliction.'
+
+By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner
+chamber, while these words were spoken.  He pointed there, as he
+replied, with trembling lips.
+
+'You plot among you to wean my heart from her.  You never will do
+that--never while I have life.  I have no relative or friend but
+her--I never had--I never will have.  She is all in all to me.
+It is too late to part us now.'
+
+Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he
+went, he stole into the room.  They who were left behind, drew
+close together, and after a few whispered words--not unbroken by
+emotion, or easily uttered--followed him.  They moved so gently,
+that their footsteps made no noise; but there were sobs from among
+the group, and sounds of grief and mourning.
+
+For she was dead.  There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest.
+The solemn stillness was no marvel now.
+
+She was dead.  No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace
+of pain, so fair to look upon.  She seemed a creature fresh from
+the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who
+had lived and suffered death.
+
+Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and
+green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour.
+'When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and
+had the sky above it always.'  Those were her words.
+
+She was dead.  Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead.  Her
+little bird--a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would
+have crushed--was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong
+heart of its child mistress was mute and motionless for ever.
+
+Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and
+fatigues?  All gone.  Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and
+perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and
+profound repose.
+
+And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change.
+Yes.  The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had
+passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the
+door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the
+furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the
+dying boy, there had been the same mild lovely look.  So shall we
+know the angels in their majesty, after death.
+
+The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand
+tight folded to his breast, for warmth.  It was the hand she had
+stretched out to him with her last smile--the hand that had led
+him on, through all their wanderings.  Ever and anon he pressed it
+to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it
+was warmer now; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those
+who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.
+
+She was dead, and past all help, or need of it.  The ancient rooms
+she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning
+fast--the garden she had tended--the eyes she had gladdened--the
+noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour--the paths she had
+trodden as it were but yesterday--could know her never more.
+
+'It is not,' said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on
+the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, 'it is not on earth that
+Heaven's justice ends.  Think what earth is, compared with the
+World to which her young spirit has winged its early flight; and
+say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this
+bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 72
+
+
+When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject
+of their grief, they heard how her life had closed.
+
+She had been dead two days.  They were all about her at the time,
+knowing that the end was drawing on.  She died soon after daybreak.
+They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the
+night, but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep.  They could
+tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of
+her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes,
+but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often
+said 'God bless you!' with great fervour.  Waking, she never
+wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music
+which she said was in the air.  God knows.  It may have been.
+
+Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that
+they would kiss her once again.  That done, she turned to the old
+man with a lovely smile upon her face--such, they said, as they
+had never seen, and never could forget--and clung with both her
+arms about his neck.  They did not know that she was dead, at
+first.
+
+She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were
+like dear friends to her.  She wished they could be told how much
+she thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked
+together, by the river side at night.  She would like to see poor
+Kit, she had often said of late.  She wished there was somebody to
+take her love to Kit.  And, even then, she never
+thought or spoke about him, but with something of her old, clear,
+merry laugh.
+
+For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a
+quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered--save that she every day
+became more earnest and more grateful to them--faded like the
+light upon a summer's evening.
+
+The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon
+as it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged
+them to lay upon her breast.  It was he who had come to the window
+overnight and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces
+of small feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which
+she lay, before he went to bed.  He had a fancy, it seemed, that
+they had left her there alone; and could not bear the thought.
+
+He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being
+restored to them, just as she used to be.  He begged hard to see
+her, saying that he would be very quiet, and that they need not
+fear his being alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother
+all day long when he was dead, and had felt glad to be so near him.
+They let him have his wish; and indeed he kept his word, and was,
+in his childish way, a lesson to them all.
+
+Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once--except to her--
+or stirred from the bedside.  But, when he saw her little
+favourite, he was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as
+though he would have him come nearer.  Then, pointing to the bed,
+he burst into tears for the first time, and they who stood by,
+knowing that the sight of this child had done him good, left them
+alone together.
+
+Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuaded him
+to take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him.
+And when the day came on, which must remove her in her earthly
+shape from earthly eyes for ever, he led him away, that he might
+not know when she was taken from him.
+
+They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed.  It was
+Sunday--a bright, clear, wintry afternoon--and as they traversed
+the village street, those who were walking in their path drew back
+to make way for them, and gave them a softened greeting.  Some
+shook the old man kindly by the hand, some stood uncovered while he
+tottered by, and many cried 'God help him!' as he passed along.
+
+'Neighbour!' said the old man, stopping at the cottage where
+his young guide's mother dwelt, 'how is it that the folks are
+nearly all in black to-day?  I have seen a mourning ribbon or a
+piece of crape on almost every one.'
+
+She could not tell, the woman said.  'Why, you yourself--you wear
+the colour too?' he said.  'Windows are closed that never used to
+be by day.  What does this mean?'
+
+Again the woman said she could not tell.
+
+'We must go back,' said the old man, hurriedly.  'We must see what
+this is.'
+
+'No, no,' cried the child, detaining him.  'Remember what you
+promised.  Our way is to the old green lane, where she and I so
+often were, and where you found us, more than once, making those
+garlands for her garden.  Do not turn back!'
+
+'Where is she now?' said the old man.  'Tell me that.'
+
+'Do you not know?' returned the child.  'Did we not leave her, but
+just now?'
+
+'True.  True.  It was her we left--was it?'
+
+He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if
+impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the
+sexton's house.  He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the
+fire.  Both rose up, on seeing who it was.
+
+The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand.  It was the
+action of an instant, but that, and the old man's look, were quite
+enough.
+
+'Do you--do you bury any one to-day)' he said, eagerly.
+
+'No, no!  Who should we bury, Sir?' returned the sexton.
+
+'Aye, who indeed!  I say with you, who indeed!'
+
+'It is a holiday with us, good Sir,' returned the sexton mildly.
+'We have no work to do to-day.'
+
+'Why then, I'll go where you will,' said the old man, turning to
+the child.  'You're sure of what you tell me?  You would not
+deceive me?  I am changed, even in the little time since you last
+saw me.'
+
+'Go thy ways with him, Sir,' cried the sexton, 'and Heaven be with
+ye both!'
+
+'I am quite ready,' said the old man, meekly.  'Come, boy, come--'
+and so submitted to be led away.
+
+And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by night and
+day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice--
+rung its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so
+good.  Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and
+helpless infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride of
+strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn
+of life--to gather round her tomb.  Old men were there, whose eyes
+were dim and senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten
+years ago, and still been old--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the
+palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the
+closing of that early grave.  What was the death it would shut in,
+to that which still could crawl and creep above it!
+
+Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen
+snow that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting.
+Under the porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought
+her to that peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church
+received her in its quiet shade.
+
+They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a
+time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement.  The
+light streamed on it through the coloured window--a window, where
+the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the
+birds sang sweetly all day long.  With every breath of air that
+stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling,
+changing light, would fall upon her grave.
+
+Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!  Many a young hand
+dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard.  Some--
+and they were not a few--knelt down.  All were sincere and
+truthful in their sorrow.
+
+The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers
+closed round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone
+should be replaced.  One called to mind how he had seen her sitting
+on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she
+was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky.  Another told, how he
+had wondered much that one so delicate as she, should be so bold;
+how she had never feared to enter the church alone at night, but
+had loved to linger there when all was quiet, and even to climb the
+tower stair, with no more light than that of the moon rays stealing
+through the loopholes in the thick old wall.  A whisper went about
+among the oldest, that she had seen and talked with angels; and
+when they called to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her
+early death, some thought it might be so, indeed.  Thus, coming to
+the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to
+others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the
+church was cleared in time, of all but the sexton and the mourning
+friends.
+
+They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down.  Then, when
+the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the
+sacred stillness of the place--when the bright moon poured in her
+light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of
+all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave--in that calm time,
+when outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of
+immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust
+before them--then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned
+away, and left the child with God.
+
+Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will
+teach, but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn,
+and is a mighty, universal Truth.  When Death strikes down the
+innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the
+panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy,
+charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it.  Of every tear
+that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is
+born, some gentler nature comes.  In the Destroyer's steps there
+spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path
+becomes a way of light to Heaven.
+
+It was late when the old man came home.  The boy had led him to his
+own dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back; and, rendered
+drowsy by his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into
+a deep sleep by the fireside.  He was perfectly exhausted, and they
+were careful not to rouse him.  The slumber held him a long time,
+and when he at length awoke the moon was shining.
+
+The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching
+at the door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with
+his little guide.  He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging
+the old man to lean upon his arm, conducted him with slow and
+trembling steps towards the house.
+
+He repaired to her chamber, straight.  Not finding what he had left
+there, he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they
+were assembled.  From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster's
+cottage, calling her name.  They followed close upon him, and when
+he had vainly searched it, brought him home.
+
+With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest,
+they prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should
+tell him.  Then endeavouring by every little artifice to prepare
+his mind for what must come, and dwelling with many fervent words
+upon the happy lot to which she had been removed, they told him, at
+last, the truth.  The moment it had passed their lips, he fell down
+among them like a murdered man.
+
+For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is
+strong, and he recovered.
+
+If there be any who have never known the blank that follows death--
+the weary void--the sense of desolation that will come upon the
+strongest minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at
+every turn--the connection between inanimate and senseless things,
+and the object of recollection, when every household god becomes a
+monument and every room a grave--if there be any who have not
+known this, and proved it by their own experience, they can never
+faintly guess how, for many days, the old man pined and moped away
+the time, and wandered here and there as seeking something, and had
+no comfort.
+
+Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up
+in her.  He never understood, or seemed to care to understand,
+about his brother.  To every endearment and attention he continued
+listless.  If they spoke to him on this, or any other theme--save
+one--he would hear them patiently for awhile, then turn away, and
+go on seeking as before.
+
+On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, it was
+impossible to touch.  Dead!  He could not hear or bear the word.
+The slightest hint of it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that
+he had had when it was first spoken.  In what hope he lived, no man
+could tell; but that he had some hope of finding her again--some
+faint and shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him
+from day to day more sick and sore at heart--was plain to all.
+
+They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last
+sorrow; of trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him.
+His brother sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful
+in such matters, and they came and saw him.  Some of the number
+staid upon the spot, conversed with him when he would converse, and
+watched him as he wandered up and down, alone and silent.  Move him
+where they might, they said, he would ever seek to get back there.
+His mind would run upon that spot.  If they confined him closely,
+and kept a strict guard upon him, they might hold him prisoner, but
+if he could by any means escape, he would surely wander back to
+that place, or die upon the road.
+
+The boy, to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any
+influence with him.  At times he would suffer the child to walk by
+his side, or would even take such notice of his presence as giving
+him his hand, or would stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the
+head.  At other times, he would entreat him--not unkindly--to be
+gone, and would not brook him near.  But, whether alone, or with
+this pliant friend, or with those who would have given him, at any
+cost or sacrifice, some consolation or some peace of mind, if
+happily the means could have been devised; he was at all times the
+same--with no love or care for anything in life--a broken-hearted
+man.
+
+At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with
+his knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and
+little basket full of such things as she had been used to carry,
+was gone.  As they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a
+frightened schoolboy came who had seen him, but a moment before,
+sitting in the church--upon her grave, he said.
+
+They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in
+the attitude of one who waited patiently.  They did not disturb him
+then, but kept a watch upon him all that day.  When it grew quite
+dark, he rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to
+himself, 'She will come to-morrow!'
+
+Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and
+still at night he laid him down to rest, and murmured, 'She will
+come to-morrow!'
+
+And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her
+grave, for her.  How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant
+country, of resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in
+the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden--how many tones
+of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form,
+the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind--
+how many visions of what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be--
+rose up before him, in the old, dull, silent church!  He never
+told them what he thought, or where he went.  He would sit with
+them at night, pondering with a secret satisfaction, they could
+see, upon the flight that he and she would take before night came
+again; and still they would hear him whisper in his prayers, 'Lord!
+Let her come to-morrow!'
+
+The last time was on a genial day in spring.  He did not return at
+the usual hour, and they went to seek him.  He was lying dead upon
+the stone.
+
+They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in
+the church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered
+hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 73
+
+
+The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler
+thus far, now slackens in its pace, and stops.  It lies before the
+goal; the pursuit is at an end.
+
+It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have
+borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey.
+
+Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm,
+claim our polite attention.
+
+Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the
+justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to
+protract his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under
+his protection for a considerable time, during which the great
+attention of his entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he
+was quite lost to society, and never even went abroad for exercise
+saving into a small paved yard.  So well, indeed, was his modest
+and retiring temper understood by those with whom he had to deal,
+and so jealous were they of his absence, that they required a kind
+of friendly bond to be entered into by two substantial
+housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds a-piece, before
+they would suffer him to quit their hospitable roof--doubting, it
+appeared, that he would return, if once let loose, on any other
+terms.  Mr Brass, struck with the humour of this jest, and carrying
+out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his wide connection a
+pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some halfpence short
+of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail--for that was the
+merry word agreed upon both sides.  These gentlemen being rejected
+after twenty-four hours' pleasantry, Mr Brass consented to remain,
+and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand jury
+(who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve other
+wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty with
+a most facetious joy,--nay, the very populace entered into the
+whim, and when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the
+building where these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs
+and carcases of kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into
+shreds, which greatly increased the comicality of the thing, and
+made him relish it the more, no doubt.
+
+To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his
+counsel, moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to
+criminate himself, by assurances of safety and promises of pardon,
+and claimed the leniency which the law extends to such confiding
+natures as are thus deluded.  After solemn argument, this point
+(with others of a technical nature, whose humorous extravagance it
+would be difficult to exaggerate) was referred to the judges for
+their decision, Sampson being meantime removed to his former
+quarters.  Finally, some of the points were given in Sampson's
+favour, and some against him; and the upshot was, that, instead of
+being desired to travel for a time in foreign parts, he was
+permitted to grace the mother country under certain insignificant
+restrictions.
+
+These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a
+spacious mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and
+boarded at the public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of
+grey turned up with yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and
+chiefly lived on gruel and light soup.  It was also required of him
+that he should partake of their exercise of constantly ascending an
+endless flight of stairs; and, lest his legs, unused to such
+exertion, should be weakened by it, that he should wear upon one
+ankle an amulet or charm of iron.  These conditions being arranged,
+he was removed one evening to his new abode, and enjoyed, in common
+with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the privilege of being
+taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty's own carriages.
+
+Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and
+blotted out from the roll of attorneys; which erasure has been
+always held in these latter times to be a great degradation and
+reproach, and to imply the commission of some amazing villany--as
+indeed it would seem to be the case, when so many worthless names
+remain among its better records, unmolested.
+
+Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumours went abroad.  Some said with
+confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and
+had become a female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had
+enlisted as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and
+had been seen in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her
+musket and looking out of a sentry-box in St james's Park, one
+evening.  There were many such whispers as these in circulation;
+but the truth appears to be that, after the lapse of some five
+years (during which there is no direct evidence of her having been
+seen at all), two wretched people were more than once observed to
+crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of St Giles's, and to take
+their way along the streets, with shuffling steps and cowering
+shivering forms, looking into the roads and kennels as they went in
+search of refuse food or disregarded offal.  These forms were never
+beheld but in those nights of cold and gloom, when the terrible
+spectres, who lie at all other times in the obscene hiding-places
+of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars, venture to creep
+into the streets; the embodied spirits of Disease, and Vice, and
+Famine.  It was whispered by those who should have known, that
+these were Sampson and his sister Sally; and to this day, it is
+said, they sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome
+guise, close at the elbow of the shrinking passenger.
+
+The body of Quilp being found--though not until some days had
+elapsed--an inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been
+washed ashore.  The general supposition was that he had committed
+suicide, and, this appearing to be favoured by all the
+circumstances of his death, the verdict was to that effect.  He was
+left to be buried with a stake through his heart in the centre of
+four lonely roads.
+
+It was rumoured afterwards that this horrible and barbarous
+ceremony had been dispensed with, and that the remains had been
+secretly given up to Tom Scott.  But even here, opinion was
+divided; for some said Tom dug them up at midnight, and carried
+them to a place indicated to him by the widow.  It is probable that
+both these stories may have had their origin in the simple fact of
+Tom's shedding tears upon the inquest--which he certainly did,
+extraordinary as it may appear.  He manifested, besides, a strong
+desire to assault the jury; and being restrained and conducted out
+of court, darkened its only window by standing on his head upon the
+sill, until he was dexterously tilted upon his feet again by a
+cautious beadle.
+
+Being cast upon the world by his master's death, he determined to
+go through it upon his head and hands, and accordingly began to
+tumble for his bread.  Finding, however, his English birth an
+insurmountable obstacle to his advancement in this pursuit
+(notwithstanding that his art was in high repute and favour), he
+assumed the name of an Italian image lad, with whom he had become
+acquainted; and afterwards tumbled with extraordinary success, and
+to overflowing audiences.  Little Mrs Quilp never quite forgave
+herself the one deceit that lay so heavy on her conscience, and
+never spoke or thought of it but with bitter tears.  Her husband
+had no relations, and she was rich.  He had made no will, or she
+would probably have been poor.  Having married the first time at
+her mother's instigation, she consulted in her second choice nobody
+but herself.  It fell upon a smart young fellow enough; and as he
+made it a preliminary condition that Mrs Jiniwin should be
+thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together after marriage
+with no more than the average amount of quarrelling, and led a
+merry life upon the dead dwarf's money.
+
+Mr and Mrs Garland, and Mr Abel, went out as usual (except that
+there was a change in their household, as will be seen presently),
+and in due time the latter went into partnership with his friend
+the notary, on which occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and
+great extent of dissipation.  Unto this ball there happened to be
+invited the most bashful young lady that was ever seen, with whom
+Mr Abel happened to fall in love.  HOW it happened, or how they
+found it out, or which of them first communicated the discovery to
+the other, nobody knows.  But certain it is that in course of time
+they were married; and equally certain it is that they were the
+happiest of the happy; and no less certain it is that they deserved
+to be so.  And it is pleasant to write down that they reared a
+family; because any propagation of goodness and benevolence is no
+small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no small subject
+of rejoicing for mankind at large.
+
+The pony preserved his character for independence and principle
+down to the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long
+one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr
+of ponies.  He often went to and fro with the little phaeton
+between Mr Garland's and his son's, and, as the old people and the
+young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new
+establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising
+dignity.  He condescended to play with the children, as they grew
+old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down
+the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he relaxed so
+far, and allowed them such small freedoms as caresses, or even to
+look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted any
+one among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that
+even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were
+points between them far too serious for trifling.
+
+He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for
+when the good bachelor came to live with Mr Garland upon the
+clergyman's decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and
+amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least
+resistance.  He did no work for two or three years before he died,
+but lived in clover; and his last act (like a choleric old
+gentleman) was to kick his doctor.
+
+Mr Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering
+into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Marchioness a
+handsome stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in
+redemption of the vow he had made upon his fevered bed.  After
+casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of
+her, he decided in favour of Sophronia Sphynx, as being euphonious
+and genteel, and furthermore indicative of mystery.  Under this
+title the Marchioness repaired, in tears, to the school of his
+selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she
+was removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher
+grade.  It is but bare justice to Mr Swiveller to say, that,
+although the expenses of her education kept him in straitened
+circumstances for half a dozen years, he never slackened in his
+zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the accounts
+he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement, on his monthly
+visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary
+gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in
+quotation.
+
+In a word, Mr Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment
+until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age--
+good-looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider
+seriously what was to be done next.  On one of his periodical
+visits, while he was revolving this question in his mind, the
+Marchioness came down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more
+fresh than ever.  Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first
+time, that if she would marry him, how comfortable they might be!
+So Richard asked her; whatever she said, it wasn't No; and they
+were married in good earnest that day week.  Which gave Mr
+Swiveller frequent occasion to remark at divers subsequent periods
+that there had been a young lady saving up for him after all.
+
+A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden
+a smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to
+become its tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon
+its occupation.  To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly
+every Sunday to spend the day--usually beginning with breakfast--
+and here he was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable
+intelligence.  For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit,
+protesting that he had a better opinion of him when he was supposed
+to have stolen the five-pound note, than when he was shown to be
+perfectly free of the crime; inasmuch as his guilt would have had
+in it something daring and bold, whereas his innocence was but
+another proof of a sneaking and crafty disposition.  By slow
+degrees, however, he was reconciled to him in the end; and even
+went so far as to honour him with his patronage, as one who had in
+some measure reformed, and was therefore to be forgiven.  But he
+never forgot or pardoned that circumstance of the shilling; holding
+that if he had come back to get another he would have done well
+enough, but that his returning to work out the former gift was a
+stain upon his moral character which no penitence or contrition
+could ever wash away.
+
+Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic
+and reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the
+smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his
+own mind the mysterious question of Sophronia's parentage.
+Sophronia herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller,
+putting various slight circumstances together, often thought Miss
+Brass must know better than that; and, having heard from his wife
+of her strange interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings
+whether that person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able
+to solve the riddle, had he chosen.  These speculations, however,
+gave him no uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful,
+affectionate, and provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for an
+occasional outbreak with Mr Chuckster, which she had the good sense
+rather to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and
+domesticated husband.  And they played many hundred thousand games
+of cribbage together.  And let it be added, to Dick's honour, that,
+though we have called her Sophronia, he called her the Marchioness
+from first to last; and that upon every anniversary of the day on
+which he found her in his sick room, Mr Chuckster came to dinner,
+and there was great glorification.
+
+The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr
+James Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with
+varying success, until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the
+way of their profession, dispersed them in various directions, and
+caused their career to receive a sudden check from the long and
+strong arm of the law.  This defeat had its origin in the untoward
+detection of a new associate--young Frederick Trent--who thus
+became the unconscious instrument of their punishment and his own.
+
+For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term,
+living by his wits--which means by the abuse of every faculty that
+worthily employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded,
+sinks him far below them.  It was not long before his body was
+recognised by a stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital in
+Paris where the drowned are laid out to be owned; despite the
+bruises and disfigurements which were said to have been occasioned
+by some previous scuffle.  But the stranger kept his own counsel
+until he returned home, and it was never claimed or cared for.
+
+The younger brother, or the single gentleman, for that designation
+is more familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his
+lone retreat, and made him his companion and friend.  But the
+humble village teacher was timid of venturing into the noisy world,
+and had become fond of his dwelling in the old churchyard.  Calmly
+happy in his school, and in the spot, and in the attachment of Her
+little mourner, he pursued his quiet course in peace; and was,
+through the righteous gratitude of his friend--let this brief
+mention suffice for that--a POOR school-master no more.
+
+That friend--single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will--
+had at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no
+misanthropy or monastic gloom.  He went forth into the world, a
+lover of his kind.  For a long, long time, it was his chief delight
+to travel in the steps of the old man and the child (so far as he
+could trace them from her last narrative), to halt where they had
+halted, sympathise where they had suffered, and rejoice where they
+had been made glad.  Those who had been kind to them, did not
+escape his search.  The sisters at the school--they who were her
+friends, because themselves so friendless--Mrs Jarley of the
+wax-work, Codlin, Short--he found them all; and trust me, the man
+who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten.
+
+Kit's story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and
+many offers of provision for his future life.  He had no idea at
+first of ever quitting Mr Garland's service; but, after serious
+remonstrance and advice from that gentleman, began to contemplate
+the possibility of such a change being brought about in time.  A
+good post was procured for him, with a rapidity which took away his
+breath, by some of the gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the
+offence laid to his charge, and who had acted upon that belief.
+Through the same kind agency, his mother was secured from want, and
+made quite happy.  Thus, as Kit often said, his great misfortune
+turned out to be the source of all his subsequent prosperity.
+
+Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry?  Of course
+he married, and who should be his wife but Barbara?  And the best
+of it was, he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle,
+before the calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history,
+had ever been encased in broadcloth pantaloons,--though that was
+not quite the best either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle
+too.  The delight of Kit's mother and of Barbara's mother upon the
+great occasion is past all telling; finding they agreed so well on
+that, and on all other subjects, they took up their abode together,
+and were a most harmonious pair of friends from that time forth.
+And hadn't Astley's cause to bless itself for their all going
+together once a quarter--to the pit--and didn't Kit's mother
+always say, when they painted the outside, that Kit's last treat
+had helped to that, and wonder what the manager would feel if he
+but knew it as they passed his house!
+
+When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara
+among them, and a pretty Barbara she was.  Nor was there wanting an
+exact facsimile and copy of little Jacob, as he appeared in those
+remote times when they taught him what oysters meant.  Of course
+there was an Abel, own godson to the Mr Garland of that name; and
+there was a Dick, whom Mr Swiveller did especially favour.  The
+little group would often gather round him of a night and beg him to
+tell again that story of good Miss Nell who died.  This, Kit would
+do; and when they cried to hear it, wishing it longer too, he would
+teach them how she had gone to Heaven, as all good people did; and
+how, if they were good, like her, they might hope to be there too,
+one day, and to see and know her as he had done when he was quite
+a boy.  Then, he would relate to them how needy he used to be, and
+how she had taught him what he was otherwise too poor to learn, and
+how the old man had been used to say 'she always laughs at Kit;' at
+which they would brush away their tears, and laugh themselves to
+think that she had done so, and be again quite merry.
+
+He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived; but new
+improvements had altered it so much, it was not like the same.  The
+old house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was
+in its place.  At first he would draw with his stick a square upon
+the ground to show them where it used to stand.  But he soon became
+uncertain of the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he
+thought, and these alterations were confusing.
+
+Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do
+things pass away, like a tale that is told!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Old Curiosity Shop
+
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+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Old Curiosity Shop
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Old Curiosity Shop
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Release Date: March 7, 2008 [EBook #700]
+Last updated: May 7, 2015
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Charles Dickens
+    </h2>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0008m.jpg" alt="0008m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0008.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CONTENTS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <table width="100%">
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER 1</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER 2</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER 3</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER 4</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER 5</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER 6</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER 7</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER 8</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER 9</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER 10</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER 11</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER 12</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER 13</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER 14</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER 15</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER 16</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER 17</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER 18</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER 19</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER 20</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER 21</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER 22</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER 23</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER 24</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER 25</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER 26</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER 27</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER 28</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER 29</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER 30</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER 31</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER 32</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER 33</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER 34</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER 35</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER 36</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap37">CHAPTER 37</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap38">CHAPTER 38</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap39">CHAPTER 39</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap40">CHAPTER 40</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap41">CHAPTER 41</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap42">CHAPTER 42</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap43">CHAPTER 43</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap44">CHAPTER 44</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap45">CHAPTER 45</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap46">CHAPTER 46</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap47">CHAPTER 47</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap48">CHAPTER 48</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap49">CHAPTER 49</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap50">CHAPTER 50</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap51">CHAPTER 51</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap52">CHAPTER 52</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap53">CHAPTER 53</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap54">CHAPTER 54</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap55">CHAPTER 55</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap56">CHAPTER 56</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap57">CHAPTER 57</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap58">CHAPTER 58</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap59">CHAPTER 59</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap60">CHAPTER 60</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap61">CHAPTER 61</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap62">CHAPTER 62</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap63">CHAPTER 63</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap64">CHAPTER 64</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap65">CHAPTER 65</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap66">CHAPTER 66</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap67">CHAPTER 67</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap68">CHAPTER 68</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap69">CHAPTER 69</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap70">CHAPTER 70</a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap71">CHAPTER 71</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap72">CHAPTER 72</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          <a href="#chap73">CHAPTER 73</a>
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          &nbsp;
+        </td>
+        <td align="left" valign="top">
+          &nbsp;
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap01"></a>
+    </p>
+
+
+
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 1
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>ight is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave home
+      early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day, or even
+      escape for days or weeks together; but, saving in the country, I seldom go
+      out until after dark, though, Heaven be thanked, I love its light and feel
+      the cheerfulness it sheds upon the earth, as much as any creature living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have fallen insensibly into this habit, both because it favours my
+      infirmity and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating on
+      the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The glare
+      and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like mine; a
+      glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street-lamp or a shop
+      window is often better for my purpose than their full revelation in the
+      daylight; and, if I must add the truth, night is kinder in this respect
+      than day, which too often destroys an air-built castle at the moment of
+      its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that
+      incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy&mdash;is
+      it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear it!
+      Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin's Court, listening to
+      the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite
+      himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect the child's
+      step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the
+      lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the
+      quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker&mdash;think of the hum and
+      noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream of life that
+      will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if
+      he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and
+      had no hope of rest for centuries to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, the crowds for ever passing and repassing on the bridges (on those
+      which are free of toll at last), where many stop on fine evenings looking
+      listlessly down upon the water with some vague idea that by and by it runs
+      between green banks which grow wider and wider until at last it joins the
+      broad vast sea&mdash;where some halt to rest from heavy loads and think as
+      they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away one's life, and
+      lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish
+      barge, must be happiness unalloyed&mdash;and where some, and a very
+      different class, pause with heavier loads than they, remembering to have
+      heard or read in old time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all
+      means of suicide the easiest and best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Covent Garden Market at sunrise too, in the spring or summer, when the
+      fragrance of sweet flowers is in the air, over-powering even the
+      unwholesome streams of last night's debauchery, and driving the dusky
+      thrush, whose cage has hung outside a garret window all night long, half
+      mad with joy! Poor bird! the only neighbouring thing at all akin to the
+      other little captives, some of whom, shrinking from the hot hands of
+      drunken purchasers, lie drooping on the path already, while others,
+      soddened by close contact, await the time when they shall be watered and
+      freshened up to please more sober company, and make old clerks who pass
+      them on their road to business, wonder what has filled their breasts with
+      visions of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But my present purpose is not to expatiate upon my walks. The story I am
+      about to relate, and to which I shall recur at intervals, arose out of one
+      of these rambles; and thus I have been led to speak of them by way of
+      preface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night I had roamed into the City, and was walking slowly on in my
+      usual way, musing upon a great many things, when I was arrested by an
+      inquiry, the purport of which did not reach me, but which seemed to be
+      addressed to myself, and was preferred in a soft sweet voice that struck
+      me very pleasantly. I turned hastily round and found at my elbow a pretty
+      little girl, who begged to be directed to a certain street at a
+      considerable distance, and indeed in quite another quarter of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is a very long way from here,' said I, 'my child.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know that, sir,' she replied timidly. 'I am afraid it is a very long
+      way, for I came from there to-night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Alone?' said I, in some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, yes, I don't mind that, but I am a little frightened now, for I had
+      lost my road.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what made you ask it of me? Suppose I should tell you wrong?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am sure you will not do that,' said the little creature,' you are such
+      a very old gentleman, and walk so slow yourself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot describe how much I was impressed by this appeal and the energy
+      with which it was made, which brought a tear into the child's clear eye,
+      and made her slight figure tremble as she looked up into my face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come,' said I, 'I'll take you there.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She put her hand in mine as confidingly as if she had known me from her
+      cradle, and we trudged away together; the little creature accommodating
+      her pace to mine, and rather seeming to lead and take care of me than I to
+      be protecting her. I observed that every now and then she stole a curious
+      look at my face, as if to make quite sure that I was not deceiving her,
+      and that these glances (very sharp and keen they were too) seemed to
+      increase her confidence at every repetition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part, my curiosity and interest were at least equal to the child's,
+      for child she certainly was, although I thought it probably from what I
+      could make out, that her very small and delicate frame imparted a peculiar
+      youthfulness to her appearance. Though more scantily attired than she
+      might have been she was dressed with perfect neatness, and betrayed no
+      marks of poverty or neglect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who has sent you so far by yourself?' said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Someone who is very kind to me, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what have you been doing?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That, I must not tell,' said the child firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something in the manner of this reply which caused me to look at
+      the little creature with an involuntary expression of surprise; for I
+      wondered what kind of errand it might be that occasioned her to be
+      prepared for questioning. Her quick eye seemed to read my thoughts, for as
+      it met mine she added that there was no harm in what she had been doing,
+      but it was a great secret&mdash;a secret which she did not even know
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was said with no appearance of cunning or deceit, but with an
+      unsuspicious frankness that bore the impress of truth. She walked on as
+      before, growing more familiar with me as we proceeded and talking
+      cheerfully by the way, but she said no more about her home, beyond
+      remarking that we were going quite a new road and asking if it were a
+      short one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my mind a hundred different
+      explanations of the riddle and rejected them every one. I really felt
+      ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness or grateful feeling of the
+      child for the purpose of gratifying my curiosity. I love these little
+      people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God,
+      love us. As I had felt pleased at first by her confidence I determined to
+      deserve it, and to do credit to the nature which had prompted her to
+      repose it in me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no reason, however, why I should refrain from seeing the person
+      who had inconsiderately sent her to so great a distance by night and
+      alone, and as it was not improbable that if she found herself near home
+      she might take farewell of me and deprive me of the opportunity, I avoided
+      the most frequented ways and took the most intricate, and thus it was not
+      until we arrived in the street itself that she knew where we were.
+      Clapping her hands with pleasure and running on before me for a short
+      distance, my little acquaintance stopped at a door and remaining on the
+      step till I came up knocked at it when I joined her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A part of this door was of glass unprotected by any shutter, which I did
+      not observe at first, for all was very dark and silent within, and I was
+      anxious (as indeed the child was also) for an answer to our summons. When
+      she had knocked twice or thrice there was a noise as if some person were
+      moving inside, and at length a faint light appeared through the glass
+      which, as it approached very slowly, the bearer having to make his way
+      through a great many scattered articles, enabled me to see both what kind
+      of person it was who advanced and what kind of place it was through which
+      he came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he held
+      the light above his head and looked before him as he approached, I could
+      plainly see. Though much altered by age, I fancied I could recognize in
+      his spare and slender form something of that delicate mould which I had
+      noticed in the child. Their bright blue eyes were certainly alike, but his
+      face was so deeply furrowed and so very full of care, that here all
+      resemblance ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those
+      receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd corners
+      of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public eye in
+      jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like ghosts in
+      armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from monkish cloisters,
+      rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures in china and wood and
+      iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture that might have been
+      designed in dreams. The haggard aspect of the little old man was
+      wonderfully suited to the place; he might have groped among old churches
+      and tombs and deserted houses and gathered all the spoils with his own
+      hands. There was nothing in the whole collection but was in keeping with
+      himself nothing that looked older or more worn than he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed me with some astonishment
+      which was not diminished when he looked from me to my companion. The door
+      being opened, the child addressed him as grandfather, and told him the
+      little story of our companionship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, bless thee, child,' said the old man, patting her on the head, 'how
+      couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I would have found my way back to <i>you</i>, grandfather,' said the child
+      boldly; 'never fear.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man kissed her, then turning to me and begging me to walk in, I
+      did so. The door was closed and locked. Preceding me with the light, he
+      led me through the place I had already seen from without, into a small
+      sitting-room behind, in which was another door opening into a kind of
+      closet, where I saw a little bed that a fairy might have slept in, it
+      looked so very small and was so prettily arranged. The child took a candle
+      and tripped into this little room, leaving the old man and me together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You must be tired, sir,' said he as he placed a chair near the fire, 'how
+      can I thank you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'By taking more care of your grandchild another time, my good friend,' I
+      replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'More care!' said the old man in a shrill voice, 'more care of Nelly! Why,
+      who ever loved a child as I love Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said this with such evident surprise that I was perplexed what answer
+      to make, and the more so because coupled with something feeble and
+      wandering in his manner, there were in his face marks of deep and anxious
+      thought which convinced me that he could not be, as I had been at first
+      inclined to suppose, in a state of dotage or imbecility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't think you consider&mdash;' I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't consider!' cried the old man interrupting me, 'I don't consider
+      her! Ah, how little you know of the truth! Little Nelly, little Nelly!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of speech
+      might be, to express more affection than the dealer in curiosities did, in
+      these four words. I waited for him to speak again, but he rested his chin
+      upon his hand and shaking his head twice or thrice fixed his eyes upon the
+      fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were sitting thus in silence, the door of the closet opened, and
+      the child returned, her light brown hair hanging loose about her neck, and
+      her face flushed with the haste she had made to rejoin us. She busied
+      herself immediately in preparing supper, and while she was thus engaged I
+      remarked that the old man took an opportunity of observing me more closely
+      than he had done yet. I was surprised to see that all this time everything
+      was done by the child, and that there appeared to be no other persons but
+      ourselves in the house. I took advantage of a moment when she was absent
+      to venture a hint on this point, to which the old man replied that there
+      were few grown persons as trustworthy or as careful as she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It always grieves me,' I observed, roused by what I took to be his
+      selfishness, 'it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of
+      children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than infants.
+      It checks their confidence and simplicity&mdash;two of the best qualities
+      that Heaven gives them&mdash;and demands that they share our sorrows
+      before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It will never check hers,' said the old man looking steadily at me, 'the
+      springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but few
+      pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought and paid
+      for.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But&mdash;forgive me for saying this&mdash;you are surely not so very
+      poor'&mdash;said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is not my child, sir,' returned the old man. 'Her mother was, and she
+      was poor. I save nothing&mdash;not a penny&mdash;though I live as you see,
+      but'&mdash;he laid his hand upon my arm and leant forward to whisper&mdash;'she
+      shall be rich one of these days, and a fine lady. Don't you think ill of
+      me because I use her help. She gives it cheerfully as you see, and it
+      would break her heart if she knew that I suffered anybody else to do for
+      me what her little hands could undertake. I don't consider!'&mdash;he
+      cried with sudden querulousness, 'why, God knows that this one child is
+      the thought and object of my life, and yet he never prospers me&mdash;no,
+      never!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this juncture, the subject of our conversation again returned, and the
+      old man motioning to me to approach the table, broke off, and said no
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had scarcely begun our repast when there was a knock at the door by
+      which I had entered, and Nell bursting into a hearty laugh, which I was
+      rejoiced to hear, for it was childlike and full of hilarity, said it was
+      no doubt dear old Kit coming back at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Foolish Nell!' said the old man fondling with her hair. 'She always
+      laughs at poor Kit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child laughed again more heartily than before, and I could not help
+      smiling from pure sympathy. The little old man took up a candle and went
+      to open the door. When he came back, Kit was at his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad with an uncommonly wide
+      mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the most comical
+      expression of face I ever saw. He stopped short at the door on seeing a
+      stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly round old hat without any
+      vestige of a brim, and resting himself now on one leg and now on the other
+      and changing them constantly, stood in the doorway, looking into the
+      parlour with the most extraordinary leer I ever beheld. I entertained a
+      grateful feeling towards the boy from that minute, for I felt that he was
+      the comedy of the child's life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A long way, wasn't it, Kit?' said the little old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, then, it was a goodish stretch, master,' returned Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of course you have come back hungry?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, then, I do consider myself rather so, master,' was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lad had a remarkable manner of standing sideways as he spoke, and
+      thrusting his head forward over his shoulder, as if he could not get at
+      his voice without that accompanying action. I think he would have amused
+      one anywhere, but the child's exquisite enjoyment of his oddity, and the
+      relief it was to find that there was something she associated with
+      merriment in a place that appeared so unsuited to her, were quite
+      irresistible. It was a great point too that Kit himself was flattered by
+      the sensation he created, and after several efforts to preserve his
+      gravity, burst into a loud roar, and so stood with his mouth wide open and
+      his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man had again relapsed into his former abstraction and took no
+      notice of what passed, but I remarked that when her laugh was over, the
+      child's bright eyes were dimmed with tears, called forth by the fullness
+      of heart with which she welcomed her uncouth favourite after the little
+      anxiety of the night. As for Kit himself (whose laugh had been all the
+      time one of that sort which very little would change into a cry) he
+      carried a large slice of bread and meat and a mug of beer into a corner,
+      and applied himself to disposing of them with great voracity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said the old man turning to me with a sigh, as if I had spoken to
+      him but that moment, 'you don't know what you say when you tell me that I
+      don't consider her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You must not attach too great weight to a remark founded on first
+      appearances, my friend,' said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' returned the old man thoughtfully, 'no. Come hither, Nell.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little girl hastened from her seat, and put her arm about his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do I love thee, Nell?' said he. 'Say&mdash;do I love thee, Nell, or no?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child only answered by her caresses, and laid her head upon his
+      breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why dost thou sob?' said the grandfather, pressing her closer to him and
+      glancing towards me. 'Is it because thou know'st I love thee, and dost not
+      like that I should seem to doubt it by my question? Well, well&mdash;then
+      let us say I love thee dearly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed, indeed you do,' replied the child with great earnestness, 'Kit
+      knows you do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit, who in despatching his bread and meat had been swallowing two-thirds
+      of his knife at every mouthful with the coolness of a juggler, stopped
+      short in his operations on being thus appealed to, and bawled 'Nobody
+      isn't such a fool as to say he doosn't,' after which he incapacitated
+      himself for further conversation by taking a most prodigious sandwich at
+      one bite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is poor now'&mdash;said the old man, patting the child's cheek, 'but
+      I say again that the time is coming when she shall be rich. It has been a
+      long time coming, but it must come at last; a very long time, but it
+      surely must come. It has come to other men who do nothing but waste and
+      riot. When <i>will </i>it come to me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am very happy as I am, grandfather,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tush, tush!' returned the old man, 'thou dost not know&mdash;how
+      should'st thou!' then he muttered again between his teeth, 'The time must
+      come, I am very sure it must. It will be all the better for coming late';
+      and then he sighed and fell into his former musing state, and still
+      holding the child between his knees appeared to be insensible to
+      everything around him. By this time it wanted but a few minutes of
+      midnight and I rose to go, which recalled him to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'One moment, sir,' he said, 'Now, Kit&mdash;near midnight, boy, and you
+      still here! Get home, get home, and be true to your time in the morning,
+      for there's work to do. Good night! There, bid him good night, Nell, and
+      let him be gone!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good night, Kit,' said the child, her eyes lighting up with merriment and
+      kindness.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good night, Miss Nell,' returned the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And thank this gentleman,' interposed the old man, 'but for whose care I
+      might have lost my little girl to-night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no, master,' said Kit, 'that won't do, that won't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What do you mean?' cried the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'd have found her, master,' said Kit, 'I'd have found her. I'll bet that
+      I'd find her if she was above ground, I would, as quick as anybody,
+      master. Ha, ha, ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more opening his mouth and shutting his eyes, and laughing like a
+      stentor, Kit gradually backed to the door, and roared himself out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Free of the room, the boy was not slow in taking his departure; when he
+      had gone, and the child was occupied in clearing the table, the old man
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I haven't seemed to thank you, sir, for what you have done to-night, but
+      I do thank you humbly and heartily, and so does she, and her thanks are
+      better worth than mine. I should be sorry that you went away, and thought
+      I was unmindful of your goodness, or careless of her&mdash;I am not
+      indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was sure of that, I said, from what I had seen. 'But,' I added, 'may I
+      ask you a question?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ay, sir,' replied the old man, 'What is it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This delicate child,' said I, 'with so much beauty and intelligence&mdash;has
+      she nobody to care for her but you? Has she no other companion or
+      advisor?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' he returned, looking anxiously in my face, 'no, and she wants no
+      other.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But are you not fearful,' said I, 'that you may misunderstand a charge so
+      tender? I am sure you mean well, but are you quite certain that you know
+      how to execute such a trust as this? I am an old man, like you, and I am
+      actuated by an old man's concern in all that is young and promising. Do
+      you not think that what I have seen of you and this little creature
+      to-night must have an interest not wholly free from pain?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir,' rejoined the old man after a moment's silence.' I have no right to
+      feel hurt at what you say. It is true that in many respects I am the
+      child, and she the grown person&mdash;that you have seen already. But
+      waking or sleeping, by night or day, in sickness or health, she is the one
+      object of my care, and if you knew of how much care, you would look on me
+      with different eyes, you would indeed. Ah! It's a weary life for an old
+      man&mdash;a weary, weary life&mdash;but there is a great end to gain and
+      that I keep before me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing that he was in a state of excitement and impatience, I turned to
+      put on an outer coat which I had thrown off on entering the room,
+      purposing to say no more. I was surprised to see the child standing
+      patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, and in her hand a hat, and stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Those are not mine, my dear,' said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' returned the child, 'they are grandfather's.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But he is not going out to-night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, yes, he is,' said the child, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what becomes of you, my pretty one?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Me! I stay here of course. I always do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked in astonishment towards the old man, but he was, or feigned to
+      be, busied in the arrangement of his dress. From him I looked back to the
+      slight gentle figure of the child. Alone! In that gloomy place all the
+      long, dreary night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, but cheerfully helped the old
+      man with his cloak, and when he was ready took a candle to light us out.
+      Finding that we did not follow as she expected, she looked back with a
+      smile and waited for us. The old man showed by his face that he plainly
+      understood the cause of my hesitation, but he merely signed to me with an
+      inclination of the head to pass out of the room before him, and remained
+      silent. I had no resource but to comply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we reached the door, the child setting down the candle, turned to say
+      good night and raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the old man,
+      who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sleep soundly, Nell,' he said in a low voice, 'and angels guard thy bed!
+      Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, indeed,' answered the child fervently, 'they make me feel so happy!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's well; I know they do; they should,' said the old man. 'Bless thee
+      a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll not ring twice,' returned the child. 'The bell wakes me, even in
+      the middle of a dream.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this, they separated. The child opened the door (now guarded by a
+      shutter which I had heard the boy put up before he left the house) and
+      with another farewell whose clear and tender note I have recalled a
+      thousand times, held it until we had passed out. The old man paused a
+      moment while it was gently closed and fastened on the inside, and
+      satisfied that this was done, walked on at a slow pace. At the
+      street-corner he stopped, and regarding me with a troubled countenance
+      said that our ways were widely different and that he must take his leave.
+      I would have spoken, but summoning up more alacrity than might have been
+      expected in one of his appearance, he hurried away. I could see that twice
+      or thrice he looked back as if to ascertain if I were still watching him,
+      or perhaps to assure himself that I was not following at a distance. The
+      obscurity of the night favoured his disappearance, and his figure was soon
+      beyond my sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remained standing on the spot where he had left me, unwilling to depart,
+      and yet unknowing why I should loiter there. I looked wistfully into the
+      street we had lately quitted, and after a time directed my steps that way.
+      I passed and repassed the house, and stopped and listened at the door; all
+      was dark, and silent as the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet I lingered about, and could not tear myself away, thinking of all
+      possible harm that might happen to the child&mdash;of fires and robberies
+      and even murder&mdash;and feeling as if some evil must ensue if I turned
+      my back upon the place. The closing of a door or window in the street
+      brought me before the curiosity-dealer's once more; I crossed the road and
+      looked up at the house to assure myself that the noise had not come from
+      there. No, it was black, cold, and lifeless as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and pretty
+      well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by, and now and
+      then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he reeled homewards,
+      but these interruptions were not frequent and soon ceased. The clocks
+      struck one. Still I paced up and down, promising myself that every time
+      should be the last, and breaking faith with myself on some new plea as
+      often as I did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks and
+      bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I had a
+      strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good purpose. I had
+      only come to know the fact through the innocence of the child, and though
+      the old man was by at the time, and saw my undisguised surprise, he had
+      preserved a strange mystery upon the subject and offered no word of
+      explanation. These reflections naturally recalled again more strongly than
+      before his haggard face, his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks.
+      His affection for the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the
+      worst kind; even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary
+      contradiction, or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think
+      badly of him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not
+      admit the thought, remembering what had passed between us, and the tone of
+      voice in which he had called her by her name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Stay here of course,' the child had said in answer to my question, 'I
+      always do!' What could take him from home by night, and every night! I
+      called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and secret deeds
+      committed in great towns and escaping detection for a long series of
+      years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not find one adapted to
+      this mystery, which only became the more impenetrable, in proportion as I
+      sought to solve it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all tending to
+      the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long hours; at
+      length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered by fatigue
+      though no less interested than I had been at first, I engaged the nearest
+      coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, the lamp
+      burnt brightly, my clock received me with its old familiar welcome;
+      everything was quiet, warm and cheering, and in happy contrast to the
+      gloom and darkness I had quitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred and
+      the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever before me the
+      old dark murky rooms&mdash;the gaunt suits of mail with their ghostly
+      silent air&mdash;the faces all awry, grinning from wood and stone&mdash;the
+      dust and rust and worm that lives in wood&mdash;and alone in the midst of
+      all this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful child in her gentle
+      slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap02"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 2
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to
+      revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already detailed,
+      I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I would present
+      myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with that
+      kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious that the
+      visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very acceptable.
+      However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not appear likely
+      that I should be recognized by those within, if I continued merely to pass
+      up and down before it, I soon conquered this irresolution, and found
+      myself in the Curiosity Dealer's warehouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man and another person were together in the back part, and there
+      seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices which were
+      raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my entering, and the old
+      man advancing hastily towards me, said in a tremulous tone that he was
+      very glad I had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You interrupted us at a critical moment,' said he, pointing to the man
+      whom I had found in company with him; 'this fellow will murder me one of
+      these days. He would have done so, long ago, if he had dared.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,' returned the other,
+      after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; 'we all know that!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I almost think I could,' cried the old man, turning feebly upon him. 'If
+      oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I would be
+      quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know it,' returned the other. 'I said so, didn't I? But neither oaths,
+      or prayers, nor words, <i>will </i>kill me, and therefore I live, and mean to
+      live.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And his mother died!' cried the old man, passionately clasping his hands
+      and looking upward; 'and this is Heaven's justice!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other stood lunging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him with
+      a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty or thereabouts;
+      well made, and certainly handsome, though the expression of his face was
+      far from prepossessing, having in common with his manner and even his
+      dress, a dissipated, insolent air which repelled one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Justice or no justice,' said the young fellow, 'here I am and here I
+      shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for
+      assistance to put me out&mdash;which you won't do, I know. I tell you
+      again that I want to see my sister.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>Your </i>sister!' said the old man bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! You can't change the relationship,' returned the other. 'If you
+      could, you'd have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you keep
+      cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and pretending an
+      affection for her that you may work her to death, and add a few scraped
+      shillings every week to the money you can hardly count. I want to see her;
+      and I will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here's a generous spirit to
+      scorn scraped-up shillings!' cried the old man, turning from him to me. 'A
+      profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only upon those who
+      have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon society which knows
+      nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,' he added, in a lower voice
+      as he drew closer to me, 'who knows how dear she is to me, and seeks to
+      wound me even there, because there is a stranger nearby.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,' said the young fellow catching
+      at the word, 'nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is to keep an
+      eye to their business and leave me to mine. There's a friend of mine
+      waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to wait some time, I'll
+      call him in, with your leave.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street beckoned
+      several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from the air of
+      impatience with which these signals were accompanied, required a great
+      quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At length there sauntered
+      up, on the opposite side of the way&mdash;with a bad pretense of passing
+      by accident&mdash;a figure conspicuous for its dirty smartness, which
+      after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in resistance of the
+      invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was brought into the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There. It's Dick Swiveller,' said the young fellow, pushing him in. 'Sit
+      down, Swiveller.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But is the old min agreeable?' said Mr Swiveller in an undertone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propitiatory smile,
+      observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and this week was a
+      fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst standing by the post
+      at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with a straw in his mouth
+      issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which appearance he augured that
+      another fine week for the ducks was approaching, and that rain would
+      certainly ensue. He furthermore took occasion to apologize for any
+      negligence that might be perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last
+      night he had had 'the sun very strong in his eyes'; by which expression he
+      was understood to convey to his hearers in the most delicate manner
+      possible, the information that he had been extremely drunk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But what,' said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, 'what is the odds so long as
+      the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of
+      friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long as the spirit
+      is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the least
+      happiest of our existence!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You needn't act the chairman here,' said his friend, half aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Fred!' cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, 'a word to the wise is
+      sufficient for them&mdash;we may be good and happy without riches, Fred.
+      Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only one
+      little whisper, Fred&mdash;is the old min friendly?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never you mind,' replied his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word, and
+      caution is the act.' with that, he winked as if in preservation of some
+      deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair, looked up
+      at the ceiling with profound gravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had already
+      passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the effects of the
+      powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if no such suspicion
+      had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair, dull eyes, and sallow face
+      would still have been strong witnesses against him. His attire was not, as
+      he had himself hinted, remarkable for the nicest arrangement, but was in a
+      state of disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed
+      in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons
+      up the front and only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid
+      waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong
+      side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was
+      ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the
+      cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his dirty
+      wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously folded
+      back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a yellow cane
+      having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a ring on its little
+      finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these personal advantages
+      (to which may be added a strong savour of tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing
+      greasiness of appearance) Mr Swiveller leant back in his chair with his
+      eyes fixed on the ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice to the
+      needful key, obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal
+      air, and then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands, looked
+      sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion, as if he
+      were utterly powerless and had no resource but to leave them to do as they
+      pleased. The young man reclined against a table at no great distance from
+      his friend, in apparent indifference to everything that had passed; and I&mdash;who
+      felt the difficulty of any interference, notwithstanding that the old man
+      had appealed to me, both by words and looks&mdash;made the best feint I
+      could of being occupied in examining some of the goods that were disposed
+      for sale, and paying very little attention to a person before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after favouring us
+      with several melodious assurances that his heart was in the Highlands, and
+      that he wanted but his Arab steed as a preliminary to the achievement of
+      great feats of valour and loyalty, removed his eyes from the ceiling and
+      subsided into prose again.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0031m.jpg" alt="0031m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0031.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly
+      occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before, 'is
+      the old min friendly?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What does it matter?' returned his friend peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, but <i>is</i> he?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general
+      conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the
+      abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with
+      ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to be
+      preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of expense.
+      Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded to observe that
+      the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and that the young
+      gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast quantities of apples
+      to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious friends, were usually
+      detected in consequence of their heads possessing this remarkable
+      property; when he concluded that if the Royal Society would turn their
+      attention to the circumstance, and endeavour to find in the resources of
+      science a means of preventing such untoward revelations, they might indeed
+      be looked upon as benefactors to mankind. These opinions being equally
+      incontrovertible with those he had already pronounced, he went on to
+      inform us that Jamaica rum, though unquestionably an agreeable spirit of
+      great richness and flavour, had the drawback of remaining constantly
+      present to the taste next day; and nobody being venturous enough to argue
+      this point either, he increased in confidence and became yet more
+      companionable and communicative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's a devil of a thing, gentlemen,' said Mr Swiveller, 'when relations
+      fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never moult a
+      feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but be always
+      expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and grandfather peg away at
+      each other with mutual wiolence when all might be bliss and concord. Why
+      not jine hands and forgit it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hold your tongue,' said his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir,' replied Mr Swiveller, 'don't you interrupt the chair. Gentlemen,
+      how does the case stand, upon the present occasion? Here is a jolly old
+      grandfather&mdash;I say it with the utmost respect&mdash;and here is a
+      wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the wild young
+      grandson, "I have brought you up and educated you, Fred; I have put you in
+      the way of getting on in life; you have bolted a little out of course, as
+      young fellows often do; and you shall never have another chance, nor the
+      ghost of half a one." The wild young grandson makes answer to this and
+      says, "You're as rich as rich can be; you have been at no uncommon expense
+      on my account, you're saving up piles of money for my little sister that
+      lives with you in a secret, stealthy, hugger-muggering kind of way and
+      with no manner of enjoyment&mdash;why can't you stand a trifle for your
+      grown-up relation?" The jolly old grandfather unto this, retorts, not only
+      that he declines to fork out with that cheerful readiness which is always
+      so agreeable and pleasant in a gentleman of his time of life, but that he
+      will bow up, and call names, and make reflections whenever they meet. Then
+      the plain question is, an't it a pity that this state of things should
+      continue, and how much better would it be for the gentleman to hand over a
+      reasonable amount of tin, and make it all right and comfortable?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes of
+      the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into his mouth
+      as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his speech by adding
+      one other word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!' said the old man turning
+      to his grandson. 'Why do you bring your prolifigate companions here? How
+      often am I to tell you that my life is one of care and self-denial, and
+      that I am poor?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How often am I to tell you,' returned the other, looking coldly at him,
+      'that I know better?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have chosen your own path,' said the old man. 'Follow it. Leave Nell
+      and me to toil and work.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nell will be a woman soon,' returned the other, 'and, bred in your faith,
+      she'll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Take care,' said the old man with sparkling eyes, 'that she does not
+      forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that the day
+      don't come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she rides by in a
+      gay carriage of her own.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You mean when she has your money?' retorted the other. 'How like a poor
+      man he talks!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And yet,' said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one who
+      thinks aloud, 'how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause is a
+      young child's guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes well with
+      it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the young
+      men. Mr Swiveller appeared to think that they implied some mental struggle
+      consequent upon the powerful effect of his address, for he poked his
+      friend with his cane and whispered his conviction that he had administered
+      'a clincher,' and that he expected a commission on the profits.
+      Discovering his mistake after a while, he appeared to grow rather sleepy
+      and discontented, and had more than once suggested the propriety of an
+      immediate departure, when the door opened, and the child herself appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap03"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 3
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably hard
+      features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be quite a
+      dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a giant.
+      His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his mouth and chin,
+      bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and his complexion was
+      one of that kind which never looks clean or wholesome. But what added most
+      to the grotesque expression of his face was a ghastly smile, which,
+      appearing to be the mere result of habit and to have no connection with
+      any mirthful or complacent feeling, constantly revealed the few
+      discoloured fangs that were yet scattered in his mouth, and gave him the
+      aspect of a panting dog. His dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat,
+      a worn dark suit, a pair of capacious shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief
+      sufficiently limp and crumpled to disclose the greater portion of his wiry
+      throat. Such hair as he had was of a grizzled black, cut short and
+      straight upon his temples, and hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears.
+      His hands, which were of a rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his
+      fingernails were crooked, long, and yellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they were
+      sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some moments elapsed
+      before any one broke silence. The child advanced timidly towards her
+      brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we may call him so) glanced
+      keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer, who plainly had not
+      expected his uncouth visitor, seemed disconcerted and embarrassed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes had
+      been surveying the young man attentively, 'that should be your grandson,
+      neighbour!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Say rather that he should not be,' replied the old man. 'But he is.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And that?' said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,' said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And that?' inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight at
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night when
+      she lost her way, coming from your house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his
+      wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and bent
+      his head to listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, Nelly,' said the young fellow aloud. 'Do they teach you to hate me,
+      eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no. For shame. Oh, no!' cried the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To love me, perhaps?' pursued her brother with a sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To do neither,' she returned. 'They never speak to me about you. Indeed
+      they never do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I dare be bound for that,' he said, darting a bitter look at the
+      grandfather. 'I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But I love you dearly, Fred,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No doubt!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I do indeed, and always will,' the child repeated with great emotion,
+      'but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy, then I
+      could love you more.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I see!' said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child, and
+      having kissed her, pushed her from him: 'There&mdash;get you away now you
+      have said your lesson. You needn't whimper. We part good friends enough,
+      if that's the matter.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained her
+      little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf, said
+      abruptly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Harkee, Mr&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Meaning me?' returned the dwarf. 'Quilp is my name. You might remember.
+      It's not a long one&mdash;Daniel Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,' pursued the other, 'You have some influence with
+      my grandfather there.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Some,' said Mr Quilp emphatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A few,' replied Quilp, with equal dryness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into and
+      go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell here;
+      and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of her. What
+      have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned and dreaded as if I
+      brought the plague? He'll tell you that I have no natural affection; and
+      that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake, than I do for him. Let him
+      say so. I care for the whim, then, of coming to and fro and reminding her
+      of my existence. I <i>will </i>see her when I please. That's my point. I came
+      here to-day to maintain it, and I'll come here again fifty times with the
+      same object and always with the same success. I said I would stop till I
+      had gained it. I have done so, and now my visit's ended. Come Dick.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Stop!' cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the door.
+      'Sir!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir, I am your humble servant,' said Mr Quilp, to whom the monosyllable
+      was addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light,
+      sir,' said Mr Swiveller, 'I will with your permission, attempt a slight
+      remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old min
+      was friendly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Proceed, sir,' said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling as
+      a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the sort of
+      thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social harmony of the
+      contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a course which is <i>the</i>
+      course to be adopted to the present occasion. Will you allow me to whisper
+      half a syllable, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped up to
+      the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to get at his
+      ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all present,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The watch-word to the old min is&mdash;fork.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is what?' demanded Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is fork, sir, fork,' replied Mr Swiveller slapping his pocket. 'You are
+      awake, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise, then drew a
+      little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these means he in time
+      reached the door, where he gave a great cough to attract the dwarf's
+      attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in dumb show, the closest
+      confidence and most inviolable secrecy. Having performed the serious
+      pantomime that was necessary for the due conveyance of these idea, he cast
+      himself upon his friend's track, and vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Humph!' said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his shoulders, 'so
+      much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge none! Nor need you
+      either,' he added, turning to the old man, 'if you were not as weak as a
+      reed, and nearly as senseless.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What would you have me do?' he retorted in a kind of helpless
+      desperation. 'It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What would I do if I was in your case?' said the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Something violent, no doubt.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're right there,' returned the little man, highly gratified by the
+      compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a devil
+      as he rubbed his dirty hands together. 'Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty Mrs Quilp,
+      obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me&mdash;I have left
+      her all alone, and she will be anxious and know not a moment's peace till
+      I return. I know she's always in that condition when I'm away, thought she
+      doesn't dare to say so, unless I lead her on and tell her she may speak
+      freely and I won't be angry with her. Oh! well-trained Mrs Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and little
+      body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round again&mdash;with
+      something fantastic even in his manner of performing this slight action&mdash;and,
+      dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward
+      with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp might have copied and
+      appropriated to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here,' he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the
+      old man as he spoke; 'I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as, being
+      in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in her bag.
+      She need be accustomed to such loads betimes though, neighbor, for she
+      will carry weight when you are dead.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Heaven send she may! I hope so,' said the old man with something like a
+      groan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hope so!' echoed the dwarf, approaching close to his ear; 'neighbour, I
+      would I knew in what good investment all these supplies are sunk. But you
+      are a deep man, and keep your secret close.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My secret!' said the other with a haggard look. 'Yes, you're right&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;keep
+      it close&mdash;very close.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said no more, but taking the money turned away with a slow, uncertain
+      step, and pressed his hand upon his head like a weary and dejected man.
+      The dwarf watched him sharply, while he passed into the little
+      sitting-room and locked it in an iron safe above the chimney-piece; and
+      after musing for a short space, prepared to take his leave, observing that
+      unless he made good haste, Mrs Quilp would certainly be in fits on his
+      return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And so, neighbour,' he added, 'I'll turn my face homewards, leaving my
+      love for Nelly and hoping she may never lose her way again, though her
+      doing so <i>has </i>procured me an honour I didn't expect.' With that he bowed
+      and leered at me, and with a keen glance around which seemed to comprehend
+      every object within his range of vision, however, small or trivial, went
+      his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had several times essayed to go myself, but the old man had always
+      opposed it and entreated me to remain. As he renewed his entreaties on our
+      being left along, and adverted with many thanks to the former occasion of
+      our being together, I willingly yielded to his persuasions, and sat down,
+      pretending to examine some curious miniatures and a few old medals which
+      he placed before me. It needed no great pressing to induce me to stay, for
+      if my curiosity has been excited on the occasion of my first visit, it
+      certainly was not diminished now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell joined us before long, and bringing some needle-work to the table,
+      sat by the old man's side. It was pleasant to observe the fresh flowers in
+      the room, the pet bird with a green bough shading his little cage, the
+      breath of freshness and youth which seemed to rustle through the old dull
+      house and hover round the child. It was curious, but not so pleasant, to
+      turn from the beauty and grace of the girl, to the stooping figure,
+      care-worn face, and jaded aspect of the old man. As he grew weaker and
+      more feeble, what would become of this lonely little creature; poor
+      protector as he was, say that he died&mdash;what would be her fate, then?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man almost answered my thoughts, as he laid his hand on hers, and
+      spoke aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll be of better cheer, Nell,' he said; 'there must be good fortune in
+      store for thee&mdash;I do not ask it for myself, but thee. Such miseries
+      must fall on thy innocent head without it, that I cannot believe but that,
+      being tempted, it will come at last!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked cheerfully into his face, but made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When I think,' said he, 'of the many years&mdash;many in thy short life&mdash;that
+      thou has lived with me; of my monotonous existence, knowing no companions
+      of thy own age nor any childish pleasures; of the solitude in which thou
+      has grown to be what thou art, and in which thou hast lived apart from
+      nearly all thy kind but one old man; I sometimes fear I have dealt hardly
+      by thee, Nell.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Grandfather!' cried the child in unfeigned surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not in intention&mdash;no no,' said he. 'I have ever looked forward to
+      the time that should enable thee to mix among the gayest and prettiest,
+      and take thy station with the best. But I still look forward, Nell, I
+      still look forward, and if I should be forced to leave thee, meanwhile,
+      how have I fitted thee for struggles with the world? The poor bird yonder
+      is as well qualified to encounter it, and be turned adrift upon its
+      mercies&mdash;Hark! I hear Kit outside. Go to him, Nell, go to him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose, and hurrying away, stopped, turned back, and put her arms about
+      the old man's neck, then left him and hurried away again&mdash;but faster
+      this time, to hide her falling tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A word in your ear, sir,' said the old man in a hurried whisper. 'I have
+      been rendered uneasy by what you said the other night, and can only plead
+      that I have done all for the best&mdash;that it is too late to retract, if
+      I could (though I cannot)&mdash;and that I hope to triumph yet. All is for
+      her sake. I have borne great poverty myself, and would spare her the
+      sufferings that poverty carries with it. I would spare her the miseries
+      that brought her mother, my own dear child, to an early grave. I would
+      leave her&mdash;not with resources which could be easily spent or
+      squandered away, but with what would place her beyond the reach of want
+      for ever. You mark me sir? She shall have no pittance, but a fortune&mdash;Hush!
+      I can say no more than that, now or at any other time, and she is here
+      again!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eagerness with which all this was poured into my ear, the trembling of
+      the hand with which he clasped my arm, the strained and starting eyes he
+      fixed upon me, the wild vehemence and agitation of his manner, filled me
+      with amazement. All that I had heard and seen, and a great part of what he
+      had said himself, led me to suppose that he was a wealthy man. I could
+      form no comprehension of his character, unless he were one of those
+      miserable wretches who, having made gain the sole end and object of their
+      lives and having succeeded in amassing great riches, are constantly
+      tortured by the dread of poverty, and best by fears of loss and ruin. Many
+      things he had said which I had been at a loss to understand, were quite
+      reconcilable with the idea thus presented to me, and at length I concluded
+      that beyond all doubt he was one of this unhappy race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The opinion was not the result of hasty consideration, for which indeed
+      there was no opportunity at that time, as the child came directly, and
+      soon occupied herself in preparations for giving Kit a writing lesson, of
+      which it seemed he had a couple every week, and one regularly on that
+      evening, to the great mirth and enjoyment both of himself and his
+      instructress. To relate how it was a long time before his modesty could be
+      so far prevailed upon as it admit of his sitting down in the parlour, in
+      the presence of an unknown gentleman&mdash;how, when he did set down, he
+      tucked up his sleeves and squared his elbows and put his face close to the
+      copy-book and squinted horribly at the lines&mdash;how, from the very
+      first moment of having the pen in his hand, he began to wallow in blots,
+      and to daub himself with ink up to the very roots of his hair&mdash;how,
+      if he did by accident form a letter properly, he immediately smeared it
+      out again with his arm in his preparations to make another&mdash;how, at
+      every fresh mistake, there was a fresh burst of merriment from the child
+      and louder and not less hearty laugh from poor Kit himself&mdash;and how
+      there was all the way through, notwithstanding, a gentle wish on her part
+      to teach, and an anxious desire on his to learn&mdash;to relate all these
+      particulars would no doubt occupy more space and time than they deserve.
+      It will be sufficient to say that the lesson was given&mdash;that evening
+      passed and night came on&mdash;that the old man again grew restless and
+      impatient&mdash;that he quitted the house secretly at the same hour as
+      before&mdash;and that the child was once more left alone within its gloomy
+      walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character and
+      introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the convenience of
+      the narrative detach myself from its further course, and leave those who
+      have prominent and necessary parts in it to speak and act for themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap04"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 4
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r and Mrs Quilp resided on Tower Hill; and in her bower on Tower Hill
+      Mrs Quilp was left to pine the absence of her lord, when he quitted her on
+      the business which he had already seen to transact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp could scarcely be said to be of any particular trade or calling,
+      though his pursuits were diversified and his occupations numerous. He
+      collected the rents of whole colonies of filthy streets and alleys by the
+      waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty officers of merchant
+      vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers mates of East Indiamen,
+      smoked his smuggled cigars under the very nose of the Custom House, and
+      made appointments on 'Change with men in glazed hats and round jackets
+      pretty well every day. On the Surrey side of the river was a small
+      rat-infested dreary yard called 'Quilp's Wharf,' in which were a little
+      wooden counting-house burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen
+      from the clouds and ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty
+      anchors; several large iron rings; some piles of rotten wood; and two or
+      three heaps of old sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. On
+      Quilp's Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship-breaker, yet to judge from these
+      appearances he must either have been a ship-breaker on a very small scale,
+      or have broken his ships up very small indeed. Neither did the place
+      present any extraordinary aspect of life or activity, as its only human
+      occupant was an amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole change of
+      occupation was from sitting on the head of a pile and throwing stones into
+      the mud when the tide was out, to standing with his hands in his pockets
+      gazing listlessly on the motion and on the bustle of the river at
+      high-water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf's lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful
+      accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet for that
+      lady's mother, who resided with the couple and waged perpetual war with
+      Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in no slight dread. Indeed,
+      the ugly creature contrived by some means or other&mdash;whether by his
+      ugliness or his ferocity or his natural cunning is no great matter&mdash;to
+      impress with a wholesome fear of his anger, most of those with whom he was
+      brought into daily contact and communication. Over nobody had he such
+      complete ascendance as Mrs Quilp herself&mdash;a pretty little,
+      mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman, who having allied herself in wedlock to the
+      dwarf in one of those strange infatuations of which examples are by no
+      means scarce, performed a sound practical penance for her folly, every day
+      of her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her bower she
+      was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of whom mention
+      has recently been made, there were present some half-dozen ladies of the
+      neighborhood who had happened by a strange accident (and also by a little
+      understanding among themselves) to drop in one after another, just about
+      tea-time. This being a season favourable to conversation, and the room
+      being a cool, shady, lazy kind of place, with some plants at the open
+      window shutting out the dust, and interposing pleasantly enough between
+      the tea table within and the old Tower without, it is no wonder that the
+      ladies felt an inclination to talk and linger, especially when there are
+      taken into account the additional inducements of fresh butter, new bread,
+      shrimps, and watercresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was extremely
+      natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity of mankind to
+      tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that developed upon the weaker
+      sex to resist that tyranny and assert their rights and dignity. It was
+      natural for four reasons: firstly, because Mrs Quilp being a young woman
+      and notoriously under the dominion of her husband ought to be excited to
+      rebel; secondly, because Mrs Quilp's parent was known to be laudably
+      shrewish in her disposition and inclined to resist male authority;
+      thirdly, because each visitor wished to show for herself how superior she
+      was in this respect to the generality of her sex; and fourthly, because
+      the company being accustomed to scandalise each other in pairs, were
+      deprived of their usual subject of conversation now that they were all
+      assembled in close friendship, and had consequently no better employment
+      than to attack the common enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings by
+      inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr Quilp was;
+      whereunto Mr Quilp's wife's mother replied sharply, 'Oh! He was well
+      enough&mdash;nothing much was every the matter with him&mdash;and ill
+      weeds were sure to thrive.' All the ladies then sighed in concert, shook
+      their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said the spokeswoman, 'I wish you'd give her a little of your
+      advice, Mrs Jiniwin'&mdash;Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should be
+      observed&mdash;'nobody knows better than you, ma'am, what us women owe to
+      ourselves.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Owe indeed, ma'am!' replied Mrs Jiniwin. 'When my poor husband, her dear
+      father, was alive, if he had ever ventured a cross word to me, I'd have&mdash;'
+      The good old lady did not finish the sentence, but she twisted off the
+      head of a shrimp with a vindictiveness which seemed to imply that the
+      action was in some degree a substitute for words. In this light it was
+      clearly understood by the other party, who immediately replied with great
+      approbation, 'You quite enter into my feelings, ma'am, and it's jist what
+      I'd do myself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But you have no call to do it,' said Mrs Jiniwin. 'Luckily for you, you
+      have no more occasion to do it than I had.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No woman need have, if she was true to herself,' rejoined the stout lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you hear that, Betsy?' said Mrs Jiniwin, in a warning voice. 'How
+      often have I said the same words to you, and almost gone down my knees
+      when I spoke 'em!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mrs Quilp, who had looked in a state of helplessness from one face of
+      condolence to another, coloured, smiled, and shook her head doubtfully.
+      This was the signal for a general clamour, which beginning in a low murmur
+      gradually swelled into a great noise in which everybody spoke at once, and
+      all said that she being a young woman had no right to set up her opinions
+      against the experiences of those who knew so much better; that it was very
+      wrong of her not to take the advice of people who had nothing at heart but
+      her good; that it was next door to being downright ungrateful to conduct
+      herself in that manner; that if she had no respect for herself she ought
+      to have some for other women, all of whom she compromised by her meekness;
+      and that if she had no respect for other women, the time would come when
+      other women would have no respect for her; and she would be very sorry for
+      that, they could tell her. Having dealt out these admonitions, the ladies
+      fell to a more powerful assault than they had yet made upon the mixed tea,
+      new bread, fresh butter, shrimps, and watercresses, and said that their
+      vexation was so great to see her going on like that, that they could
+      hardly bring themselves to eat a single morsel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It's all very fine to talk,' said Mrs Quilp with much simplicity, 'but I
+      know that if I was to die to-morrow, Quilp could marry anybody he pleased&mdash;now
+      that he could, I know!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was quite a scream of indignation at this idea. Marry whom he
+      pleased! They would like to see him dare to think of marrying any of them;
+      they would like to see the faintest approach to such a thing. One lady (a
+      widow) was quite certain she should stab him if he hinted at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very well,' said Mrs Quilp, nodding her head, 'as I said just now, it's
+      very easy to talk, but I say again that I know&mdash;that I'm sure&mdash;Quilp
+      has such a way with him when he likes, that the best looking woman here
+      couldn't refuse him if I was dead, and she was free, and he chose to make
+      love to her. Come!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody bridled up at this remark, as much as to say, 'I know you mean
+      me. Let him try&mdash;that's all.' and yet for some hidden reason they
+      were all angry with the widow, and each lady whispered in her neighbour's
+      ear that it was very plain that said widow thought herself the person
+      referred to, and what a puss she was!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mother knows,' said Mrs Quilp, 'that what I say is quite correct, for she
+      often said so before we were married. Didn't you say so, mother?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This inquiry involved the respected lady in rather a delicate position,
+      for she certainly had been an active party in making her daughter Mrs
+      Quilp, and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to encourage
+      the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else would have. On the
+      other hand, to exaggerate the captivating qualities of her son-in-law
+      would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in which all her energies were
+      deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing considerations, Mrs Jiniwin
+      admitted the powers of insinuation, but denied the right to govern, and
+      with a timely compliment to the stout lady brought back the discussion to
+      the point from which it had strayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! It's a sensible and proper thing indeed, what Mrs George has said!'
+      exclaimed the old lady. 'If women are only true to themselves!&mdash;But
+      Betsy isn't, and more's the shame and pity.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Before I'd let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,' said Mrs
+      George, 'before I'd consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of him,
+      I'd&mdash;I'd kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This remark being loudly commended and approved of, another lady (from the
+      Minories) put in her word:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,' said this lady, 'and I supposed there's
+      no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs Jiniwin says he is,
+      and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still he is not quite a&mdash;what
+      one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young man neither, which might be a
+      little excuse for him if anything could be; whereas his wife is young, and
+      is good-looking, and is a woman&mdash;which is the greatest thing after
+      all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This last clause being delivered with extraordinary pathos, elicited a
+      corresponding murmer from the hearers, stimulated by which the lady went
+      on to remark that if such a husband was cross and unreasonable with such a
+      wife, then&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If he is!' interposed the mother, putting down her tea-cup and brushing
+      the crumbs out of her lap, preparatory to making a solemn declaration. 'If
+      he is! He is the greatest tyrant that every lived, she daren't call her
+      soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and even with a look, he
+      frightens her to death, and she hasn't the spirit to give him a word back,
+      no, not a single word.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding that the fact had been notorious beforehand to all the
+      tea-drinkers, and had been discussed and expatiated on at every
+      tea-drinking in the neighbourhood for the last twelve months, this
+      official communication was no sooner made than they all began to talk at
+      once and to vie with each other in vehemence and volubility. Mrs George
+      remarked that people would talk, that people had often said this to her
+      before, that Mrs Simmons then and there present had told her so twenty
+      times, that she had always said, 'No, Henrietta Simmons, unless I see it
+      with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears, I never will believe it.'
+      Mrs Simmons corroborated this testimony and added strong evidence of her
+      own. The lady from the Minories recounted a successful course of treatment
+      under which she had placed her own husband, who, from manifesting one
+      month after marriage unequivocal symptoms of the tiger, had by this means
+      become subdued into a perfect lamb. Another lady recounted her own
+      personal struggle and final triumph, in the course whereof she had found
+      it necessary to call in her mother and two aunts, and to weep incessantly
+      night and day for six weeks. A third, who in the general confusion could
+      secure no other listener, fastened herself upon a young woman still
+      unmarried who happened to be amongst them, and conjured her, as she valued
+      her own peace of mind and happiness to profit by this solemn occasion, to
+      take example from the weakness of Mrs Quilp, and from that time forth to
+      direct her whole thoughts to taming and subduing the rebellious spirit of
+      man. The noise was at its height, and half the company had elevated their
+      voices into a perfect shriek in order to drown the voices of the other
+      half, when Mrs Jiniwin was seen to change colour and shake her forefinger
+      stealthily, as if exhorting them to silence. Then, and not until then,
+      Daniel Quilp himself, the cause and occasion of all this clamour, was
+      observed to be in the room, looking on and listening with profound
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Go on, ladies, go on,' said Daniel. 'Mrs Quilp, pray ask the ladies to
+      stop to supper, and have a couple of lobsters and something light and
+      palatable.'
+    </p><div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0044m.jpg" alt="0044m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0044.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+
+    <p>
+      'I&mdash;I&mdash;didn't ask them to tea, Quilp,' stammered his wife. 'It's
+      quite an accident.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So much the better, Mrs Quilp; these accidental parties are always the
+      pleasantest,' said the dwarf, rubbing his hands so hard that he seemed to
+      be engaged in manufacturing, of the dirt with which they were encrusted,
+      little charges for popguns. 'What! Not going, ladies, you are not going,
+      surely!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fair enemies tossed their heads slightly as they sought their
+      respective bonnets and shawls, but left all verbal contention to Mrs
+      Jiniwin, who finding herself in the position of champion, made a faint
+      struggle to sustain the character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And why not stop to supper, Quilp,' said the old lady, 'if my daughter
+      had a mind?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be sure,' rejoined Daniel. 'Why not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's nothing dishonest or wrong in a supper, I hope?' said Mrs
+      Jiniwin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Surely not,' returned the dwarf. 'Why should there be? Nor anything
+      unwholesome, either, unless there's lobster-salad or prawns, which I'm
+      told are not good for digestion.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And you wouldn't like your wife to be attacked with that, or anything
+      else that would make her uneasy would you?' said Mrs Jiniwin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not for a score of worlds,' replied the dwarf with a grin. 'Not even to
+      have a score of mothers-in-law at the same time&mdash;and what a blessing
+      that would be!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My daughter's your wife, Mr Quilp, certainly,' said the old lady with a
+      giggle, meant for satirical and to imply that he needed to be reminded of
+      the fact; 'your wedded wife.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So she is, certainly. So she is,' observed the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And she has a right to do as she likes, I hope, Quilp,' said the old
+      lady trembling, partly with anger and partly with a secret fear of her
+      impish son-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hope she has!' he replied. 'Oh! Don't you know she has? Don't you know
+      she has, Mrs Jiniwin?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know she ought to have, Quilp, and would have, if she was of my way of
+      thinking.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why an't you of your mother's way of thinking, my dear?' said the dwarf,
+      turing round and addressing his wife, 'why don't you always imitate your
+      mother, my dear? She's the ornament of her sex&mdash;your father said so
+      every day of his life. I am sure he did.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Her father was a blessed creetur, Quilp, and worthy twenty thousand of
+      some people,' said Mrs Jiniwin; 'twenty hundred million thousand.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I should like to have known him,' remarked the dwarf. 'I dare say he was
+      a blessed creature then; but I'm sure he is now. It was a happy release. I
+      believe he had suffered a long time?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with the
+      same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too
+      much&mdash;talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to
+      bed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But please to do now. Do please to go now,' said the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and
+      falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and bolt
+      her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding downstairs. Being
+      left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a corner with her eyes
+      fixed upon the ground, the little man planted himself before her, and
+      folding his arms looked steadily at her for a long time without speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mrs Quilp,' he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Quilp,' she replead meekly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of pursing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms
+      again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted her
+      eyes and kept them on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mrs Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave him
+      the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her clear
+      the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before him in a
+      huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship's locker, he
+      settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face squeezed up
+      against the back, and his little legs planted on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, Mrs Quilp,' he said; 'I feel in a smoking humour, and shall probably
+      blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in case I want
+      you.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0048m.jpg" alt="0048m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0048.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      His wife returned no other reply than the necessary 'Yes, Quilp,' and the
+      small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first glass
+      of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower turned from
+      its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the room became
+      perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red, but still Mr
+      Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position, and staring
+      listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on his face, save
+      when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of restlessness or fatigue;
+      and then it expanded into a grin of delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap05"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 5
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hether Mr Quilp took any sleep by snatches of a few winks at a time, or
+      whether he sat with his eyes wide open all night long, certain it is that
+      he kept his cigar alight, and kindled every fresh one from the ashes of
+      that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the assistance of a
+      candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after hour, appear to
+      inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural desire to go to
+      rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he showed, at every
+      such indication of the progress of the night, by a suppressed cackling in
+      his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like one who laughs heartily
+      but the same time slyly and by stealth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the day broke, and poor Mrs Quilp, shivering with cold of early
+      morning and harassed by fatigue and want of sleep, was discovered sitting
+      patiently on her chair, raising her eyes at intervals in mute appeal to
+      the compassion and clemency of her lord, and gently reminding him by an
+      occasion cough that she was still unpardoned and that her penance had been
+      of long duration. But her dwarfish spouse still smoked his cigar and drank
+      his rum without heeding her; and it was not until the sun had some time
+      risen, and the activity and noise of city day were rife in the street,
+      that he deigned to recognize her presence by any word or sign. He might
+      not have done so even then, but for certain impatient tapping at the door
+      he seemed to denote that some pretty hard knuckles were actively engaged
+      upon the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why dear me!' he said looking round with a malicious grin, 'it's day.
+      Open the door, sweet Mrs Quilp!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His obedient wife withdrew the bolt, and her lady mother entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Mrs Jiniwin bounced into the room with great impetuosity; for,
+      supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her
+      feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and
+      character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room appeared
+      to have been occupied ever since she quitted it on the previous evening,
+      she stopped short, in some embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing escaped the hawk's eye of the ugly little man, who, perfectly
+      understanding what passed in the old lady's mind, turned uglier still in
+      the fulness of his satisfaction, and bade her good morning, with a leer or
+      triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, Betsy,' said the old woman, 'you haven't been&mdash;you don't mean
+      to say you've been a&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sitting up all night?' said Quilp, supplying the conclusion of the
+      sentence. 'Yes she has!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All night?' cried Mrs Jiniwin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ay, all night. Is the dear old lady deaf?' said Quilp, with a smile of
+      which a frown was part. 'Who says man and wife are bad company? Ha ha! The
+      time has flown.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're a brute!' exclaimed Mrs Jiniwin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come come,' said Quilp, wilfully misunderstanding her, of course, 'you
+      mustn't call her names. She's married now, you know. And though she did
+      beguile the time and keep me from my bed, you must not be so tenderly
+      careful of me as to be out of humour with her. Bless you for a dear old
+      lady. Here's to your health!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am much obliged to you,' returned the old woman, testifying by a
+      certain restlessness in her hands a vehement desire to shake her matronly
+      fist at her son-in-law. 'Oh! I'm very much obliged to you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Grateful soul!' cried the dwarf. 'Mrs Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Quilp,' said the timid sufferer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Help your mother to get breakfast, Mrs Quilp. I am going to the wharf
+      this morning&mdash;the earlier the better, so be quick.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Jiniwin made a faint demonstration of rebellion by sitting down in a
+      chair near the door and folding her arms as if in a resolute determination
+      to do nothing. But a few whispered words from her daughter, and a kind
+      inquiry from her son-in-law whether she felt faint, with a hint that there
+      was abundance of cold water in the next apartment, routed these symptoms
+      effectually, and she applied herself to the prescribed preparations with
+      sullen diligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were in progress, Mr Quilp withdrew to the adjoining room, and,
+      turning back his coat-collar, proceeded to smear his countenance with a
+      damp towel of very unwholesome appearance, which made his complexion
+      rather more cloudy than it was before. But, while he was thus engaged, his
+      caution and inquisitiveness did not forsake him, for with a face as sharp
+      and cunning as ever, he often stopped, even in this short process, and
+      stood listening for any conversation in the next room, of which he might
+      be the theme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' he said after a short effort of attention, 'it was not the towel
+      over my ears, I thought it wasn't. I'm a little hunchy villain and a
+      monster, am I, Mrs Jiniwin? Oh!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pleasure of this discovery called up the old doglike smile in full
+      force. When he had quite done with it, he shook himself in a very doglike
+      manner, and rejoined the ladies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp now walked up to front of a looking-glass, and was standing there
+      putting on his neckerchief, when Mrs Jiniwin happening to be behind him,
+      could not resist the inclination she felt to shake her fist at her tyrant
+      son-in-law. It was the gesture of an instant, but as she did so and
+      accompanied the action with a menacing look, she met his eye in the glass,
+      catching her in the very act. The same glance at the mirror conveyed to
+      her the reflection of a horribly grotesque and distorted face with the
+      tongue lolling out; and the next instant the dwarf, turning about with a
+      perfectly bland and placid look, inquired in a tone of great affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How are you now, my dear old darling?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slight and ridiculous as the incident was, it made him appear such a
+      little fiend, and withal such a keen and knowing one, that the old woman
+      felt too much afraid of him to utter a single word, and suffered herself
+      to be led with extraordinary politeness to the breakfast-table. Here he by
+      no means diminished the impression he had just produced, for he ate hard
+      eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on,
+      chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary
+      greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till
+      they bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and uncommon
+      acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their wits, and began to
+      doubt if he were really a human creature. At last, having gone through
+      these proceedings and many others which were equally a part of his system,
+      Mr Quilp left them, reduced to a very obedient and humbled state, and
+      betook himself to the river-side, where he took boat for the wharf on
+      which he had bestowed his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was flood tide when Daniel Quilp sat himself down in the ferry to cross
+      to the opposite shore. A fleet of barges were coming lazily on, some
+      sideways, some head first, some stern first; all in a wrong-headed,
+      dogged, obstinate way, bumping up against the larger craft, running under
+      the bows of steamboats, getting into every kind of nook and corner where
+      they had no business, and being crunched on all sides like so many
+      walnut-shells; while each with its pair of long sweeps struggling and
+      splashing in the water looked like some lumbering fish in pain. In some of
+      the vessels at anchor all hands were busily engaged in coiling ropes,
+      spreading out sails to dry, taking in or discharging their cargoes; in
+      others no life was visible but two or three tarry boys, and perhaps a
+      barking dog running to and fro upon the deck or scrambling up to look over
+      the side and bark the louder for the view. Coming slowly on through the
+      forests of masts was a great steamship, beating the water in short
+      impatient strokes with her heavy paddles as though she wanted room to
+      breathe, and advancing in her huge bulk like a sea monster among the
+      minnows of the Thames. On either hand were long black tiers of colliers;
+      between them vessels slowly working out of harbour with sails glistening
+      in the sun, and creaking noise on board, re-echoed from a hundred
+      quarters. The water and all upon it was in active motion, dancing and
+      buoyant and bubbling up; while the old grey Tower and piles of building on
+      the shore, with many a church-spire shooting up between, looked coldly on,
+      and seemed to disdain their chafing, restless neighbour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Daniel Quilp, who was not much affected by a bright morning save in so far
+      as it spared him the trouble of carrying an umbrella, caused himself to be
+      put ashore hard by the wharf, and proceeded thither through a narrow lane
+      which, partaking of the amphibious character of its frequenters, had as
+      much water as mud in its composition, and a very liberal supply of both.
+      Arrived at his destination, the first object that presented itself to his
+      view was a pair of very imperfectly shod feet elevated in the air with the
+      soles upwards, which remarkable appearance was referable to the boy, who
+      being of an eccentric spirit and having a natural taste for tumbling, was
+      now standing on his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under
+      these uncommon circumstances. He was speedily brought on his heels by the
+      sound of his master's voice, and as soon as his head was in its right
+      position, Mr Quilp, to speak expressively in the absence of a better verb,
+      'punched it' for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come, you let me alone,' said the boy, parrying Quilp's hand with both
+      his elbows alternatively. 'You'll get something you won't like if you
+      don't and so I tell you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You dog,' snarled Quilp, 'I'll beat you with an iron rod, I'll scratch
+      you with a rusty nail, I'll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me&mdash;I
+      will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these threats he clenched his hand again, and dexterously diving in
+      between the elbows and catching the boy's head as it dodged from side to
+      side, gave it three or four good hard knocks. Having now carried his point
+      and insisted on it, he left off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You won't do it agin,' said the boy, nodding his head and drawing back,
+      with the elbows ready in case of the worst; 'now&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Stand still, you dog,' said Quilp. 'I won't do it again, because I've
+      done it as often as I want. Here. Take the key.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why don't you hit one of your size?' said the boy approaching very
+      slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where is there one of my size, you dog?' returned Quilp. 'Take the key,
+      or I'll brain you with it'&mdash;indeed he gave him a smart tap with the
+      handle as he spoke. 'Now, open the counting-house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy sulkily complied, muttering at first, but desisting when he looked
+      round and saw that Quilp was following him with a steady look. And here it
+      may be remarked, that between this boy and the dwarf there existed a
+      strange kind of mutual liking. How born or bred, and or nourished upon
+      blows and threats on one side, and retorts and defiances on the other, is
+      not to the purpose. Quilp would certainly suffer nobody to contract him
+      but the boy, and the boy would assuredly not have submitted to be so
+      knocked about by anybody but Quilp, when he had the power to run away at
+      any time he chose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now,' said Quilp, passing into the wooden counting-house, 'you mind the
+      wharf. Stand upon your head agin, and I'll cut one of your feet off.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy made no answer, but directly Quilp had shut himself in, stood on
+      his head before the door, then walked on his hands to the back and stood
+      on his head there, and then to the opposite side and repeated the
+      performance. There were indeed four sides to the counting-house, but he
+      avoided that one where the window was, deeming it probable that Quilp
+      would be looking out of it. This was prudent, for in point of fact, the
+      dwarf, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance
+      from the sash armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and
+      jagged and studded in many parts with broken nails, might possibly have
+      hurt him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a dirty little box, this counting-house, with nothing in it but an
+      old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an
+      inkstand with no ink, and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock
+      which hadn't gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the
+      minute-hand had been twisted off for a tooth-pick. Daniel Quilp pulled his
+      hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top) and
+      stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with ease of an old
+      practitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the
+      deprivation of last night's rest, by a long and sound nap.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0053m.jpg" alt="0053m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0053.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Sound it might have been, but long it was not, for he had not been asleep
+      a quarter of an hour when the boy opened the door and thrust in his head,
+      which was like a bundle of badly-picked oakum. Quilp was a light sleeper
+      and started up directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's somebody for you,' said the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ask!' said Quilp, seizing the trifle of wood before mentioned and
+      throwing it at him with such dexterity that it was well the boy
+      disappeared before it reached the spot on which he had stood. 'Ask, you
+      dog.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not caring to venture within range of such missles again, the boy
+      discreetly sent in his stead the first cause of the interruption, who now
+      presented herself at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What, Nelly!' cried Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said the child, hesitating whether to enter or retreat, for the
+      dwarf just roused, with his dishevelled hair hanging all about him and a
+      yellow handkerchief over his head, was something fearful to behold; it's
+      only me, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come in,' said Quilp, without getting off the desk. 'Come in. Stay. Just
+      look out into the yard, and see whether there's a boy standing on his
+      head.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, sir,' replied Nell. 'He's on his feet.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're sure he is?' said Quilp. 'Well. Now, come in and shut the door.
+      What's your message, Nelly?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child handed him a letter. Mr Quilp, without changing his position
+      further than to turn over a little more on his side and rest his chin on
+      his hand, proceeded to make himself acquainted with its contents.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0054m.jpg" alt="0054m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0054.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap06"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 6
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>ittle Nell stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance of
+      Mr Quilp as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while
+      she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much
+      inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And
+      yet there was visible on the part of the child a painful anxiety for his
+      reply, and consciousness of his power to render it disagreeable or
+      distressing, which was strongly at variance with this impulse and
+      restrained it more effectually than she could possibly have done by any
+      efforts of her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That Mr Quilp was himself perplexed, and that in no small degree, by the
+      contents of the letter, was sufficiently obvious. Before he had got
+      through the first two or three lines he began to open his eyes very wide
+      and to frown most horribly, the next two or three caused him to scratch
+      his head in an uncommonly vicious manner, and when he came to the
+      conclusion he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of surprise and
+      dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he bit the nails of
+      all of his ten fingers with extreme voracity; and taking it up sharply,
+      read it again. The second perusal was to all appearance as unsatisfactory
+      as the first, and plunged him into a profound reverie from which he
+      awakened to another assault upon his nails and a long stare at the child,
+      who with her eyes turned towards the ground awaited his further pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Halloa here!' he said at length, in a voice, and with a suddenness, which
+      made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her ear.
+      'Nelly!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you know what's inside this letter, Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, sir!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you sure, quite sure, quite certain, upon your soul?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quite sure, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey?' said the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed I don't know,' returned the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well!' muttered Quilp as he marked her earnest look. 'I believe you.
+      Humph! Gone already? Gone in four-and-twenty hours! What the devil has he
+      done with it, that's the mystery!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once
+      more. While he was thus employed his features gradually relaxed into what
+      was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man would have been
+      a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked up again she found that
+      he was regarding her with extraordinary favour and complacency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You look very pretty to-day, Nelly, charmingly pretty. Are you tired,
+      Nelly?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, sir. I'm in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I am
+      away.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's no hurry, little Nell, no hurry at all,' said Quilp. 'How should
+      you like to be my number two, Nelly?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be what, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My number two, Nelly, my second, my Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr
+      Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more distinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead, sweet
+      Nell,' said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him with
+      his bent forefinger, 'to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked, red-lipped
+      wife. Say that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only four, you'll be just the
+      proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a very good girl, and see
+      if one of these days you don't come to be Mrs Quilp of Tower Hill.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful prospect,
+      the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled violently. Mr
+      Quilp, either because frightening anybody afforded him a constitutional
+      delight, or because it was pleasant to contemplate the death of Mrs Quilp
+      number one, and the elevation of Mrs Quilp number two to her post and
+      title, or because he was determined from purposes of his own to be
+      agreeable and good-humoured at that particular time, only laughed and
+      feigned to take no heed of her alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You shall come with me to Tower Hill and see Mrs Quilp that is,
+      directly,' said the dwarf. 'She's very fond of you, Nell, though not so
+      fond as I am. You shall come home with me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I must go back indeed,' said the child. 'He told me to return directly I
+      had the answer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But you haven't it, Nelly,' retorted the dwarf, 'and won't have it, and
+      can't have it, until I have been home, so you see that to do your errand,
+      you must go with me. Reach me yonder hat, my dear, and we'll go directly.'
+      With that, Mr Quilp suffered himself to roll gradually off the desk until
+      his short legs touched the ground, when he got upon them and led the way
+      from the counting-house to the wharf outside, when the first objects that
+      presented themselves were the boy who had stood on his head and another
+      young gentleman of about his own stature, rolling in the mud together,
+      locked in a tight embrace, and cuffing each other with mutual heartiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's Kit!' cried Nelly, clasping her hand, 'poor Kit who came with me!
+      Oh, pray stop them, Mr Quilp!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll stop 'em,' cried Quilp, diving into the little counting-house and
+      returning with a thick stick, 'I'll stop 'em. Now, my boys, fight away.
+      I'll fight you both. I'll take both of you, both together, both together!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With which defiances the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing round
+      the combatants and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind of
+      frenzy, laid about him, now on one and now on the other, in a most
+      desperate manner, always aiming at their heads and dealing such blows as
+      none but the veriest little savage would have inflicted. This being warmer
+      work than they had calculated upon, speedily cooled the courage of the
+      belligerents, who scrambled to their feet and called for quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll beat you to a pulp, you dogs,' said Quilp, vainly endeavoring to get
+      near either of them for a parting blow. 'I'll bruise you until you're
+      copper-coloured, I'll break your faces till you haven't a profile between
+      you, I will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come, you drop that stick or it'll be worse for you,' said his boy,
+      dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in; 'you drop that
+      stick.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come a little nearer, and I'll drop it on your skull, you dog,' said
+      Quilp, with gleaming eyes; 'a little nearer&mdash;nearer yet.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a
+      little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to
+      wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily kept
+      his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power, when he
+      suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he fell
+      violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr Quilp
+      beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as at a
+      most irresistible jest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never mind,' said the boy, nodding his head and rubbing it at the same
+      time; 'you see if ever I offer to strike anybody again because they say
+      you're an uglier dwarf than can be seen anywheres for a penny, that's
+      all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you mean to say, I'm not, you dog?' returned Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No!' retorted the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then what do you fight on my wharf for, you villain?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Because he said so,' replied to boy, pointing to Kit, 'not because you
+      an't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then why did he say,' bawled Kit, 'that Miss Nelly was ugly, and that she
+      and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked? Why did he say
+      that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He said what he did because he's a fool, and you said what you did
+      because you're very wise and clever&mdash;almost too clever to live,
+      unless you're very careful of yourself, Kit.' said Quilp, with great
+      suavity in his manner, but still more of quiet malice about his eyes and
+      mouth. 'Here's sixpence for you, Kit. Always speak the truth. At all
+      times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring
+      me the key.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, and
+      was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a dexterous
+      rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then
+      Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged
+      himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the extreme verge of the
+      wharf, during the whole time they crossed the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was only Mrs Quilp at home, and she, little expecting the return of
+      her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing slumber when the
+      sound of his footsteps roused her. She had barely time to seem to be
+      occupied in some needle-work, when he entered, accompanied by the child;
+      having left Kit downstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's Nelly Trent, dear Mrs Quilp,' said her husband. 'A glass of wine,
+      my dear, and a biscuit, for she has had a long walk. She'll sit with you,
+      my soul, while I write a letter.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Quilp looked tremblingly in her spouse's face to know what this
+      unusual courtesy might portend, and obedient to the summons she saw in his
+      gesture, followed him into the next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mind what I say to you,' whispered Quilp. 'See if you can get out of her
+      anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live, or what
+      he tells her. I've my reasons for knowing, if I can. You women talk more
+      freely to one another than you do to us, and you have a soft, mild way
+      with you that'll win upon her. Do you hear?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Go then. What's the matter now?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dear Quilp,' faltered his wife. 'I love the child&mdash;if you could do
+      without making me deceive her&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf muttering a terrible oath looked round as if for some weapon
+      with which to inflict condign punishment upon his disobedient wife. The
+      submissive little woman hurriedly entreated him not to be angry, and
+      promised to do as he bade her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you hear me,' whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; 'worm
+      yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I'm listening, recollect. If
+      you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and woe betide you if I have
+      to creak it much. Go!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Quilp departed according to order, and her amiable husband, ensconcing
+      himself behind the partly opened door, and applying his ear close to it,
+      began to listen with a face of great craftiness and attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mrs Quilp was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or what kind
+      of inquiries she could make; and it was not until the door, creaking in a
+      very urgent manner, warned her to proceed without further consideration,
+      that the sound of her voice was heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to Mr Quilp,
+      my dear.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have said so to grandfather, a hundred times,' returned Nell
+      innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what has he said to that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only sighed, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched that if
+      you could have seen him I am sure you must have cried; you could not have
+      helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It often does.' returned Mrs Quilp, with an uneasy glance towards it.
+      'But your grandfather&mdash;he used not to be so wretched?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, no!' said the child eagerly, 'so different! We were once so happy and
+      he so cheerful and contented! You cannot think what a sad change has
+      fallen on us since.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am very, very sorry, to hear you speak like this, my dear!' said Mrs
+      Quilp. And she spoke the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you,' returned the child, kissing her cheek, 'you are always kind
+      to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one else
+      about him, but poor Kit. I am very happy still, I ought to feel happier
+      perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me sometimes to see
+      him alter so.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He'll alter again, Nelly,' said Mrs Quilp, 'and be what he was before.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, if God would only let that come about!' said the child with streaming
+      eyes; 'but it is a long time now, since he first began to&mdash;I thought
+      I saw that door moving!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's the wind,' said Mrs Quilp, faintly. 'Began to&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way of spending
+      the time in the long evenings,' said the child. 'I used to read to him by
+      the fireside, and he sat listening, and when I stopped and we began to
+      talk, he told me about my mother, and how she once looked and spoke just
+      like me when she was a little child. Then he used to take me on his knee,
+      and try to make me understand that she was not lying in her grave, but had
+      flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky where nothing died or ever
+      grew old&mdash;we were very happy once!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nelly, Nelly!' said the poor woman, 'I can't bear to see one as young as
+      you so sorrowful. Pray don't cry.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I do so very seldom,' said Nell, 'but I have kept this to myself a long
+      time, and I am not quite well, I think, for the tears come into my eyes
+      and I cannot keep them back. I don't mind telling you my grief, for I know
+      you will not tell it to any one again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Quilp turned away her head and made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then,' said the child, 'we often walked in the fields and among the green
+      trees, and when we came home at night, we liked it better for being tired,
+      and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark and rather dull, we
+      used to say, what did it matter to us, for it only made us remember our
+      last walk with greater pleasure, and look forward to our next one. But now
+      we never have these walks, and though it is the same house it is darker
+      and much more gloomy than it used to be, indeed!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs Quilp
+      said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mind you don't suppose,' said the child earnestly, 'that grandfather is
+      less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day, and is
+      kinder and more affectionate than he was the day before. You do not know
+      how fond he is of me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am sure he loves you dearly,' said Mrs Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed, indeed he does!' cried Nell, 'as dearly as I love him. But I have
+      not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never breathe
+      again to any one. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he takes by day
+      in his easy chair; for every night and nearly all night long he is away
+      from home.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nelly!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hush!' said the child, laying her finger on her lip and looking round.
+      'When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just before day, I
+      let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I saw
+      that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were bloodshot, and that his
+      legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone to bed again, I heard him
+      groan. I got up and ran back to him, and heard him say, before he knew
+      that I was there, that he could not bear his life much longer, and if it
+      was not for the child, would wish to die. What shall I do! Oh! What shall
+      I do!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fountains of her heart were opened; the child, overpowered by the
+      weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she had ever
+      shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been received, hid
+      her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst into a passion of
+      tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few minutes Mr Quilp returned, and expressed the utmost surprise to
+      find her in this condition, which he did very naturally and with admirable
+      effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to him by long
+      practice, and he was quite at home in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She's tired you see, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf, squinting in a hideous
+      manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. 'It's a long way
+      from her home to the wharf, and then she was alarmed to see a couple of
+      young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the water besides. All this
+      together has been too much for her. Poor Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp unintentionally adopted the very best means he could have devised
+      for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the head. Such an
+      application from any other hand might not have produced a remarkable
+      effect, but the child shrank so quickly from his touch and felt such an
+      instinctive desire to get out of his reach, that she rose directly and
+      declared herself ready to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But you'd better wait, and dine with Mrs Quilp and me.' said the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have been away too long, sir, already,' returned Nell, drying her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well,' said Mr Quilp, 'if you will go, you will, Nelly. Here's the note.
+      It's only to say that I shall see him to-morrow or maybe next day, and
+      that I couldn't do that little business for him this morning. Good-bye,
+      Nelly. Here, you sir; take care of her, d'ye hear?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit, who appeared at the summons, deigned to make no reply to so needless
+      an injunction, and after staring at Quilp in a threatening manner, as if
+      he doubted whether he might not have been the cause of Nelly shedding
+      tears, and felt more than half disposed to revenge the fact upon him on
+      the mere suspicion, turned about and followed his young mistress, who had
+      by this time taken her leave of Mrs Quilp and departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're a keen questioner, an't you, Mrs Quilp?' said the dwarf, turning
+      upon her as soon as they were left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What more could I do?' returned his wife mildly?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What more could you do!' sneered Quilp, 'couldn't you have done something
+      less? Couldn't you have done what you had to do, without appearing in your
+      favourite part of the crocodile, you minx?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am very sorry for the child, Quilp,' said his wife. 'Surely I've done
+      enough. I've led her on to tell her secret she supposed we were alone; and
+      you were by, God forgive me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You led her on! You did a great deal truly!' said Quilp. 'What did I tell
+      you about making me creak the door? It's lucky for you that from what she
+      let fall, I've got the clue I want, for if I hadn't, I'd have visited the
+      failure upon you, I can tell you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Quilp being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband added
+      with some exultation,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But you may thank your fortunate stars&mdash;the same stars that made you
+      Mrs Quilp&mdash;you may thank them that I'm upon the old gentleman's
+      track, and have got a new light. So let me hear no more about this matter
+      now or at any other time, and don't get anything too nice for dinner, for
+      I shan't be home to it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quilp,
+      who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she had
+      just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head in the
+      bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less tender-hearted
+      persons would have mourned a much greater offence; for, in the majority of
+      cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear
+      a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances.
+      Some people by prudent management and leaving it off piece by piece like a
+      flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense
+      with it altogether; but there be others who can assume the garment and
+      throw it off at pleasure; and this, being the greatest and most convenient
+      improvement, is the one most in vogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap07"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 7
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>red,' said Mr Swiveller, 'remember the once popular melody of Begone
+      dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship;
+      and pass the rosy wine.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Richard Swiveller's apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane,
+      and in addition to this convenience of situation had the advantage of
+      being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled to procure a
+      refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the staircase,
+      and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a snuff-box. It was
+      in these apartments that Mr Swiveller made use of the expressions above
+      recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his desponding friend;
+      and it may not be uninteresting or improper to remark that even these
+      brief observations partook in a double sense of the figurative and
+      poetical character of Mr Swiveller's mind, as the rosy wine was in fact
+      represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, which was replenished as
+      occasion required from a bottle and jug upon the table, and was passed
+      from one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers which, as Mr Swiveller's
+      was a bachelor's establishment, may be acknowledged without a blush. By a
+      like pleasant fiction his single chamber was always mentioned in a plural
+      number. In its disengaged times, the tobacconist had announced it in his
+      window as 'apartments' for a single gentleman, and Mr Swiveller, following
+      up the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or
+      his chambers, conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and
+      leaving their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls,
+      at pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece of
+      furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which
+      occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy suspicion
+      and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr Swiveller firmly
+      believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more; that
+      he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the existence of the
+      blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real
+      use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar
+      properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends.
+      Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of his creed. To be
+      the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all
+      reason, observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the
+      bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he cherished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Fred!' said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been
+      productive of no effect. 'Pass the rosy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Trent with an impatient gesture pushed the glass towards him, and
+      fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly
+      roused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll give you, Fred,' said his friend, stirring the mixture, 'a little
+      sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here's May the&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Pshaw!' interposed the other. 'You worry me to death with your
+      chattering. You can be merry under any circumstances.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, Mr Trent,' returned Dick, 'there is a proverb which talks about
+      being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can't be
+      wise, and some who can be wise (or think they can) and can't be merry. I'm
+      one of the first sort. If the proverb's a good 'un, I suppose it's better
+      to keep to half of it than none; at all events, I'd rather be merry and
+      not wise, than like you, neither one nor t'other.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bah!' muttered his friend, peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'With all my heart,' said Mr Swiveller. 'In the polite circles I believe
+      this sort of thing isn't usually said to a gentleman in his own
+      apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home,' adding to this
+      retort an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be rather
+      'cranky' in point of temper, Richard Swiveller finished the rosy and
+      applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in which, after
+      tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an imaginary company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Gentlemen, I'll give you, if you please, Success to the ancient family of
+      the Swivellers, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular&mdash;Mr
+      Richard, gentlemen,' said Dick with great emphasis, 'who spends all his
+      money on his friends and is Bah!'d for his pains. Hear, hear!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dick!' said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the room
+      twice or thrice, 'will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I show you a
+      way to make your fortune with very little trouble?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You've shown me so many,' returned Dick; 'and nothing has come of any one
+      of 'em but empty pockets&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll tell a different story of this one, before a very long time is
+      over,' said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. 'You saw my
+      sister Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What about her?' returned Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She has a pretty face, has she not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, certainly,' replied Dick. 'I must say for her that there's not any
+      very strong family likeness between her and you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has she a pretty face,' repeated his friend impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Dick, 'she has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of
+      that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll tell you,' returned his friend. 'It's very plain that the old man
+      and I will remain at daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I
+      have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A bat might see that, with the sun shining,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's equally plain that the money which the old flint&mdash;rot him&mdash;first
+      taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all be
+      hers, is it not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I should said it was,' replied Dick; 'unless the way in which I put the
+      case to him, made an impression. It may have done so. It was powerful,
+      Fred. 'Here is a jolly old grandfather'&mdash;that was strong, I thought&mdash;very
+      friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It didn't strike him,' returned the other, 'so we needn't discuss it. Now
+      look here. Nell is nearly fourteen.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Fine girl of her age, but small,' observed Richard Swiveller
+      parenthetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute,' returned Trent, fretting at
+      the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation. 'Now
+      I'm coming to the point.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's right,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The girl has strong affections, and brought up as she has been, may, at
+      her age, be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, I will
+      be bound by a very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to my will.
+      Not to beat about the bush (for the advantages of the scheme would take a
+      week to tell) what's to prevent your marrying her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Swiveller, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler while
+      his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great energy and
+      earnestness of manner, no sooner heard these words than he evinced the
+      utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the monosyllable:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I say, what's to prevent,' repeated the other with a steadiness of
+      manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured by
+      long experience, 'what's to prevent your marrying her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And she "nearly fourteen"!' cried Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't mean marrying her now'&mdash;returned the brother angrily; 'say
+      in two year's time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a
+      long-liver?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He don't look like it,' said Dick shaking his head, 'but these old people&mdash;there's
+      no trusting them, Fred. There's an aunt of mine down in Dorsetshire that
+      was going to die when I was eight years old, and hasn't kept her word yet.
+      They're so aggravating, so unprincipled, so spiteful&mdash;unless there's
+      apoplexy in the family, Fred, you can't calculate upon 'em, and even then
+      they deceive you just as often as not.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Look at the worst side of the question then,' said Trent as steadily as
+      before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. 'Suppose he lives.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be sure,' said Dick. 'There's the rub.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I say,' resumed his friend, 'suppose he lives, and I persuaded, or if the
+      word sounds more feasible, forced Nell to a secret marriage with you. What
+      do you think would come of that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A family and an annual income of nothing, to keep 'em on,' said Richard
+      Swiveller after some reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I tell you,' returned the other with an increased earnestness, which,
+      whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion,
+      'that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound up
+      in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of disobedience
+      than he would take me into his favour again for any act of obedience or
+      virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do it. You or any
+      other man with eyes in his head may see that, if he chooses.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It seems improbable certainly,' said Dick, musing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It seems improbable because it is improbable,' his friend returned. 'If
+      you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you, let
+      there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel, between you and
+      me&mdash;let there be a pretense of such a thing, I mean, of course&mdash;and
+      he'll do fast enough. As to Nell, constant dropping will wear away a
+      stone; you know you may trust to me as far as she is concerned. So,
+      whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That you become the sole
+      inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks, that you and I spend it
+      together, and that you get into the bargain a beautiful young wife.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I suppose there's no doubt about his being rich'&mdash;said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Doubt! Did you hear what he left fall the other day when we were there?
+      Doubt! What will you doubt next, Dick?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful
+      windings, or to develope the gradual approaches by which the heart of
+      Richard Swiveller was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity,
+      interest, poverty, and every spendthrift consideration urged him to look
+      upon the proposal with favour, and that where all other inducements were
+      wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition stepped in and still
+      weighed down the scale on the same side. To these impulses must be added
+      the complete ascendancy which his friend had long been accustomed to
+      exercise over him&mdash;an ascendancy exerted in the beginning sorely at
+      the expense of his friend's vices, and was in nine cases out of ten looked
+      upon as his designing tempter when he was indeed nothing but his
+      thoughtless, light-headed tool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which Richard
+      Swiveller entertained or understood, but these being left to their own
+      development, require no present elucidation. The negotiation was concluded
+      very pleasantly, and Mr Swiveller was in the act of stating in flowery
+      terms that he had no insurmountable objection to marrying anybody
+      plentifully endowed with money or moveables, who could be induced to take
+      him, when he was interrupted in his observations by a knock at the door,
+      and the consequent necessity of crying 'Come in.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was opened, but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a strong
+      gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop downstairs, and
+      the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a servant-girl, who being then
+      and there engaged in cleaning the stairs had just drawn it out of a warm
+      pail to take in a letter, which letter she now held in her hand,
+      proclaiming aloud with that quick perception of surnames peculiar to her
+      class that it was for Mister Snivelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction, and
+      still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it was
+      one of the inconveniences of being a lady's man, and that it was very easy
+      to talk as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Her. Who?' demanded Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sophy Wackles,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who's she?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She's all my fancy painted her, sir, that's what she is,' said Mr
+      Swiveller, taking a long pull at 'the rosy' and looking gravely at his
+      friend. 'She's lovely, she's divine. You know her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I remember,' said his companion carelessly. 'What of her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, sir,' returned Dick, 'between Miss Sophia Wackles and the humble
+      individual who has now the honor to address you, warm and tender
+      sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and
+      inspiring kind. The Goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase, is
+      not more particular in her behavior than Sophia Wackles; I can tell you
+      that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Am I to believe there's anything real in what you say?' demanded his
+      friend; 'you don't mean to say that any love-making has been going on?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Love-making, yes. Promising, no,' said Dick. 'There can be no action for
+      breach, that's one comfort. I've never committed myself in writing, Fred.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what's in the letter, pray?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A reminder, Fred, for to-night&mdash;a small party of twenty, making two
+      hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman to
+      have the proper complement. I must go, if it's only to begin breaking off
+      the affair&mdash;I'll do it, don't you be afraid. I should like to know
+      whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any bar to her
+      happiness, it's affecting, Fred.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To solve this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and ascertained
+      that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her own hands; and
+      that she had come accompanied, for decorum's sake no doubt, by a younger
+      Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr Swiveller was at home and being
+      requested to walk upstairs, she was extremely shocked and professed that
+      she would rather die. Mr Swiveller heard this account with a degree of
+      admiration not altogether consistent with the project in which he had just
+      concurred, but his friend attached very little importance to his behavior
+      in this respect, probably because he knew that he had influence sufficient
+      to control Richard Swiveller's proceedings in this or any other matter,
+      whenever he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes,
+      to exert it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap08"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 8
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>usiness disposed of, Mr Swiveller was inwardly reminded of its being nigh
+      dinner-time, and to the intent that his health might not be endangered by
+      longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest eating-house
+      requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens for two. With this
+      demand, however, the eating-house (having experience of its customer)
+      declined to comply, churlishly sending back for answer that if Mr
+      Swiveller stood in need of beef perhaps he would be so obliging as to come
+      there and eat it, bringing with him, as grace before meat, the amount of a
+      certain small account which had long been outstanding. Not at all
+      intimidated by this rebuff, but rather sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr
+      Swiveller forwarded the same message to another and more distant
+      eating-house, adding to it by way of rider that the gentleman was induced
+      to send so far, not only by the great fame and popularity its beef had
+      acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef retailed
+      at the obdurant cook's shop, which rendered it quite unfit not merely for
+      gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The good effect of this
+      politic course was demonstrated by the speedy arrival of a small pewter
+      pyramid, curiously constructed of platters and covers, whereof the
+      boiled-beef-plates formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the
+      structure being resolved into its component parts afforded all things
+      requisite and necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr Swiveller and his
+      friend applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'May the present moment,' said Dick, sticking his fork into a large
+      carbuncular potato, 'be the worst of our lives! I like the plan of sending
+      'em with the peel on; there's a charm in drawing a potato from its native
+      element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and powerful are
+      strangers. Ah! "Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little
+      long!" How true that is!&mdash;after dinner.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may not
+      want that little long,' returned his companion; but I suspect you've no
+      means of paying for this!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shall be passing present, and I'll call,' said Dick, winking his eye
+      significantly. 'The waiter's quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred, and
+      there's an end of it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome truth,
+      for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes and was informed by
+      Mr Swiveller with dignified carelessness that he would call and settle
+      when he should be passing presently, he displayed some perturbation of
+      spirit and muttered a few remarks about 'payment on delivery' and 'no
+      trust,' and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain to content himself
+      with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the gentleman would call,
+      in order that being presently responsible for the beef, greens, and
+      sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time. Mr Swiveller, after
+      mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety, replied that he should
+      look in at from two minutes before six and seven minutes past; and the man
+      disappearing with this feeble consolation, Richard Swiveller took a greasy
+      memorandum-book from his pocket and made an entry therein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is that a reminder, in case you should forget to call?' said Trent with a
+      sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not exactly, Fred,' replied the imperturbable Richard, continuing to
+      write with a businesslike air. 'I enter in this little book the names of
+      the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This dinner
+      today closes Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen Street
+      last week, and made that no throughfare too. There's only one avenue to
+      the Strand left often now, and I shall have to stop up that to-night with
+      a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every direction, that
+      in a month's time, unless my aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to
+      go three or four miles out of town to get over the way.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's no fear of failing, in the end?' said Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, I hope not,' returned Mr Swiveller, 'but the average number of
+      letters it take to soften her is six, and this time we have got as far as
+      eight without any effect at all. I'll write another to-morrow morning. I
+      mean to blot it a good deal and shake some water over it out of the
+      pepper-castor to make it look penitent. "I'm in such a state of mind that
+      I hardly know what I write"&mdash;blot&mdash;"if you could see me at this
+      minute shedding tears for my past misconduct"&mdash;pepper-castor&mdash;my
+      hand trembles when I think"&mdash;blot again&mdash;if that don't produce
+      the effect, it's all over.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time, Mr Swiveller had finished his entry, and he now replaced his
+      pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly grave and
+      serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time for him to
+      fulfil some other engagement, and Richard Swiveller was accordingly left
+      alone, in company with the rosy wine and his own meditations touching Miss
+      Sophy Wackles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's rather sudden,' said Dick shaking his head with a look of infinite
+      wisdom, and running on (as he was accustomed to do) with scraps of verse
+      as if they were only prose in a hurry; 'when the heart of a man is
+      depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss Wackles appears;
+      she's a very nice girl. She's like the red red rose that's newly sprung in
+      June&mdash;there's no denying that&mdash;she's also like a melody that's
+      sweetly played in tune. It's really very sudden. Not that there's any
+      need, on account of Fred's little sister, to turn cool directly, but its
+      better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all I must begin at once,
+      I see that. There's the chance of an action for breach, that's another.
+      There's the chance of&mdash;no, there's no chance of that, but it's as
+      well to be on the safe side.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This undeveloped was the possibility, which Richard Swiveller sought to
+      conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of
+      Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment, by linking his fortunes to
+      hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further their notable
+      scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these reasons,
+      he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting
+      about for a pretext determined in favour of groundless jealousy. Having
+      made up his mind on this important point, he circulated the glass (from
+      his right hand to left, and back again) pretty freely, to enable him to
+      act his part with the greater discretion, and then, after making some
+      slight improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot
+      hallowed by the fair object of his meditations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spot was at Chelsea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her
+      widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained a
+      very small day-school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions; a
+      circumstance which was made known to the neighbourhood by an oval board
+      over the front first-floor windows, whereupon appeared in circumambient
+      flourishes the words 'Ladies' Seminary'; and which was further published
+      and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half-past nine and ten in
+      the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of tender years
+      standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts
+      to reach the knocker with a spelling-book. The several duties of
+      instruction in this establishment were thus discharged. English grammar,
+      composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by Miss Melissa
+      Wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination, by
+      Miss Sophia Wackles; the art of needle-work, marking, and samplery, by
+      Miss Jane Wackles; corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and
+      terrors, by Mrs Wackles. Miss Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter,
+      Miss Sophy the next, and Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have
+      seen five-and-thirty summers or thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal;
+      Miss Sophy was a fresh, good humoured, buxom girl of twenty; and Miss Jane
+      numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs Wackles was an excellent but rather
+      venomous old lady of three-score.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Ladies' Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs
+      obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin white,
+      embellished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him on his
+      arrival, in the midst of very elegant not to say brilliant preparations;
+      such as the embellishment of the room with the little flower-pots which
+      always stood on the window-sill outside, save in windy weather when they
+      blew into the area; the choice attire of the day-scholars who were allowed
+      to grace the festival; the unwonted curls of Miss Jane Wackles who had
+      kept her head during the whole of the preceding day screwed up tight in a
+      yellow play-bill; and the solemn gentility and stately bearing of the old
+      lady and her eldest daughter, which struck Mr Swiveller as being uncommon
+      but made no further impression upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is&mdash;and, as there is no accounting for tastes, even a taste
+      so strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a wilful
+      and malicious invention&mdash;the truth is that neither Mrs Wackles nor
+      her eldest daughter had at any time greatly favoured the pretensions of Mr
+      Swiveller, being accustomed to make slight mention of him as 'a gay young
+      man' and to sigh and shake their heads ominously whenever his name was
+      mentioned. Mr Swiveller's conduct in respect to Miss Sophy having been of
+      that vague and dilatory kind which is usually looked upon as betokening no
+      fixed matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in course of
+      time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue
+      one way or other. Hence she had at last consented to play off against
+      Richard Swiveller a stricken market-gardner known to be ready with his
+      offer on the smallest encouragement, and hence&mdash;as this occasion had
+      been specially assigned for the purpose&mdash;that great anxiety on her
+      part for Richard Swiveller's presence which had occasioned her to leave
+      the note he has been seen to receive. 'If he has any expectations at all
+      or any means of keeping a wife well,' said Mrs Wackles to her eldest
+      daughter, 'he'll state 'em to us now or never.'&mdash;'If he really cares
+      about me,' thought Miss Sophy, 'he must tell me so, to-night.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0072m.jpg" alt="0072m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0072.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr
+      Swiveller, affected him not in the least; he was debating in his mind how
+      he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophy were for that occasion
+      only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own sister, which
+      would have served his turn as well, when the company came, and among them
+      the market-gardener, whose name was Cheggs. But Mr Cheggs came not alone
+      or unsupported, for he prudently brought along with him his sister, Miss
+      Cheggs, who making straight to Miss Sophy and taking her by both hands,
+      and kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an audible whisper that they had
+      not come too early.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Too early, no!' replied Miss Sophy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, my dear,' rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before, 'I've
+      been so tormented, so worried, that it's a mercy we were not here at four
+      o'clock in the afternoon. Alick has been in such a state of impatience to
+      come! You'd hardly believe that he was dressed before dinner-time and has
+      been looking at the clock and teasing me ever since. It's all your fault,
+      you naughty thing.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hereupon Miss Sophy blushed, and Mr Cheggs (who was bashful before ladies)
+      blushed too, and Miss Sophy's mother and sisters, to prevent Mr Cheggs
+      from blushing more, lavished civilities and attentions upon him, and left
+      Richard Swiveller to take care of himself. Here was the very thing he
+      wanted, here was good cause reason and foundation for pretending to be
+      angry; but having this cause reason and foundation which he had come
+      expressly to seek, not expecting to find, Richard Swiveller was angry in
+      sound earnest, and wondered what the devil Cheggs meant by his impudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, Mr Swiveller had Miss Sophy's hand for the first quadrille
+      (country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an
+      advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and
+      contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved through
+      the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller had of the
+      market-gardener, for determining to show the family what quality of man
+      they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he
+      performed such feats of agility and such spins and twirls as filled the
+      company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long gentleman
+      who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite transfixed by
+      wonder and admiration. Even Mrs Wackles forgot for the moment to snub
+      three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy, and could not
+      repress a rising thought that to have such a dancer as that in the family
+      would be a pride indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigourous and
+      useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles a
+      contempt for Mr Swiveller's accomplishments, she took every opportunity of
+      whispering into Miss Sophy's ear expressions of condolence and sympathy on
+      her being worried by such a ridiculous creature, declaring that she was
+      frightened to death lest Alick should fall upon, and beat him, in the
+      fulness of his wrath, and entreating Miss Sophy to observe how the eyes of
+      the said Alick gleamed with love and fury; passions, it may be observed,
+      which being too much for his eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused
+      it with a crimson glow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You must dance with Miss Cheggs,' said Miss Sophy to Dick Swiviller, after
+      she had herself danced twice with Mr Cheggs and made great show of
+      encouraging his advances. 'She's a nice girl&mdash;and her brother's quite
+      delightful.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quite delightful, is he?' muttered Dick. 'Quite delighted too, I should
+      say, from the manner in which he's looking this way.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Miss Jane (previously instructed for the purpose) interposed her many
+      curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr Cheggs was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Jealous! Like his impudence!' said Richard Swiviller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'His impudence, Mr Swiviller!' said Miss Jane, tossing her head. 'Take
+      care he don't hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, pray, Jane&mdash;' said Miss Sophy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nonsense!' replied her sister. 'Why shouldn't Mr Cheggs be jealous if he
+      likes? I like that, certainly. Mr Cheggs has a good a right to be jealous
+      as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon if he
+      hasn't already. You know best about that, Sophy!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophy and her sister,
+      originating in humane intentions and having for its object the inducing Mr
+      Swiviller to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect; for Miss
+      Jane being one of those young ladies who are prematurely shrill and
+      shrewish, gave such undue importance to her part that Mr Swiviller retired
+      in dudgeon, resigning his mistress to Mr Cheggs and conveying a defiance
+      into his looks which that gentleman indignantly returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did you speak to me, sir?' said Mr Cheggs, following him into a corner.
+      'Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be suspected.
+      Did you speak to me, sir'?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiviller looked with a supercilious smile at Mr Chegg's toes, then
+      raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his shin, from that
+      to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg, until he
+      reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to button until
+      he reached his chin, and travelling straight up the middle of his nose
+      came at last to his eyes, when he said abruptly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, sir, I didn't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      `'Hem!' said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, 'have the goodness to
+      smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to me, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, sir, I didn't do that, either.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir,' said Mr Cheggs
+      fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words Richard Swiviller withdrew his eyes from Mr Chegg's face,
+      and travelling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat and down
+      his right leg, reached his toes again, and carefully surveyed him; this
+      done, he crossed over, and coming up the other leg, and thence approaching
+      by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his eyes, 'No sir, I
+      haven't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Mr Cheggs. 'I'm glad to hear it. You know where
+      I'm to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to say
+      to me?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's nothing more we need say, I believe, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing more, sir'&mdash;With that they closed the tremendous dialog by
+      frowning mutually. Mr Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophy,
+      and Mr Swiviller sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hard by this corner, Mrs Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking on
+      at the dance; and unto Mrs and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs occasionally
+      darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the figure, and
+      made some remark or other which was gall and wormwood to Richard
+      Swiviller's soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs and Miss Wackles for
+      encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable on a couple of
+      hard stools, were two of the day-scholars; and when Miss Wackles smiled,
+      and Mrs Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the stools sought to curry
+      favour by smiling likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention
+      the old lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to
+      be guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy
+      to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she
+      being of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this
+      offense they were both filed off immediately, with a dreadful promptitude
+      that struck terror into the souls of all the pupils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I've got such news for you,' said Miss Cheggs approaching once more,
+      'Alick has been saying such things to Sophy. Upon my word, you know, it's
+      quite serious and in earnest, that's clear.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's he been saying, my dear?' demanded Mrs Wackles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All manner of things,' replied Miss Cheggs, 'you can't think how out he
+      has been speaking!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Swiviller considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking
+      advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr Cheggs to pay
+      his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful assumption
+      of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way Miss Jane
+      Wackles, who in all the glory of her curls was holding a flirtation, (as
+      good practice when no better was to be had) with a feeble old gentleman
+      who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss Sophy, still fluttered
+      and confused by the attentions of Mr Cheggs, and by her side Richard
+      Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few parting words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass this
+      door I will say farewell to thee,' murmured Dick, looking gloomily upon
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you going?' said Miss Sophy, whose heart sank within her at the
+      result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference
+      notwithstanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Am I going!' echoed Dick bitterly. 'Yes, I am. What then?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing, except that it's very early,' said Miss Sophy; 'but you are your
+      own master, of course.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I would that I had been my own mistress too,' said Dick, 'before I had
+      ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true, and
+      I was blest in so believing, but now I mourn that e'er I knew, a girl so
+      fair yet so deceiving.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after Mr
+      Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I came here,' said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he
+      had really come, 'with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my
+      sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that
+      may be conceived but cannot be described, feeling within myself that
+      desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night a
+      stifler!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,' said Miss Sophy with
+      downcast eyes. 'I'm very sorry if&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sorry, Ma'am!' said Dick, 'sorry in the possession of a Cheggs! But I
+      wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark, that there
+      is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has not only
+      great personal attractions but great wealth, and who has requested her
+      next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a regard for some
+      members of her family, I have consented to promise. It's a gratifying
+      circumstance which you'll be glad to hear, that a young and lovely girl is
+      growing into a woman expressly on my account, and is now saving up for me.
+      I thought I'd mention it. I have now merely to apologize for trespassing
+      so long upon your attention. Good night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's one good thing springs out of all this,' said Richard Swiviller
+      to himself when he had reached home and was hanging over the candle with
+      the extinguisher in his hand, 'which is, that I now go heart and soul,
+      neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about little Nelly, and right
+      glad he'll be to find me so strong upon it. He shall know all about that
+      to-morrow, and in the meantime, as it's rather late, I'll try and get a
+      wink of the balmy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The balmy' came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few minutes
+      Mr Swiviller was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married Nelly Trent and
+      come into the property, and that his first act of power was to lay waste
+      the market-garden of Mr Cheggs and turn it into a brick-field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap09"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 9
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he child, in her confidence with Mrs Quilp, had but feebly described the
+      sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud which
+      overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth. Besides that it
+      was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately acquainted with
+      the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and loneliness, a
+      constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the old man to whom
+      she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even in the midst of her
+      heart's overflowing, and made her timid of allusion to the main cause of
+      her anxiety and distress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, it was not the monotonous days unchequered by variety and uncheered
+      by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary evenings or the long
+      solitary nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easy pleasure
+      for which young hearts beat high, or the knowing nothing of childhood but
+      its weakness and its easily wounded spirit, that had wrung such tears from
+      Nell. To see the old man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden
+      grief, to mark his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times
+      with a dreadful fear that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his
+      words and looks the dawning of despondent madness; to watch and wait and
+      listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and to feel and
+      know that, come what might, they were alone in the world with no one to
+      help or advise or care about them&mdash;these were causes of depression
+      and anxiety that might have sat heavily on an older breast with many
+      influences at work to cheer and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of
+      a young child to whom they were ever present, and who was constantly
+      surrounded by all that could keep such thoughts in restless action!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, to the old man's vision, Nell was still the same. When he could,
+      for a moment, disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted and brooded
+      on it always, there was his young companion with the same smile for him,
+      the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same love and care that,
+      sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been present to him through his
+      whole life. And so he went on, content to read the book of her heart from
+      the page first presented to him, little dreaming of the story that lay
+      hidden in its other leaves, and murmuring within himself that at least the
+      child was happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and moving
+      with gay and lightsome step among their dusty treasures, making them older
+      by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and cheerful
+      presence. But, now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and when she left
+      her own little room to while away the tedious hours, and sat in one of
+      them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate occupants, and had
+      no heart to startle the echoes&mdash;hoarse from their long silence&mdash;with
+      her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one of these rooms, was a window looking into the street, where the
+      child sat, many and many a long evening, and often far into the night,
+      alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait; at
+      these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind, in crowds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She would take her station here, at dusk, and watch the people as they
+      passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the opposite
+      houses; wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that in which
+      she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her sitting
+      there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their heads again.
+      There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the roofs, in which, by
+      often looking at them, she had fancied ugly faces that were frowning over
+      at her and trying to peer into the room; and she felt glad when it grew
+      too dark to make them out, though she was sorry too, when the man came to
+      light the lamps in the street&mdash;for it made it late, and very dull
+      inside. Then, she would draw in her head to look round the room and see
+      that everything was in its place and hadn't moved; and looking out into
+      the street again, would perhaps see a man passing with a coffin on his
+      back, and two or three others silently following him to a house where
+      somebody lay dead; which made her shudder and think of such things until
+      they suggested afresh the old man's altered face and manner, and a new
+      train of fears and speculations. If he were to die&mdash;if sudden illness
+      had happened to him, and he were never to come home again, alive&mdash;if,
+      one night, he should come home, and kiss and bless her as usual, and after
+      she had gone to bed and had fallen asleep and was perhaps dreaming
+      pleasantly, and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood
+      come creeping, creeping, on the ground to her own bed-room door! These
+      thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have
+      recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and more
+      silent than before. The shops were closing fast, and lights began to shine
+      from the upper windows, as the neighbours went to bed. By degrees, these
+      dwindled away and disappeared or were replaced, here and there, by a
+      feeble rush-candle which was to burn all night. Still, there was one late
+      shop at no great distance which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the pavement
+      even yet, and looked bright and companionable. But, in a little time, this
+      closed, the light was extinguished, and all was gloomy and quiet, except
+      when some stray footsteps sounded on the pavement, or a neighbour, out
+      later than his wont, knocked lustily at his house-door to rouse the
+      sleeping inmates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the night had worn away thus far (and seldom now until it had) the
+      child would close the window, and steal softly down stairs, thinking as
+      she went that if one of those hideous faces below, which often mingled
+      with her dreams, were to meet her by the way, rendering itself visible by
+      some strange light of its own, how terrified she would be. But these fears
+      vanished before a well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect of her own
+      room. After praying fervently, and with many bursting tears, for the old
+      man, and the restoration of his peace of mind and the happiness they had
+      once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the pillow and sob herself to
+      sleep: often starting up again, before the day-light came, to listen for
+      the bell and respond to the imaginary summons which had roused her from
+      her slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night, the third after Nelly's interview with Mrs Quilp, the old man,
+      who had been weak and ill all day, said he should not leave home. The
+      child's eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her joy subsided when they
+      reverted to his worn and sickly face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Two days,' he said, 'two whole, clear, days have passed, and there is no
+      reply. What did he tell thee, Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'True,' said the old man, faintly. 'Yes. But tell me again, Nell. My head
+      fails me. What was it that he told thee? Nothing more than that he would
+      see me to-morrow or next day? That was in the note.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing more,' said the child. 'Shall I go to him again to-morrow, dear
+      grandfather? Very early? I will be there and back, before breakfast.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man shook his head, and sighing mournfully, drew her towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ''Twould be of no use, my dear, no earthly use. But if he deserts me,
+      Nell, at this moment&mdash;if he deserts me now, when I should, with his
+      assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I have lost, and all
+      the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes me what you see, I am
+      ruined, and&mdash;worse, far worse than that&mdash;have ruined thee, for
+      whom I ventured all. If we are beggars&mdash;!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What if we are?' said the child boldly. 'Let us be beggars, and be
+      happy.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0081m.jpg" alt="0081m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0081.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Beggars&mdash;and happy!' said the old man. 'Poor child!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dear grandfather,' cried the girl with an energy which shone in her
+      flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned gesture, 'I am not a child
+      in that I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that we may beg, or
+      work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty living, rather than live as
+      we do now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nelly!' said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now,' the child repeated, more
+      earnestly than before. 'If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be
+      sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every day, let
+      me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us be poor
+      together; but let me be with you, do let me be with you; do not let me see
+      such change and not know why, or I shall break my heart and die. Dear
+      grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg our way from
+      door to door.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow of
+      the couch on which he lay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let us be beggars,' said the child passing an arm round his neck, 'I have
+      no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall. Let us walk through
+      country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never think of
+      money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at nights, and
+      have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank God together!
+      Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses, any more, but
+      wander up and down wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you
+      shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will
+      go and beg for both.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man's neck;
+      nor did she weep alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were not words for other ears, nor was it a scene for other eyes.
+      And yet other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in all that
+      passed, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no less a person than
+      Mr Daniel Quilp, who, having entered unseen when the child first placed
+      herself at the old man's side, refrained&mdash;actuated, no doubt, by
+      motives of the purest delicacy&mdash;from interrupting the conversation,
+      and stood looking on with his accustomed grin. Standing, however, being a
+      tiresome attitude to a gentleman already fatigued with walking, and the
+      dwarf being one of that kind of persons who usually make themselves at
+      home, he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with
+      uncommon agility, and perching himself on the back with his feet upon the
+      seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort to
+      himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for doing
+      something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions had strong
+      possession of him. Here, then, he sat, one leg cocked carelessly over the
+      other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his head turned a little
+      on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent grimace. And
+      in this position the old man, happening in course of time to look that
+      way, at length chanced to see him: to his unbounded astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable figure;
+      in their first surprise both she and the old man, not knowing what to say,
+      and half doubting its reality, looked shrinkingly at it. Not at all
+      disconcerted by this reception, Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude,
+      merely nodding twice or thrice with great condescension. At length, the
+      old man pronounced his name, and inquired how he came there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Through the door,' said Quilp pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.
+      'I'm not quite small enough to get through key-holes. I wish I was. I want
+      to have some talk with you, particularly, and in private. With nobody
+      present, neighbour. Good-bye, little Nelly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell looked at the old man, who nodded to her to retire, and kissed her
+      cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said the dwarf, smacking his lips, 'what a nice kiss that was&mdash;just
+      upon the rosy part. What a capital kiss!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark. Quilp looked
+      after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the door, fell to
+      complimenting the old man upon her charms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,' said Quilp,
+      nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; 'such a
+      chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with a
+      feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience. It was not lost upon
+      Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody else, when he
+      could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She's so,' said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite
+      absorbed in the subject, 'so small, so compact, so beautifully modelled,
+      so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, and such little
+      feet, and such winning ways&mdash;but bless me, you're nervous! Why
+      neighbour, what's the matter? I swear to you,' continued the dwarf
+      dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness
+      of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up
+      unheard, 'I swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept
+      so warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite cool. I
+      am pretty sure it ought to be. Yours must be out of order, neighbour.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I believe it is,' groaned the old man, clasping his head with both hands.
+      'There's burning fever here, and something now and then to which I fear to
+      give a name.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced
+      restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat. Here
+      he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time, and then
+      suddenly raising it, said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No!' returned Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then,' said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking
+      upwards, 'the child and I are lost!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Neighbour,' said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand
+      twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention, 'let me
+      be plain with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the
+      cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more. You have no secret from
+      me now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man looked up, trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are surprised,' said Quilp. 'Well, perhaps that's natural. You have
+      no secret from me now, I say; no, not one. For now, I know, that all those
+      sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies that you have
+      had from me, have found their way to&mdash;shall I say the word?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye!' replied the old man, 'say it, if you will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To the gaming-table,' rejoined Quilp, 'your nightly haunt. This was the
+      precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the secret certain
+      source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money (if I had been the
+      fool you took me for); this was your inexhaustible mine of gold, your El
+      Dorado, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, 'it was. It
+      is. It will be, till I die.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That I should have been blinded,' said Quilp looking contemptuously at
+      him, 'by a mere shallow gambler!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am no gambler,' cried the old man fiercely. 'I call Heaven to witness
+      that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that at every piece
+      I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan's name and called on Heaven to
+      bless the venture;&mdash;which it never did. Whom did it prosper? Who were
+      those with whom I played? Men who lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot;
+      squandering their gold in doing ill, and propagating vice and evil. My
+      winnings would have been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed
+      to the last farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have
+      sweetened and made happy. What would they have contracted? The means of
+      corruption, wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have hoped in such a
+      cause? Tell me that! Who would not have hoped as I did?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When did you first begin this mad career?' asked Quilp, his taunting
+      inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man's grief and wildness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When did I first begin?' he rejoined, passing his hand across his brow.
+      'When was it, that I first began? When should it be, but when I began to
+      think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save at all, how
+      short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she would be left to
+      the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to keep her from the
+      sorrows that wait on poverty; then it was that I began to think about it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to
+      sea?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Shortly after that,' replied the old man. 'I thought of it a long time,
+      and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no pleasure in
+      it, I expected none. What has it ever brought me but anxious days and
+      sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of mind, and gain of
+      feebleness and sorrow!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me. While I
+      thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were) you were
+      making yourself a beggar, eh? Dear me! And so it comes to pass that I hold
+      every security you could scrape together, and a bill of sale upon the&mdash;upon
+      the stock and property,' said Quilp standing up and looking about him, as
+      if to assure himself that none of it had been taken away. 'But did you
+      never win?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never!' groaned the old man. 'Never won back my loss!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I thought,' sneered the dwarf, 'that if a man played long enough he was
+      sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a loser.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And so he is,' cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his state
+      of despondency, and lashed into the most violent excitement, 'so he is; I
+      have felt that from the first, I have always known it, I've seen it, I
+      never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now. Quilp, I have dreamed,
+      three nights, of winning the same large sum, I never could dream that
+      dream before, though I have often tried. Do not desert me, now I have this
+      chance. I have no resource but you, give me some help, let me try this one
+      last hope.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'See, Quilp, good tender-hearted Quilp,' said the old man, drawing some
+      scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the
+      dwarf's arm, 'only see here. Look at these figures, the result of long
+      calculation, and painful and hard experience. I <i>must </i>win. I only want a
+      little help once more, a few pounds, but two score pounds, dear Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The last advance was seventy,' said the dwarf; 'and it went in one
+      night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know it did,' answered the old man, 'but that was the very worst
+      fortune of all, and the time had not come then. Quilp, consider,
+      consider,' the old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the papers
+      in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind, 'that orphan
+      child! If I were alone, I could die with gladness&mdash;perhaps even
+      anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally: coming, as it does,
+      on the proud and happy in their strength, and shunning the needy and
+      afflicted, and all who court it in their despair&mdash;but what I have
+      done, has been for her. Help me for her sake I implore you; not for mine;
+      for hers!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm sorry I've got an appointment in the city,' said Quilp, looking at
+      his watch with perfect self-possession, 'or I should have been very glad
+      to have spent half an hour with you while you composed yourself, very
+      glad.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nay, Quilp, good Quilp,' gasped the old man, catching at his skirts, 'you
+      and I have talked together, more than once, of her poor mother's story.
+      The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps been bred in me by that. Do
+      not be hard upon me, but take that into account. You are a great gainer by
+      me. Oh spare me the money for this one last hope!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I couldn't do it really,' said Quilp with unusual politeness, 'though I
+      tell you what&mdash;and this is a circumstance worth bearing in mind as
+      showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in sometimes&mdash;I was so
+      deceived by the penurious way in which you lived, alone with Nelly&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her triumph
+      greater,' cried the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes, I understand that now,' said Quilp; 'but I was going to say, I
+      was so deceived by that, your miserly way, the reputation you had among
+      those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated assurances that you
+      would make of my advances treble and quadruple the interest you paid me,
+      that I'd have advanced you, even now, what you want, on your simple note
+      of hand, if I hadn't unexpectedly become acquainted with your secret way
+      of life.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who is it,' retorted the old man desperately, 'that, notwithstanding all
+      my caution, told you? Come. Let me know the name&mdash;the person.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crafty dwarf, bethinking himself that his giving up the child would
+      lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed, which, as nothing
+      was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal, stopped short in his
+      answer and said, 'Now, who do you think?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It was Kit, it must have been the boy; he played the spy, and you
+      tampered with him?' said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How came you to think of him?' said the dwarf in a tone of great
+      commiseration. 'Yes, it was Kit. Poor Kit!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave: stopping
+      when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with
+      extraordinary delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Poor Kit!' muttered Quilp. 'I think it was Kit who said I was an uglier
+      dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn't it. Ha ha ha! Poor
+      Kit!'
+</p>
+    <p>
+And with that he went his way, still chuckling as he went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap10"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 10
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>aniel Quilp neither entered nor left the old man's house, unobserved. In
+      the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to one of the many
+      passages which diverged from the main street, there lingered one, who,
+      having taken up his position when the twilight first came on, still
+      maintained it with undiminished patience, and leaning against the wall
+      with the manner of a person who had a long time to wait, and being well
+      used to it was quite resigned, scarcely changed his attitude for the hour
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This patient lounger attracted little attention from any of those who
+      passed, and bestowed as little upon them. His eyes were constantly
+      directed towards one object; the window at which the child was accustomed
+      to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to glance at a clock
+      in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his sight once more in the
+      old quarter with increased earnestness and attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his place
+      of concealment; nor did he, long as his waiting was. But as the time went
+      on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the clock more
+      frequently and at the window less hopefully than before. At length, the
+      clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters, then the church
+      steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter past, and then the
+      conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use
+      tarrying there any longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no means
+      willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to quit the spot;
+      from the tardy steps with which he often left it, still looking over his
+      shoulder at the same window; and from the precipitation with which he as
+      often returned, when a fancied noise or the changing and imperfect light
+      induced him to suppose it had been softly raised. At length, he gave the
+      matter up, as hopeless for that night, and suddenly breaking into a run as
+      though to force himself away, scampered off at his utmost speed, nor once
+      ventured to look behind him lest he should be tempted back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without relaxing his pace, or stopping to take breath, this mysterious
+      individual dashed on through a great many alleys and narrow ways until he
+      at length arrived in a square paved court, when he subsided into a walk,
+      and making for a small house from the window of which a light was shining,
+      lifted the latch of the door and passed in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bless us!' cried a woman turning sharply round, 'who's that? Oh! It's
+      you, Kit!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, mother, it's me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, how tired you look, my dear!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Old master an't gone out to-night,' said Kit; 'and so she hasn't been at
+      the window at all.' With which words, he sat down by the fire and looked
+      very mournful and discontented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an
+      extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it,
+      nevertheless, which&mdash;or the spot must be a wretched one indeed&mdash;cleanliness
+      and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock
+      showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at work at an
+      ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and
+      another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, with a
+      very tight night-cap on his head, and a night-gown very much too small for
+      him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring
+      over the rim with his great round eyes, and looking as if he had
+      thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep any more; which, as he
+      had already declined to take his natural rest and had been brought out of
+      bed in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and
+      friends. It was rather a queer-looking family: Kit, his mother, and the
+      children, being all strongly alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too often&mdash;but
+      he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping soundly, and from him to
+      his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him to their mother, who
+      had been at work without complaint since morning, and thought it would be
+      a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured. So he rocked the cradle
+      with his foot; made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put
+      him in high good-humour directly; and stoutly determined to be talkative
+      and make himself agreeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah, mother!' said Kit, taking out his clasp-knife, and falling upon a
+      great piece of bread and meat which she had had ready for him, hours
+      before, 'what a one you are! There an't many such as you, I know.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0088m.jpg" alt="0088m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0088.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit,' said Mrs Nubbles; 'and
+      that there are, or ought to be, accordin' to what the parson at chapel
+      says.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Much he knows about it,' returned Kit contemptuously. 'Wait till he's a
+      widder and works like you do, and gets as little, and does as much, and
+      keeps his spirit up the same, and then I'll ask him what's o'clock and
+      trust him for being right to half a second.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well,' said Mrs Nubbles, evading the point, 'your beer's down there by
+      the fender, Kit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I see,' replied her son, taking up the porter pot, 'my love to you,
+      mother. And the parson's health too if you like. I don't bear him any
+      malice, not I!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did you tell me, just now, that your master hadn't gone out to-night?'
+      inquired Mrs Nubbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Kit, 'worse luck!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You should say better luck, I think,' returned his mother, 'because Miss
+      Nelly won't have been left alone.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said Kit, 'I forgot that. I said worse luck, because I've been
+      watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I wonder what she'd say,' cried his mother, stopping in her work and
+      looking round, 'if she knew that every night, when she&mdash;poor thing&mdash;is
+      sitting alone at that window, you are watching in the open street for fear
+      any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place or come
+      home to your bed though you're ever so tired, till such time as you think
+      she's safe in hers.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never mind what she'd say,' replied Kit, with something like a blush on
+      his uncouth face; 'she'll never know nothing, and consequently, she'll
+      never say nothing.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Nubbles ironed away in silence for a minute or two, and coming to the
+      fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she rubbed it
+      on a board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing until she had
+      returned to her table again: when, holding the iron at an alarmingly short
+      distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and looking round with a
+      smile, she observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know what some people would say, Kit&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nonsense,' interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to
+      follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you'd fallen in
+      love with her, I know they would.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this, Kit only replied by bashfully bidding his mother 'get out,' and
+      forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied by
+      sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means the
+      relief which he sought, he bit off an immense mouthful from the bread and
+      meat, and took a quick drink of the porter; by which artificial aids he
+      choked himself and effected a diversion of the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Speaking seriously though, Kit,' said his mother, taking up the theme
+      afresh, after a time, 'for of course I was only in joke just now, it's
+      very good and thoughtful, and like you, to do this, and never let anybody
+      know it, though some day I hope she may come to know it, for I'm sure she
+      would be very grateful to you and feel it very much. It's a cruel thing to
+      keep the dear child shut up there. I don't wonder that the old gentleman
+      wants to keep it from you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He don't think it's cruel, bless you,' said Kit, 'and don't mean it to be
+      so, or he wouldn't do it&mdash;I do consider, mother, that he wouldn't do
+      it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no, that he wouldn't. I
+      know him better than that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from you?'
+      said Mrs Nubbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That I don't know,' returned her son. 'If he hadn't tried to keep it so
+      close though, I should never have found it out, for it was his getting me
+      away at night and sending me off so much earlier than he used to, that
+      first made me curious to know what was going on. Hark! what's that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's only somebody outside.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's somebody crossing over here,' said Kit, standing up to listen, 'and
+      coming very fast too. He can't have gone out after I left, and the house
+      caught fire, mother!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had
+      conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was
+      opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, and
+      hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Nelly! What is the matter!' cried mother and son together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I must not stay a moment,' she returned, 'grandfather has been taken very
+      ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll run for a doctor'&mdash;said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. 'I'll be
+      there directly, I'll&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no,' cried Nell, 'there is one there, you're not wanted, you&mdash;you&mdash;must
+      never come near us any more!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What!' roared Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never again,' said the child. 'Don't ask me why, for I don't know. Pray
+      don't ask me why, pray don't be sorry, pray don't be vexed with me! I have
+      nothing to do with it indeed!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut his
+      mouth a great many times; but couldn't get out one word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He complains and raves of you,' said the child, 'I don't know what you
+      have done, but I hope it's nothing very bad.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I done!' roared Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He cried that you're the cause of all his misery,' returned the child
+      with tearful eyes; 'he screamed and called for you; they say you must not
+      come near him or he will die. You must not return to us any more. I came
+      to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should come than somebody
+      quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you done? You, in whom I trusted so
+      much, and who were almost the only friend I had!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and
+      with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and
+      silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have brought his money for the week,' said the child, looking to the
+      woman and laying it on the table&mdash;'and&mdash;and&mdash;a little more,
+      for he was always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry and do well
+      somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. It grieves me very
+      much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be done.
+      Good night!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling
+      with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had received,
+      the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful and
+      affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as
+      rapidly as she had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for
+      relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his
+      not having advanced one word in his defence. Visions of gallantry,
+      knavery, robbery; and of the nightly absences from home for which he had
+      accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit;
+      flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked
+      herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit
+      made no attempt to comfort her and remained quite bewildered. The baby in
+      the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on
+      his back with the basket upon him, and was seen no more; the mother wept
+      louder yet and rocked faster; but Kit, insensible to all the din and
+      tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap11"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 11
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Q</span>uiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no longer,
+      beneath the roof that sheltered the child. Next morning, the old man was
+      in a raging fever accompanied with delirium; and sinking under the
+      influence of this disorder he lay for many weeks in imminent peril of his
+      life. There was watching enough, now, but it was the watching of strangers
+      who made a greedy trade of it, and who, in the intervals in their
+      attendance upon the sick man huddled together with a ghastly
+      good-fellowship, and ate and drank and made merry; for disease and death
+      were their ordinary household gods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was more
+      alone than she had ever been before; alone in spirit, alone in her
+      devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed; alone in her
+      unfeigned sorrow, and her unpurchased sympathy. Day after day, and night
+      after night, found her still by the pillow of the unconscious sufferer,
+      still anticipating his every want, still listening to those repetitions of
+      her name and those anxieties and cares for her, which were ever uppermost
+      among his feverish wanderings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was no longer theirs. Even the sick chamber seemed to be
+      retained, on the uncertain tenure of Mr Quilp's favour. The old man's
+      illness had not lasted many days when he took formal possession of the
+      premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain legal powers to that
+      effect, which few understood and none presumed to call in question. This
+      important step secured, with the assistance of a man of law whom he
+      brought with him for the purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish himself
+      and his coadjutor in the house, as an assertion of his claim against all
+      comers; and then set about making his quarters comfortable, after his own
+      fashion.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0092m.jpg" alt="0092m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0092.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      To this end, Mr Quilp encamped in the back parlour, having first put an
+      effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop. Having
+      looked out, from among the old furniture, the handsomest and most
+      commodious chair he could possibly find (which he reserved for his own
+      use) and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one (which he
+      considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend) he caused
+      them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in great
+      state. The apartment was very far removed from the old man's chamber, but
+      Mr Quilp deemed it prudent, as a precaution against infection from fever,
+      and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to smoke, himself, without
+      cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal friend did the like.
+      Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the tumbling boy, who
+      arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit himself down in another
+      chair just inside the door, continually to smoke a great pipe which the
+      dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to take it from his lips under any
+      pretence whatever, were it only for one minute at a time, if he dared.
+      These arrangements completed, Mr Quilp looked round him with chuckling
+      satisfaction, and remarked that he called that comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called it
+      comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he could by no exertion
+      sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard, angular, slippery,
+      and sloping; the other, that tobacco-smoke always caused him great
+      internal discomposure and annoyance. But as he was quite a creature of Mr
+      Quilp's and had a thousand reasons for conciliating his good opinion, he
+      tried to smile, and nodded his acquiescence with the best grace he could
+      assume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in the
+      city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, a
+      protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He wore a
+      long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers,
+      high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey. He had a cringing
+      manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely
+      forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive
+      circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might
+      only scowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking very
+      much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered when he
+      happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly fanned the
+      smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Smoke away, you dog,' said Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your pipe
+      again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put the
+      sealing-waxed end of it in the fire and rub it red hot upon your tongue.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luckily the boy was case-hardened, and would have smoked a small lime-kiln
+      if anybody had treated him with it. Wherefore, he only muttered a brief
+      defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant, do you feel like the Grand
+      Turk?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass thought that if he did, the Grand Turk's feelings were by no
+      means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no doubt he felt
+      very like that Potentate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is the way to keep off fever,' said Quilp, 'this is the way to keep
+      off every calamity of life! We'll never leave off, all the time we stop
+      here&mdash;smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the pipe!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Shall we stop here long, Mr Quilp?' inquired his legal friend, when the
+      dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman up stairs is dead,'
+      returned Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He he he!' laughed Mr Brass, 'oh! very good!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Smoke away!' cried Quilp. 'Never stop! You can talk as you smoke. Don't
+      lose time.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He he he!' cried Brass faintly, as he again applied himself to the odious
+      pipe. 'But if he should get better, Mr Quilp?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer,' returned the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How kind it is of you, Sir, to wait till then!' said Brass. 'Some people,
+      Sir, would have sold or removed the goods&mdash;oh dear, the very instant
+      the law allowed 'em. Some people, Sir, would have been all flintiness and
+      granite. Some people, sir, would have&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Some people would have spared themselves the jabbering of such a parrot
+      as you,' interposed the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He he he!' cried Brass. 'You have such spirits!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without
+      taking his pipe from his lips, growled,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's the gal a comin' down.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The what, you dog?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The gal,' returned the boy. 'Are you deaf?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Quilp, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he were
+      taking soup, 'you and I will have such a settling presently; there's such
+      a scratching and bruising in store for you, my dear young friend! Aha!
+      Nelly! How is he now, my duck of diamonds?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's very bad,' replied the weeping child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What a pretty little Nell!' cried Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh beautiful, sir, beautiful indeed,' said Brass. 'Quite charming.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has she come to sit upon Quilp's knee,' said the dwarf, in what he meant
+      to be a soothing tone, 'or is she going to bed in her own little room
+      inside here? Which is poor Nelly going to do?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What a remarkable pleasant way he has with children!' muttered Brass, as
+      if in confidence between himself and the ceiling; 'upon my word it's quite
+      a treat to hear him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm not going to stay at all,' faltered Nell. 'I want a few things out of
+      that room, and then I&mdash;I&mdash;won't come down here any more.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And a very nice little room it is!' said the dwarf looking into it as the
+      child entered. 'Quite a bower! You're sure you're not going to use it;
+      you're sure you're not coming back, Nelly?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' replied the child, hurrying away, with the few articles of dress she
+      had come to remove; 'never again! Never again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She's very sensitive,' said Quilp, looking after her. 'Very sensitive;
+      that's a pity. The bedstead is much about my size. I think I shall make it
+      <i>my</i> little room.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass encouraging this idea, as he would have encouraged any other
+      emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try the effect.
+      This he did, by throwing himself on his back upon the bed with his pipe in
+      his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and smoking violently. Mr Brass
+      applauding this picture very much, and the bed being soft and comfortable,
+      Mr Quilp determined to use it, both as a sleeping place by night and as a
+      kind of Divan by day; and in order that it might be converted to the
+      latter purpose at once, remained where he was, and smoked his pipe out.
+      The legal gentleman being by this time rather giddy and perplexed in his
+      ideas (for this was one of the operations of the tobacco on his nervous
+      system), took the opportunity of slinking away into the open air, where,
+      in course of time, he recovered sufficiently to return with a countenance
+      of tolerable composure. He was soon led on by the malicious dwarf to smoke
+      himself into a relapse, and in that state stumbled upon a settee where he
+      slept till morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were Mr Quilp's first proceedings on entering upon his new property.
+      He was, for some days, restrained by business from performing any
+      particular pranks, as his time was pretty well occupied between taking,
+      with the assistance of Mr Brass, a minute inventory of all the goods in
+      the place, and going abroad upon his other concerns which happily engaged
+      him for several hours at a time. His avarice and caution being, now,
+      thoroughly awakened, however, he was never absent from the house one
+      night; and his eagerness for some termination, good or bad, to the old
+      man's disorder, increasing rapidly, as the time passed by, soon began to
+      vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations of impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell shrank timidly from all the dwarf's advances towards conversation,
+      and fled from the very sound of his voice; nor were the lawyer's smiles
+      less terrible to her than Quilp's grimaces. She lived in such continual
+      dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them on the stairs or in
+      the passages if she stirred from her grandfather's chamber, that she
+      seldom left it, for a moment, until late at night, when the silence
+      encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer air of some empty
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night, she had stolen to her usual window, and was sitting there very
+      sorrowfully&mdash;for the old man had been worse that day&mdash;when she
+      thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the street. Looking
+      down, she recognised Kit, whose endeavours to attract her attention had
+      roused her from her sad reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Nell!' said the boy in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any
+      communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old
+      favourite still; 'what do you want?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have wanted to say a word to you, for a long time,' the boy replied,
+      'but the people below have driven me away and wouldn't let me see you. You
+      don't believe&mdash;I hope you don't really believe&mdash;that I deserve
+      to be cast off as I have been; do you, miss?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I must believe it,' returned the child. 'Or why would grandfather have
+      been so angry with you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know,' replied Kit. 'I'm sure I never deserved it from him, no,
+      nor from you. I can say that, with a true and honest heart, any way. And
+      then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how old master
+      was&mdash;!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They never told me that,' said the child. 'I didn't know it indeed. I
+      wouldn't have had them do it for the world.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank'ee, miss,' returned Kit, 'it's comfortable to hear you say that. I
+      said I never would believe that it was your doing.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'That was right!' said
+      the child eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Nell,' cried the boy coming under the window, and speaking in a
+      lower tone, 'there are new masters down stairs. It's a change for you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is indeed,' replied the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And so it will be for him when he gets better,' said the boy, pointing
+      towards the sick room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;If he ever does,' added the child, unable to restrain her tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, he'll do that, he'll do that,' said Kit. 'I'm sure he will. You
+      mustn't be cast down, Miss Nell. Now don't be, pray!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said,
+      but they affected the child and made her, for the moment, weep the more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He'll be sure to get better now,' said the boy anxiously, 'if you don't
+      give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would make him worse
+      and throw him back, just as he was recovering. When he does, say a good
+      word&mdash;say a kind word for me, Miss Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long
+      time,' rejoined the child, 'I dare not; and even if I might, what good
+      would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor. We shall scarcely
+      have bread to eat.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's not that I may be taken back,' said the boy, 'that I ask the favour
+      of you. It isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've been waiting
+      about so long in hopes to see you. Don't think that I'd come in a time of
+      trouble to talk of such things as them.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked gratefully and kindly at him, but waited that he might
+      speak again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, it's not that,' said Kit hesitating, 'it's something very different
+      from that. I haven't got much sense, I know, but if he could be brought to
+      believe that I'd been a faithful servant to him, doing the best I could,
+      and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn't&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out, and
+      quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Perhaps he mightn't think it over venturesome of me to say&mdash;well
+      then, to say this,' cried Kit with sudden boldness. 'This home is gone
+      from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, but that's better than
+      this with all these people here; and why not come there, till he's had
+      time to look about, and find a better!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child did not speak. Kit, in the relief of having made his
+      proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favour with
+      his utmost eloquence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You think,' said the boy, 'that it's very small and inconvenient. So it
+      is, but it's very clean. Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but there's
+      not a quieter court than ours in all the town. Don't be afraid of the
+      children; the baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very good&mdash;besides,
+      I'd mind 'em. They wouldn't vex you much, I'm sure. Do try, Miss Nell, do
+      try. The little front room up stairs is very pleasant. You can see a piece
+      of the church-clock, through the chimneys, and almost tell the time;
+      mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would, and you'd
+      have her to wait upon you both, and me to run of errands. We don't mean
+      money, bless you; you're not to think of that! Will you try him, Miss
+      Nell? Only say you'll try him. Do try to make old master come, and ask him
+      first what I have done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the street-door
+      opened, and Mr Brass thrusting out his night-capped head called in a surly
+      voice, 'Who's there!' Kit immediately glided away, and Nell, closing the
+      window softly, drew back into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Mr Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr Quilp, also
+      embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked
+      carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the house,
+      from the opposite side. Finding that there was nobody in sight, he
+      presently returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting (as
+      the child heard from the staircase), that there was a league and plot
+      against him; that he was in danger of being robbed and plundered by a band
+      of conspirators who prowled about the house at all seasons; and that he
+      would delay no longer but take immediate steps for disposing of the
+      property and returning to his own peaceful roof. Having growled forth
+      these, and a great many other threats of the same nature, he coiled
+      himself once more in the child's little bed, and Nell crept softly up the
+      stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with Kit
+      should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her dreams
+      that night and her recollections for a long, long time. Surrounded by
+      unfeeling creditors, and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and meeting
+      in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little regard or sympathy
+      even from the women about her, it is not surprising that the affectionate
+      heart of the child should have been touched to the quick by one kind and
+      generous spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it dwelt. Thank
+      Heaven that the temples of such spirits are not made with hands, and that
+      they may be even more worthily hung with poor patch-work than with purple
+      and fine linen!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap12"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 12
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t length, the crisis of the old man's disorder was past, and he began to
+      mend. By very slow and feeble degrees his consciousness came back; but the
+      mind was weakened and its functions were impaired. He was patient, and
+      quiet; often sat brooding, but not despondently, for a long space; was
+      easily amused, even by a sun-beam on the wall or ceiling; made no
+      complaint that the days were long, or the nights tedious; and appeared
+      indeed to have lost all count of time, and every sense of care or
+      weariness. He would sit, for hours together, with Nell's small hand in
+      his, playing with the fingers and stopping sometimes to smooth her hair or
+      kiss her brow; and, when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes,
+      would look, amazed, about him for the cause, and forget his wonder even
+      while he looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child and he rode out; the old man propped up with pillows, and the
+      child beside him. They were hand in hand as usual. The noise and motion in
+      the streets fatigued his brain at first, but he was not surprised, or
+      curious, or pleased, or irritated. He was asked if he remembered this, or
+      that. 'O yes,' he said, 'quite well&mdash;why not?' Sometimes he turned
+      his head, and looked, with earnest gaze and outstretched neck, after some
+      stranger in the crowd, until he disappeared from sight; but, to the
+      question why he did this, he answered not a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was sitting in his easy chair one day, and Nell upon a stool beside
+      him, when a man outside the door inquired if he might enter. 'Yes,' he
+      said without emotion, 'it was Quilp, he knew. Quilp was master there. Of
+      course he might come in.' And so he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm glad to see you well again at last, neighbour,' said the dwarf,
+      sitting down opposite him. 'You're quite strong now?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said the old man feebly, 'yes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't want to hurry you, you know, neighbour,' said the dwarf, raising
+      his voice, for the old man's senses were duller than they had been; 'but,
+      as soon as you can arrange your future proceedings, the better.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Surely,' said the old man. 'The better for all parties.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see,' pursued Quilp after a short pause, 'the goods being once
+      removed, this house would be uncomfortable; uninhabitable in fact.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You say true,' returned the old man. 'Poor Nell too, what would she do?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Exactly,' bawled the dwarf nodding his head; 'that's very well observed.
+      Then will you consider about it, neighbour?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I will, certainly,' replied the old man. 'We shall not stop here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So I supposed,' said the dwarf. 'I have sold the things. They have not
+      yielded quite as much as they might have done, but pretty well&mdash;pretty
+      well. To-day's Tuesday. When shall they be moved? There's no hurry&mdash;shall
+      we say this afternoon?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Say Friday morning,' returned the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very good,' said the dwarf. 'So be it&mdash;with the understanding that I
+      can't go beyond that day, neighbour, on any account.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good,' returned the old man. 'I shall remember it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp seemed rather puzzled by the strange, even spiritless way in
+      which all this was said; but as the old man nodded his head and repeated
+      'on Friday morning. I shall remember it,' he had no excuse for dwelling on
+      the subject any further, and so took a friendly leave with many
+      expressions of good-will and many compliments to his friend on his looking
+      so remarkably well; and went below stairs to report progress to Mr Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that day, and all the next, the old man remained in this state. He
+      wandered up and down the house and into and out of the various rooms, as
+      if with some vague intent of bidding them adieu, but he referred neither
+      by direct allusions nor in any other manner to the interview of the
+      morning or the necessity of finding some other shelter. An indistinct idea
+      he had, that the child was desolate and in want of help; for he often drew
+      her to his bosom and bade her be of good cheer, saying that they would not
+      desert each other; but he seemed unable to contemplate their real position
+      more distinctly, and was still the listless, passionless creature that
+      suffering of mind and body had left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow
+      mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of doating
+      men, are the laughing light and life of childhood, the gaiety that has
+      known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has
+      never withered, the joys that fade in blossoming? Where, in the sharp
+      lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slumber,
+      telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and
+      loves for those which are to come? Lay death and sleep down, side by side,
+      and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man
+      together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and
+      gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thursday arrived, and there was no alteration in the old man. But a change
+      came upon him that evening as he and the child sat silently together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a small dull yard below his window, there was a tree&mdash;green and
+      flourishing enough, for such a place&mdash;and as the air stirred among
+      its leaves, it threw a rippling shadow on the white wall. The old man sat
+      watching the shadows as they trembled in this patch of light, until the
+      sun went down; and when it was night, and the moon was slowly rising, he
+      still sat in the same spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To one who had been tossing on a restless bed so long, even these few
+      green leaves and this tranquil light, although it languished among
+      chimneys and house-tops, were pleasant things. They suggested quiet places
+      afar off, and rest, and peace. The child thought, more than once that he
+      was moved: and had forborne to speak. But now he shed tears&mdash;tears
+      that it lightened her aching heart to see&mdash;and making as though he
+      would fall upon his knees, besought her to forgive him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Forgive you&mdash;what?' said Nell, interposing to prevent his purpose.
+      'Oh grandfather, what should I forgive?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All that is past, all that has come upon thee, Nell, all that was done in
+      that uneasy dream,' returned the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do not talk so,' said the child. 'Pray do not. Let us speak of something
+      else.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes, we will,' he rejoined. 'And it shall be of what we talked of
+      long ago&mdash;many months&mdash;months is it, or weeks, or days? which is
+      it Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I do not understand you,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It has come back upon me to-day, it has all come back since we have been
+      sitting here. I bless thee for it, Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For what, dear grandfather?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For what you said when we were first made beggars, Nell. Let us speak
+      softly. Hush! for if they knew our purpose down stairs, they would cry
+      that I was mad and take thee from me. We will not stop here another day.
+      We will go far away from here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, let us go,' said the child earnestly. 'Let us begone from this
+      place, and never turn back or think of it again. Let us wander barefoot
+      through the world, rather than linger here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We will,' answered the old man, 'we will travel afoot through the fields
+      and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to God in the
+      places where He dwells. It is far better to lie down at night beneath an
+      open sky like that yonder&mdash;see how bright it is&mdash;than to rest in
+      close rooms which are always full of care and weary dreams. Thou and I
+      together, Nell, may be cheerful and happy yet, and learn to forget this
+      time, as if it had never been.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We will be happy,' cried the child. 'We never can be here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, we never can again&mdash;never again&mdash;that's truly said,'
+      rejoined the old man. 'Let us steal away to-morrow morning&mdash;early and
+      softly, that we may not be seen or heard&mdash;and leave no trace or track
+      for them to follow by. Poor Nell! Thy cheek is pale, and thy eyes are
+      heavy with watching and weeping for me&mdash;I know&mdash;for me; but thou
+      wilt be well again, and merry too, when we are far away. To-morrow
+      morning, dear, we'll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as
+      free and happy as the birds.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the old man clasped his hands above her head, and said, in a few
+      broken words, that from that time forth they would wander up and down
+      together, and never part more until Death took one or other of the twain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child's heart beat high with hope and confidence. She had no thought
+      of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. She saw in this, but a return
+      of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed, a relief from the gloomy
+      solitude in which she had lived, an escape from the heartless people by
+      whom she had been surrounded in her late time of trial, the restoration of
+      the old man's health and peace, and a life of tranquil happiness. Sun, and
+      stream, and meadow, and summer days, shone brightly in her view, and there
+      was no dark tint in all the sparkling picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man had slept, for some hours, soundly in his bed, and she was yet
+      busily engaged in preparing for their flight. There were a few articles of
+      clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him; old garments, such as
+      became their fallen fortunes, laid out to wear; and a staff to support his
+      feeble steps, put ready for his use. But this was not all her task; for
+      now she must visit the old rooms for the last time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And how different the parting with them was, from any she had expected,
+      and most of all from that which she had oftenest pictured to herself. How
+      could she ever have thought of bidding them farewell in triumph, when the
+      recollection of the many hours she had passed among them rose to her
+      swelling heart, and made her feel the wish a cruelty: lonely and sad
+      though many of those hours had been! She sat down at the window where she
+      had spent so many evenings&mdash;darker far than this&mdash;and every
+      thought of hope or cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that place
+      came vividly upon her mind, and blotted out all its dull and mournful
+      associations in an instant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her own little room too, where she had so often knelt down and prayed at
+      night&mdash;prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning now&mdash;the
+      little room where she had slept so peacefully, and dreamed such pleasant
+      dreams! It was hard not to be able to glance round it once more, and to be
+      forced to leave it without one kind look or grateful tear. There were some
+      trifles there&mdash;poor useless things&mdash;that she would have liked to
+      take away; but that was impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This brought to mind her bird, her poor bird, who hung there yet. She wept
+      bitterly for the loss of this little creature&mdash;until the idea
+      occurred to her&mdash;she did not know how, or why, it came into her head&mdash;that
+      it might, by some means, fall into the hands of Kit who would keep it for
+      her sake, and think, perhaps, that she had left it behind in the hope that
+      he might have it, and as an assurance that she was grateful to him. She
+      was calmed and comforted by the thought, and went to rest with a lighter
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From many dreams of rambling through light and sunny places, but with some
+      vague object unattained which ran indistinctly through them all, she awoke
+      to find that it was yet night, and that the stars were shining brightly in
+      the sky. At length, the day began to glimmer, and the stars to grow pale
+      and dim. As soon as she was sure of this, she arose, and dressed herself
+      for the journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man was yet asleep, and as she was unwilling to disturb him, she
+      left him to slumber on, until the sun rose. He was anxious that they
+      should leave the house without a minute's loss of time, and was soon
+      ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child then took him by the hand, and they trod lightly and cautiously
+      down the stairs, trembling whenever a board creaked, and often stopping to
+      listen. The old man had forgotten a kind of wallet which contained the
+      light burden he had to carry; and the going back a few steps to fetch it
+      seemed an interminable delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last they reached the passage on the ground floor, where the snoring of
+      Mr Quilp and his legal friend sounded more terrible in their ears than the
+      roars of lions. The bolts of the door were rusty, and difficult to
+      unfasten without noise. When they were all drawn back, it was found to be
+      locked, and worst of all, the key was gone. Then the child remembered, for
+      the first time, one of the nurses having told her that Quilp always locked
+      both the house-doors at night, and kept the keys on the table in his
+      bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not without great fear and trepidation that little Nell slipped off
+      her shoes and gliding through the store-room of old curiosities, where Mr
+      Brass&mdash;the ugliest piece of goods in all the stock&mdash;lay sleeping
+      on a mattress, passed into her own little chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here she stood, for a few moments, quite transfixed with terror at the
+      sight of Mr Quilp, who was hanging so far out of bed that he almost seemed
+      to be standing on his head, and who, either from the uneasiness of this
+      posture, or in one of his agreeable habits, was gasping and growling with
+      his mouth wide open, and the whites (or rather the dirty yellows) of his
+      eyes distinctly visible. It was no time, however, to ask whether anything
+      ailed him; so, possessing herself of the key after one hasty glance about
+      the room, and repassing the prostrate Mr Brass, she rejoined the old man
+      in safety. They got the door open without noise, and passing into the
+      street, stood still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Which way?' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man looked, irresolutely and helplessly, first at her, then to the
+      right and left, then at her again, and shook his head. It was plain that
+      she was thenceforth his guide and leader. The child felt it, but had no
+      doubts or misgiving, and putting her hand in his, led him gently away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a
+      cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. The streets were, as yet, nearly
+      free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the healthy
+      air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate with
+      hope and pleasure. They were alone together, once again; every object was
+      bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by contrast, of
+      the monotony and constraint they had left behind; church towers and
+      steeples, frowning and dark at other times, now shone in the sun; each
+      humble nook and corner rejoiced in light; and the sky, dimmed only by
+      excessive distance, shed its placid smile on everything beneath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor
+      adventurers, wandering they knew not whither.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0103m.jpg" alt="0103m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0103.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap13"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 13
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>aniel Quilp of Tower Hill, and Sampson Brass of Bevis Marks in the city
+      of London, Gentleman, one of her Majesty's attornies of the Courts of the
+      King's Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster and a solicitor of the High
+      Court of Chancery, slumbered on, unconscious and unsuspicious of any
+      mischance, until a knocking on the street door, often repeated and
+      gradually mounting up from a modest single rap to a perfect battery of
+      knocks, fired in long discharges with a very short interval between,
+      caused the said Daniel Quilp to struggle into a horizontal position, and
+      to stare at the ceiling with a drowsy indifference, betokening that he
+      heard the noise and rather wondered at the same, and couldn't be at the
+      trouble of bestowing any further thought upon the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the knocking, however, instead of accommodating itself to his lazy
+      state, increased in vigour and became more importunate, as if in earnest
+      remonstrance against his falling asleep again, now that he had once opened
+      his eyes, Daniel Quilp began by degrees to comprehend the possibility of
+      there being somebody at the door; and thus he gradually came to recollect
+      that it was Friday morning, and he had ordered Mrs Quilp to be in waiting
+      upon him at an early hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass, after writhing about, in a great many strange attitudes, and
+      often twisting his face and eyes into an expression like that which is
+      usually produced by eating gooseberries very early in the season, was by
+      this time awake also. Seeing that Mr Quilp invested himself in his
+      every-day garments, he hastened to do the like, putting on his shoes
+      before his stockings, and thrusting his legs into his coat sleeves, and
+      making such other small mistakes in his toilet as are not uncommon to
+      those who dress in a hurry, and labour under the agitation of having been
+      suddenly roused.
+
+</p>
+    <p>
+While the attorney was thus engaged, the dwarf was
+      groping under the table, muttering desperate imprecations on himself, and
+      mankind in general, and all inanimate objects to boot, which suggested to
+      Mr Brass the question, 'what's the matter?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The key,' said the dwarf, looking viciously about him, 'the door-key&mdash;that's
+      the matter. D'ye know anything of it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How should I know anything of it, sir?' returned Mr Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How should you?' repeated Quilp with a sneer. 'You're a nice lawyer, an't
+      you? Ugh, you idiot!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not caring to represent to the dwarf in his present humour, that the loss
+      of a key by another person could scarcely be said to affect his (Brass's)
+      legal knowledge in any material degree, Mr Brass humbly suggested that it
+      must have been forgotten over night, and was, doubtless, at that moment in
+      its native key-hole. Notwithstanding that Mr Quilp had a strong conviction
+      to the contrary, founded on his recollection of having carefully taken it
+      out, he was fain to admit that this was possible, and therefore went
+      grumbling to the door where, sure enough, he found it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, just as Mr Quilp laid his hand upon the lock, and saw with great
+      astonishment that the fastenings were undone, the knocking came again with
+      the most irritating violence, and the daylight which had been shining
+      through the key-hole was intercepted on the outside by a human eye. The
+      dwarf was very much exasperated, and wanting somebody to wreak his
+      ill-humour upon, determined to dart out suddenly, and favour Mrs Quilp
+      with a gentle acknowledgment of her attention in making that hideous
+      uproar.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0105m.jpg" alt="0105m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0105.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      With this view, he drew back the lock very silently and softly, and
+      opening the door all at once, pounced out upon the person on the other
+      side, who had at that moment raised the knocker for another application,
+      and at whom the dwarf ran head first: throwing out his hands and feet
+      together, and biting the air in the fulness of his malice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far, however, from rushing upon somebody who offered no resistance and
+      implored his mercy, Mr Quilp was no sooner in the arms of the individual
+      whom he had taken for his wife than he found himself complimented with two
+      staggering blows on the head, and two more, of the same quality, in the
+      chest; and closing with his assailant, such a shower of buffets rained
+      down upon his person as sufficed to convince him that he was in skilful
+      and experienced hands. Nothing daunted by this reception, he clung tight
+      to his opponent, and bit and hammered away with such good-will and
+      heartiness, that it was at least a couple of minutes before he was
+      dislodged. Then, and not until then, Daniel Quilp found himself, all
+      flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the street, with Mr Richard
+      Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him and requiring to know
+      'whether he wanted any more?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's plenty more of it at the same shop,' said Mr Swiveller, by turns
+      advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, 'a large and extensive
+      assortment always on hand&mdash;country orders executed with promptitude
+      and despatch&mdash;will you have a little more, Sir&mdash;don't say no, if
+      you'd rather not.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I thought it was somebody else,' said Quilp, rubbing his shoulders, 'why
+      didn't you say who you were?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why didn't you say who <i>you </i>were?' returned Dick, 'instead of flying out
+      of the house like a Bedlamite?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It was you that&mdash;that knocked,' said the dwarf, getting up with a
+      short groan, 'was it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, I am the man,' replied Dick. 'That lady had begun when I came, but
+      she knocked too soft, so I relieved her.' As he said this, he pointed
+      towards Mrs Quilp, who stood trembling at a little distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Humph!' muttered the dwarf, darting an angry look at his wife, 'I thought
+      it was your fault! And you, sir&mdash;don't you know there has been
+      somebody ill here, that you knock as if you'd beat the door down?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Damme!' answered Dick, 'that's why I did it. I thought there was somebody
+      dead here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You came for some purpose, I suppose,' said Quilp. 'What is it you want?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I want to know how the old gentleman is,' rejoined Mr Swiveller, 'and to
+      hear from Nell herself, with whom I should like to have a little talk. I'm
+      a friend of the family, sir&mdash;at least I'm the friend of one of the
+      family, and that's the same thing.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'd better walk in then,' said the dwarf. 'Go on, sir, go on. Now, Mrs
+      Quilp&mdash;after you, ma'am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Quilp hesitated, but Mr Quilp insisted. And it was not a contest of
+      politeness, or by any means a matter of form, for she knew very well that
+      her husband wished to enter the house in this order, that he might have a
+      favourable opportunity of inflicting a few pinches on her arms, which were
+      seldom free from impressions of his fingers in black and blue colours. Mr
+      Swiveller, who was not in the secret, was a little surprised to hear a
+      suppressed scream, and, looking round, to see Mrs Quilp following him with
+      a sudden jerk; but he did not remark on these appearances, and soon forgot
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, Mrs Quilp,' said the dwarf when they had entered the shop, 'go you
+      up stairs, if you please, to Nelly's room, and tell her that she's
+      wanted.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You seem to make yourself at home here,' said Dick, who was unacquainted
+      with Mr Quilp's authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I <i>am</i> at home, young gentleman,' returned the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick was pondering what these words might mean, and still more what the
+      presence of Mr Brass might mean, when Mrs Quilp came hurrying down stairs,
+      declaring that the rooms above were empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Empty, you fool!' said the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I give you my word, Quilp,' answered his trembling wife, 'that I have
+      been into every room and there's not a soul in any of them.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And that,' said Mr Brass, clapping his hands once, with an emphasis,
+      'explains the mystery of the key!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp looked frowningly at him, and frowningly at his wife, and frowningly
+      at Richard Swiveller; but, receiving no enlightenment from any of them,
+      hurried up stairs, whence he soon hurried down again, confirming the
+      report which had already been made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's a strange way of going,' he said, glancing at Swiveller, 'very
+      strange not to communicate with me who am such a close and intimate friend
+      of his! Ah! he'll write to me no doubt, or he'll bid Nelly write&mdash;yes,
+      yes, that's what he'll do. Nelly's very fond of me. Pretty Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller looked, as he was, all open-mouthed astonishment. Still
+      glancing furtively at him, Quilp turned to Mr Brass and observed, with
+      assumed carelessness, that this need not interfere with the removal of the
+      goods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For indeed,' he added, 'we knew that they'd go away to-day, but not that
+      they'd go so early, or so quietly. But they have their reasons, they have
+      their reasons.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where in the devil's name are they gone?' said the wondering Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp shook his head, and pursed up his lips, in a manner which implied
+      that he knew very well, but was not at liberty to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what,' said Dick, looking at the confusion about him, 'what do you
+      mean by moving the goods?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That I have bought 'em, Sir,' rejoined Quilp. 'Eh? What then?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has the sly old fox made his fortune then, and gone to live in a tranquil
+      cot in a pleasant spot with a distant view of the changing sea?' said
+      Dick, in great bewilderment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Keeping his place of retirement very close, that he may not be visited
+      too often by affectionate grandsons and their devoted friends, eh?' added
+      the dwarf, rubbing his hands hard; 'I say nothing, but is that your
+      meaning?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Swiveller was utterly aghast at this unexpected alteration of
+      circumstances, which threatened the complete overthrow of the project in
+      which he bore so conspicuous a part, and seemed to nip his prospects in
+      the bud. Having only received from Frederick Trent, late on the previous
+      night, information of the old man's illness, he had come upon a visit of
+      condolence and inquiry to Nell, prepared with the first instalment of that
+      long train of fascinations which was to fire her heart at last. And here,
+      when he had been thinking of all kinds of graceful and insinuating
+      approaches, and meditating on the fearful retaliation which was slowly
+      working against Sophy Wackles&mdash;here were Nell, the old man, and all
+      the money gone, melted away, decamped he knew not whither, as if with a
+      fore-knowledge of the scheme and a resolution to defeat it in the very
+      outset, before a step was taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his secret heart, Daniel Quilp was both surprised and troubled by the
+      flight which had been made. It had not escaped his keen eye that some
+      indispensable articles of clothing were gone with the fugitives, and
+      knowing the old man's weak state of mind, he marvelled what that course of
+      proceeding might be in which he had so readily procured the concurrence of
+      the child. It must not be supposed (or it would be a gross injustice to Mr
+      Quilp) that he was tortured by any disinterested anxiety on behalf of
+      either. His uneasiness arose from a misgiving that the old man had some
+      secret store of money which he had not suspected; and the idea of its
+      escaping his clutches, overwhelmed him with mortification and
+      self-reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this frame of mind, it was some consolation to him to find that Richard
+      Swiveller was, for different reasons, evidently irritated and disappointed
+      by the same cause. It was plain, thought the dwarf, that he had come
+      there, on behalf of his friend, to cajole or frighten the old man out of
+      some small fraction of that wealth of which they supposed him to have an
+      abundance. Therefore, it was a relief to vex his heart with a picture of
+      the riches the old man hoarded, and to expatiate on his cunning in
+      removing himself even beyond the reach of importunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well,' said Dick, with a blank look, 'I suppose it's of no use my staying
+      here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not the least in the world,' rejoined the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll mention that I called, perhaps?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp nodded, and said he certainly would, the very first time he saw
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And say,' added Mr Swiveller, 'say, sir, that I was wafted here upon the
+      pinions of concord; that I came to remove, with the rake of friendship,
+      the seeds of mutual violence and heart-burning, and to sow in their place,
+      the germs of social harmony. Will you have the goodness to charge yourself
+      with that commission, Sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly!' rejoined Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Will you be kind enough to add to it, Sir,' said Dick, producing a very
+      small limp card, 'that that is my address, and that I am to be found at
+      home every morning. Two distinct knocks, sir, will produce the slavey at
+      any time. My particular friends, Sir, are accustomed to sneeze when the
+      door is opened, to give her to understand that they <i>are </i>my friends and
+      have no interested motives in asking if I'm at home. I beg your pardon;
+      will you allow me to look at that card again?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! by all means,' rejoined Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'By a slight and not unnatural mistake, sir,' said Dick, substituting
+      another in its stead, 'I had handed you the pass-ticket of a select
+      convivial circle called the Glorious Apollers of which I have the honour
+      to be Perpetual Grand. That is the proper document, Sir. Good morning.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp bade him good day; the perpetual Grand Master of the Glorious
+      Apollers, elevating his hat in honour of Mrs Quilp, dropped it carelessly
+      on the side of his head again, and disappeared with a flourish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time, certain vans had arrived for the conveyance of the goods,
+      and divers strong men in caps were balancing chests of drawers and other
+      trifles of that nature upon their heads, and performing muscular feats
+      which heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in
+      the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and
+      driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all
+      kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and
+      down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he
+      could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many sly bumps
+      and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood upon the door-steps to
+      answer all the inquiries of curious neighbours, which was his department.
+      His presence and example diffused such alacrity among the persons
+      employed, that, in a few hours, the house was emptied of everything, but
+      pieces of matting, empty porter-pots, and scattered fragments of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seated, like an African chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the
+      dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and beer,
+      when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was prying in at
+      the outer door. Assured that it was Kit, though he saw little more than
+      his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon Kit came in and
+      demanded what he wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come here, you sir,' said the dwarf. 'Well, so your old master and young
+      mistress have gone?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where?' rejoined Kit, looking round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you mean to say you don't know where?' answered Quilp sharply. 'Where
+      have they gone, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know,' said Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come,' retorted Quilp, 'let's have no more of this! Do you mean to say
+      that you don't know they went away by stealth, as soon as it was light
+      this morning?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' said the boy, in evident surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You don't know that?' cried Quilp. 'Don't I know that you were hanging
+      about the house the other night, like a thief, eh? Weren't you told then?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' replied the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You were not?' said Quilp. 'What were you told then; what were you
+      talking about?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter secret
+      now, related the purpose for which he had come on that occasion, and the
+      proposal he had made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said the dwarf after a little consideration. 'Then, I think they'll
+      come to you yet.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you think they will?' cried Kit eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye, I think they will,' returned the dwarf. 'Now, when they do, let me
+      know; d'ye hear? Let me know, and I'll give you something. I want to do
+      'em a kindness, and I can't do 'em a kindness unless I know where they
+      are. You hear what I say?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit might have returned some answer which would not have been agreeable to
+      his irascible questioner, if the boy from the wharf, who had been skulking
+      about the room in search of anything that might have been left about by
+      accident, had not happened to cry, 'Here's a bird! What's to be done with
+      this?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Wring its neck,' rejoined Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh no, don't do that,' said Kit, stepping forward. 'Give it to me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes, I dare say,' cried the other boy. 'Come! You let the cage alone,
+      and let me wring its neck will you? He said I was to do it. You let the
+      cage alone will you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Give it here, give it to me, you dogs,' roared Quilp. 'Fight for it, you
+      dogs, or I'll wring its neck myself!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without further persuasion, the two boys fell upon each other, tooth and
+      nail, while Quilp, holding up the cage in one hand, and chopping the
+      ground with his knife in an ecstasy, urged them on by his taunts and cries
+      to fight more fiercely. They were a pretty equal match, and rolled about
+      together, exchanging blows which were by no means child's play, until at
+      length Kit, planting a well-directed hit in his adversary's chest,
+      disengaged himself, sprung nimbly up, and snatching the cage from Quilp's
+      hands made off with his prize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not stop once until he reached home, where his bleeding face
+      occasioned great consternation, and caused the elder child to howl
+      dreadfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Goodness gracious, Kit, what is the matter, what have you been doing?'
+      cried Mrs Nubbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never you mind, mother,' answered her son, wiping his face on the
+      jack-towel behind the door. 'I'm not hurt, don't you be afraid for me.
+      I've been a fightin' for a bird and won him, that's all. Hold your noise,
+      little Jacob. I never see such a naughty boy in all my days!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have been fighting for a bird!' exclaimed his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! Fightin' for a bird!' replied Kit, 'and here he is&mdash;Miss Nelly's
+      bird, mother, that they was agoin' to wring the neck of! I stopped that
+      though&mdash;ha ha ha! They wouldn't wring his neck and me by, no, no. It
+      wouldn't do, mother, it wouldn't do at all. Ha ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit laughing so heartily, with his swoln and bruised face looking out of
+      the towel, made little Jacob laugh, and then his mother laughed, and then
+      the baby crowed and kicked with great glee, and then they all laughed in
+      concert: partly because of Kit's triumph, and partly because they were
+      very fond of each other. When this fit was over, Kit exhibited the bird to
+      both children, as a great and precious rarity&mdash;it was only a poor
+      linnet&mdash;and looking about the wall for an old nail, made a
+      scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with great exultation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let me see,' said the boy, 'I think I'll hang him in the winder, because
+      it's more light and cheerful, and he can see the sky there, if he looks up
+      very much. He's such a one to sing, I can tell you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, the scaffolding was made again, and Kit, climbing up with the poker
+      for a hammer, knocked in the nail and hung up the cage, to the
+      immeasurable delight of the whole family. When it had been adjusted and
+      straightened a great many times, and he had walked backwards into the
+      fire-place in his admiration of it, the arrangement was pronounced to be
+      perfect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And now, mother,' said the boy, 'before I rest any more, I'll go out and
+      see if I can find a horse to hold, and then I can buy some birdseed, and a
+      bit of something nice for you, into the bargain.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap14"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 14
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s it was very easy for Kit to persuade himself that the old house was in
+      his way, his way being anywhere, he tried to look upon his passing it once
+      more as a matter of imperative and disagreeable necessity, quite apart
+      from any desire of his own, to which he could not choose but yield. It is
+      not uncommon for people who are much better fed and taught than
+      Christopher Nubbles had ever been, to make duties of their inclinations in
+      matters of more doubtful propriety, and to take great credit for the
+      self-denial with which they gratify themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no need of any caution this time, and no fear of being detained
+      by having to play out a return match with Daniel Quilp's boy. The place
+      was entirely deserted, and looked as dusty and dingy as if it had been so
+      for months. A rusty padlock was fastened on the door, ends of discoloured
+      blinds and curtains flapped drearily against the half-opened upper
+      windows, and the crooked holes cut in the closed shutters below, were
+      black with the darkness of the inside. Some of the glass in the window he
+      had so often watched, had been broken in the rough hurry of the morning,
+      and that room looked more deserted and dull than any. A group of idle
+      urchins had taken possession of the door-steps; some were plying the
+      knocker and listening with delighted dread to the hollow sounds it spread
+      through the dismantled house; others were clustered about the keyhole,
+      watching half in jest and half in earnest for 'the ghost,' which an hour's
+      gloom, added to the mystery that hung about the late inhabitants, had
+      already raised. Standing all alone in the midst of the business and bustle
+      of the street, the house looked a picture of cold desolation; and Kit, who
+      remembered the cheerful fire that used to burn there on a winter's night
+      and the no less cheerful laugh that made the small room ring, turned quite
+      mournfully away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must be especially observed in justice to poor Kit that he was by no
+      means of a sentimental turn, and perhaps had never heard that adjective in
+      all his life. He was only a soft-hearted grateful fellow, and had nothing
+      genteel or polite about him; consequently, instead of going home again, in
+      his grief, to kick the children and abuse his mother (for, when your
+      finely strung people are out of sorts, they must have everybody else
+      unhappy likewise), he turned his thoughts to the vulgar expedient of
+      making them more comfortable if he could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bless us, what a number of gentlemen on horseback there were riding up and
+      down, and how few of them wanted their horses held! A good city speculator
+      or a parliamentary commissioner could have told to a fraction, from the
+      crowds that were cantering about, what sum of money was realised in
+      London, in the course of a year, by holding horses alone. And undoubtedly
+      it would have been a very large one, if only a twentieth part of the
+      gentlemen without grooms had had occasion to alight; but they had not; and
+      it is often an ill-natured circumstance like this, which spoils the most
+      ingenious estimate in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit walked about, now with quick steps and now with slow; now lingering as
+      some rider slackened his horse's pace and looked about him; and now
+      darting at full speed up a bye-street as he caught a glimpse of some
+      distant horseman going lazily up the shady side of the road, and promising
+      to stop, at every door. But on they all went, one after another, and there
+      was not a penny stirring. 'I wonder,' thought the boy, 'if one of these
+      gentlemen knew there was nothing in the cupboard at home, whether he'd
+      stop on purpose, and make believe that he wanted to call somewhere, that I
+      might earn a trifle?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of repeated
+      disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest, when there
+      approached towards him a little clattering jingling four-wheeled chaise,
+      drawn by a little obstinate-looking rough-coated pony, and driven by a
+      little fat placid-faced old gentleman. Beside the little old gentleman sat
+      a little old lady, plump and placid like himself, and the pony was coming
+      along at his own pace and doing exactly as he pleased with the whole
+      concern. If the old gentleman remonstrated by shaking the reins, the pony
+      replied by shaking his head. It was plain that the utmost the pony would
+      consent to do, was to go in his own way up any street that the old
+      gentleman particularly wished to traverse, but that it was an
+      understanding between them that he must do this after his own fashion or
+      not at all.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0116m.jpg" alt="0116m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0116.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      As they passed where he sat, Kit looked so wistfully at the little
+      turn-out, that the old gentleman looked at him. Kit rising and putting his
+      hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the pony that he wished to
+      stop, to which proposal the pony (who seldom objected to that part of his
+      duty) graciously acceded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Kit. 'I'm sorry you stopped, sir. I only
+      meant did you want your horse minded.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm going to get down in the next street,' returned the old gentleman.
+      'If you like to come on after us, you may have the job.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed. The pony ran off at a sharp angle to
+      inspect a lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, and then went off at
+      a tangent to another lamp-post on the other side. Having satisfied himself
+      that they were of the same pattern and materials, he came to a stop
+      apparently absorbed in meditation.
+
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Will you go on, sir,' said the old
+      gentleman, gravely, 'or are we to wait here for you till it's too late for
+      our appointment?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pony remained immoveable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh you naughty Whisker,' said the old lady. 'Fie upon you! I'm ashamed of
+      such conduct.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pony appeared to be touched by this appeal to his feelings, for he
+      trotted on directly, though in a sulky manner, and stopped no more until
+      he came to a door whereon was a brass plate with the words 'Witherden&mdash;Notary.'
+      Here the old gentleman got out and helped out the old lady, and then took
+      from under the seat a nosegay resembling in shape and dimensions a
+      full-sized warming-pan with the handle cut short off. This, the old lady
+      carried into the house with a staid and stately air, and the old gentleman
+      (who had a club-foot) followed close upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went, as it was easy to tell from the sound of their voices, into the
+      front parlour, which seemed to be a kind of office. The day being very
+      warm and the street a quiet one, the windows were wide open; and it was
+      easy to hear through the Venetian blinds all that passed inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first there was a great shaking of hands and shuffling of feet,
+      succeeded by the presentation of the nosegay; for a voice, supposed by the
+      listener to be that of Mr Witherden the Notary, was heard to exclaim a
+      great many times, 'oh, delicious!' 'oh, fragrant, indeed!' and a nose,
+      also supposed to be the property of that gentleman, was heard to inhale
+      the scent with a snuffle of exceeding pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I brought it in honour of the occasion, Sir,' said the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! an occasion indeed, ma'am, an occasion which does honour to me,
+      ma'am, honour to me,' rejoined Mr Witherden, the notary. 'I have had many
+      a gentleman articled to me, ma'am, many a one. Some of them are now
+      rolling in riches, unmindful of their old companion and friend, ma'am,
+      others are in the habit of calling upon me to this day and saying, "Mr
+      Witherden, some of the pleasantest hours I ever spent in my life were
+      spent in this office&mdash;were spent, Sir, upon this very stool"; but
+      there was never one among the number, ma'am, attached as I have been to
+      many of them, of whom I augured such bright things as I do of your only
+      son.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh dear!' said the old lady. 'How happy you do make us when you tell us
+      that, to be sure!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I tell you, ma'am,' said Mr Witherden, 'what I think as an honest man,
+      which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God. I agree with the
+      poet in every particular, ma'am. The mountainous Alps on the one hand, or
+      a humming-bird on the other, is nothing, in point of workmanship, to an
+      honest man&mdash;or woman&mdash;or woman.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Anything that Mr Witherden can say of me,' observed a small quiet voice,
+      'I can say, with interest, of him, I am sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's a happy circumstance, a truly happy circumstance,' said the Notary,
+      'to happen too upon his eight-and-twentieth birthday, and I hope I know
+      how to appreciate it. I trust, Mr Garland, my dear Sir, that we may
+      mutually congratulate each other upon this auspicious occasion.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this the old gentleman replied that he felt assured they might. There
+      appeared to be another shaking of hands in consequence, and when it was
+      over, the old gentleman said that, though he said it who should not, he
+      believed no son had ever been a greater comfort to his parents than Abel
+      Garland had been to his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Marrying as his mother and I did, late in life, sir, after waiting for a
+      great many years, until we were well enough off&mdash;coming together when
+      we were no longer young, and then being blessed with one child who has
+      always been dutiful and affectionate&mdash;why, it's a source of great
+      happiness to us both, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of course it is, I have no doubt of it,' returned the Notary in a
+      sympathising voice. 'It's the contemplation of this sort of thing, that
+      makes me deplore my fate in being a bachelor. There was a young lady once,
+      sir, the daughter of an outfitting warehouse of the first respectability&mdash;but
+      that's a weakness. Chuckster, bring in Mr Abel's articles.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see, Mr Witherden,' said the old lady, 'that Abel has not been
+      brought up like the run of young men. He has always had a pleasure in our
+      society, and always been with us. Abel has never been absent from us, for
+      a day; has he, my dear?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never, my dear,' returned the old gentleman, 'except when he went to
+      Margate one Saturday with Mr Tomkinley that had been a teacher at that
+      school he went to, and came back upon the Monday; but he was very ill
+      after that, you remember, my dear; it was quite a dissipation.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He was not used to it, you know,' said the old lady, 'and he couldn't
+      bear it, that's the truth. Besides he had no comfort in being there
+      without us, and had nobody to talk to or enjoy himself with.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That was it, you know,' interposed the same small quiet voice that had
+      spoken once before. 'I was quite abroad, mother, quite desolate, and to
+      think that the sea was between us&mdash;oh, I never shall forget what I
+      felt when I first thought that the sea was between us!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very natural under the circumstances,' observed the Notary. 'Mr Abel's
+      feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your nature, ma'am, and
+      his father's nature, and human nature. I trace the same current now,
+      flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive proceedings.&mdash;I am
+      about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot of the articles which Mr
+      Chuckster will witness; and placing my finger upon this blue wafer with
+      the vandyked corners, I am constrained to remark in a distinct tone of
+      voice&mdash;don't be alarmed, ma'am, it is merely a form of law&mdash;that
+      I deliver this, as my act and deed. Mr Abel will place his name against
+      the other wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is
+      over. Ha ha ha! You see how easily these things are done!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence, apparently, while Mr Abel went through the
+      prescribed form, and then the shaking of hands and shuffling of feet were
+      renewed, and shortly afterwards there was a clinking of wine-glasses and a
+      great talkativeness on the part of everybody. In about a quarter of an
+      hour Mr Chuckster (with a pen behind his ear and his face inflamed with
+      wine) appeared at the door, and condescending to address Kit by the jocose
+      appellation of 'Young Snob,' informed him that the visitors were coming
+      out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out they came forthwith; Mr Witherden, who was short, chubby,
+      fresh-coloured, brisk, and pompous, leading the old lady with extreme
+      politeness, and the father and son following them, arm in arm. Mr Abel,
+      who had a quaint old-fashioned air about him, looked nearly of the same
+      age as his father, and bore a wonderful resemblance to him in face and
+      figure, though wanting something of his full, round, cheerfulness, and
+      substituting in its place a timid reserve. In all other respects, in the
+      neatness of the dress, and even in the club-foot, he and the old gentleman
+      were precisely alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having seen the old lady safely in her seat, and assisted in the
+      arrangement of her cloak and a small basket which formed an indispensable
+      portion of her equipage, Mr Abel got into a little box behind which had
+      evidently been made for his express accommodation, and smiled at everybody
+      present by turns, beginning with his mother and ending with the pony.
+      There was then a great to-do to make the pony hold up his head that the
+      bearing-rein might be fastened; at last even this was effected; and the
+      old gentleman, taking his seat and the reins, put his hand in his pocket
+      to find a sixpence for Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no sixpence, neither had the old lady, nor Mr Abel, nor the Notary,
+      nor Mr Chuckster. The old gentleman thought a shilling too much, but there
+      was no shop in the street to get change at, so he gave it to the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There,' he said jokingly, 'I'm coming here again next Monday at the same
+      time, and mind you're here, my lad, to work it out.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you, Sir,' said Kit. 'I'll be sure to be here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quite serious, but they all laughed heartily at his saying so,
+      especially Mr Chuckster, who roared outright and appeared to relish the
+      joke amazingly. As the pony, with a presentiment that he was going home,
+      or a determination that he would not go anywhere else (which was the same
+      thing) trotted away pretty nimbly, Kit had no time to justify himself, and
+      went his way also. Having expended his treasure in such purchases as he
+      knew would be most acceptable at home, not forgetting some seed for the
+      wonderful bird, he hastened back as fast as he could, so elated with his
+      success and great good fortune, that he more than half expected Nell and
+      the old man would have arrived before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap15"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 15
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>ften, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on the
+      morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled sensation of
+      hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly seen in the clear
+      distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest Kit. But although she
+      would gladly have given him her hand and thanked him for what he had said
+      at their last meeting, it was always a relief to find, when they came
+      nearer to each other, that the person who approached was not he, but a
+      stranger; for even if she had not dreaded the effect which the sight of
+      him might have wrought upon her fellow-traveller, she felt that to bid
+      farewell to anybody now, and most of all to him who had been so faithful
+      and so true, was more than she could bear. It was enough to leave dumb
+      things behind, and objects that were insensible both to her love and
+      sorrow. To have parted from her only other friend upon the threshold of
+      that wild journey, would have wrung her heart indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and
+      while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say it?
+      On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are
+      tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual pressure of
+      the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well
+      knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one
+      word, and that the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to
+      bear than certainties? We do not shun our dying friends; the not having
+      distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all kindness and
+      affection, will often embitter the whole remainder of a life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and
+      distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams
+      dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain before
+      sleepers' eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the shadows
+      of the night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up close and dark, felt it was
+      morning, and chafed and grew restless in their little cells; bright-eyed
+      mice crept back to their tiny homes and nestled timidly together; the
+      sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat winking at the rays of sun
+      starting through keyhole and cranny in the door, and longed for her
+      stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside. The nobler beasts confined in
+      dens, stood motionless behind their bars and gazed on fluttering boughs,
+      and sunshine peeping through some little window, with eyes in which old
+      forests gleamed&mdash;then trod impatiently the track their prisoned feet
+      had worn&mdash;and stopped and gazed again. Men in their dungeons
+      stretched their cramp cold limbs and cursed the stone that no bright sky
+      could warm. The flowers that sleep by night, opened their gentle eyes and
+      turned them to the day. The light, creation's mind, was everywhere, and
+      all things owned its power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two pilgrims, often pressing each other's hands, or exchanging a smile
+      or cheerful look, pursued their way in silence. Bright and happy as it
+      was, there was something solemn in the long, deserted streets, from which,
+      like bodies without souls, all habitual character and expression had
+      departed, leaving but one dead uniform repose, that made them all alike.
+      All was so still at that early hour, that the few pale people whom they
+      met seemed as much unsuited to the scene, as the sickly lamp which had
+      been here and there left burning, was powerless and faint in the full
+      glory of the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before they had penetrated very far into the labyrinth of men's abodes
+      which yet lay between them and the outskirts, this aspect began to melt
+      away, and noise and bustle to usurp its place. Some straggling carts and
+      coaches rumbling by, first broke the charm, then others came, then others
+      yet more active, then a crowd. The wonder was, at first, to see a
+      tradesman's window open, but it was a rare thing soon to see one closed;
+      then, smoke rose slowly from the chimneys, and sashes were thrown up to
+      let in air, and doors were opened, and servant girls, looking lazily in
+      all directions but their brooms, scattered brown clouds of dust into the
+      eyes of shrinking passengers, or listened disconsolately to milkmen who
+      spoke of country fairs, and told of waggons in the mews, with awnings and
+      all things complete, and gallant swains to boot, which another hour would
+      see upon their journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This quarter passed, they came upon the haunts of commerce and great
+      traffic, where many people were resorting, and business was already rife.
+      The old man looked about him with a startled and bewildered gaze, for
+      these were places that he hoped to shun. He pressed his finger on his lip,
+      and drew the child along by narrow courts and winding ways, nor did he
+      seem at ease until they had left it far behind, often casting a backward
+      look towards it, murmuring that ruin and self-murder were crouching in
+      every street, and would follow if they scented them; and that they could
+      not fly too fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again this quarter passed, they came upon a straggling neighbourhood,
+      where the mean houses parcelled off in rooms, and windows patched with
+      rags and paper, told of the populous poverty that sheltered there. The
+      shops sold goods that only poverty could buy, and sellers and buyers were
+      pinched and griped alike. Here were poor streets where faded gentility
+      essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its last feeble
+      stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as elsewhere, and the
+      poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less squalid and manifest
+      than that which had long ago submitted and given up the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a wide, wide track&mdash;for the humble followers of the camp of
+      wealth pitch their tents round about it for many a mile&mdash;but its
+      character was still the same. Damp rotten houses, many to let, many yet
+      building, many half-built and mouldering away&mdash;lodgings, where it
+      would be hard to tell which needed pity most, those who let or those who
+      came to take&mdash;children, scantily fed and clothed, spread over every
+      street, and sprawling in the dust&mdash;scolding mothers, stamping their
+      slipshod feet with noisy threats upon the pavement&mdash;shabby fathers,
+      hurrying with dispirited looks to the occupation which brought them 'daily
+      bread' and little more&mdash;mangling-women, washer-women, cobblers,
+      tailors, chandlers, driving their trades in parlours and kitchens and back
+      room and garrets, and sometimes all of them under the same roof&mdash;brick-fields
+      skirting gardens paled with staves of old casks, or timber pillaged from
+      houses burnt down, and blackened and blistered by the flames&mdash;mounds
+      of dock-weed, nettles, coarse grass and oyster-shells, heaped in rank
+      confusion&mdash;small dissenting chapels to teach, with no lack of
+      illustration, the miseries of Earth, and plenty of new churches, erected
+      with a little superfluous wealth, to show the way to Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length these streets becoming more straggling yet, dwindled and
+      dwindled away, until there were only small garden patches bordering the
+      road, with many a summer house innocent of paint and built of old timber
+      or some fragments of a boat, green as the tough cabbage-stalks that grew
+      about it, and grottoed at the seams with toad-stools and tight-sticking
+      snails. To these succeeded pert cottages, two and two with plots of ground
+      in front, laid out in angular beds with stiff box borders and narrow paths
+      between, where footstep never strayed to make the gravel rough. Then came
+      the public-house, freshly painted in green and white, with tea-gardens and
+      a bowling green, spurning its old neighbour with the horse-trough where
+      the waggons stopped; then, fields; and then, some houses, one by one, of
+      goodly size with lawns, some even with a lodge where dwelt a porter and
+      his wife. Then came a turnpike; then fields again with trees and
+      hay-stacks; then, a hill, and on the top of that, the traveller might
+      stop, and&mdash;looking back at old Saint Paul's looming through the
+      smoke, its cross peeping above the cloud (if the day were clear), and
+      glittering in the sun; and casting his eyes upon the Babel out of which it
+      grew until he traced it down to the furthest outposts of the invading army
+      of bricks and mortar whose station lay for the present nearly at his feet&mdash;might
+      feel at last that he was clear of London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near such a spot as this, and in a pleasant field, the old man and his
+      little guide (if guide she were, who knew not whither they were bound) sat
+      down to rest. She had had the precaution to furnish her basket with some
+      slices of bread and meat, and here they made their frugal breakfast.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0120m.jpg" alt="0120m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0120.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the
+      waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand
+      exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air&mdash;deep joys to
+      most of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live
+      solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well&mdash;sunk
+      into their breasts and made them very glad. The child had repeated her
+      artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had
+      ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her lips
+      again. The old man took off his hat&mdash;he had no memory for the words&mdash;but
+      he said amen, and that they were very good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, with strange plates,
+      upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole evenings,
+      wondering whether it was true in every word, and where those distant
+      countries with the curious names might be. As she looked back upon the
+      place they had left, one part of it came strongly on her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dear grandfather,' she said, 'only that this place is prettier and a
+      great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like it, I
+      feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this grass all the
+      cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No&mdash;never to return&mdash;never to return'&mdash;replied the old
+      man, waving his hand towards the city. 'Thou and I are free of it now,
+      Nell. They shall never lure us back.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you tired?' said the child, 'are you sure you don't feel ill from
+      this long walk?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,' was his reply.
+      'Let us be stirring, Nell. We must be further away&mdash;a long, long way
+      further. We are too near to stop, and be at rest. Come!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved her
+      hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk again.
+      She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and making him
+      sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her hands, and dried
+      it with her simple dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I can do nothing for myself, my darling,' said the grandfather; 'I don't
+      know how it is, I could once, but the time's gone. Don't leave me, Nell;
+      say that thou'lt not leave me. I loved thee all the while, indeed I did.
+      If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously. The time had
+      been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have restrained
+      her tears and must have wept with him. But now she soothed him with gentle
+      and tender words, smiled at his thinking they could ever part, and rallied
+      him cheerfully upon the jest. He was soon calmed and fell asleep, singing
+      to himself in a low voice, like a little child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He awoke refreshed, and they continued their journey. The road was
+      pleasant, lying between beautiful pastures and fields of corn, about
+      which, poised high in the clear blue sky, the lark trilled out her happy
+      song. The air came laden with the fragrance it caught upon its way, and
+      the bees, upborne upon its scented breath, hummed forth their drowsy
+      satisfaction as they floated by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were now in the open country; the houses were very few and scattered
+      at long intervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came upon a
+      cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put across the
+      open door to keep the scrambling children from the road, others shut up
+      close while all the family were working in the fields. These were often
+      the commencement of a little village: and after an interval came a
+      wheelwright's shed or perhaps a blacksmith's forge; then a thriving farm
+      with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses peering over the low
+      wall and scampering away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as
+      though in triumph at their freedom. There were dull pigs too, turning up
+      the ground in search of dainty food, and grunting their monotonous
+      grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed each other in their quest;
+      plump pigeons skimming round the roof or strutting on the eaves; and ducks
+      and geese, far more graceful in their own conceit, waddling awkwardly
+      about the edges of the pond or sailing glibly on its surface. The
+      farm-yard passed, then came the little inn; the humbler beer-shop; and the
+      village tradesman's; then the lawyer's and the parson's, at whose dread
+      names the beer-shop trembled; the church then peeped out modestly from a
+      clump of trees; then there were a few more cottages; then the cage, and
+      pound, and not unfrequently, on a bank by the way-side, a deep old dusty
+      well. Then came the trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds
+      were let to travellers. Next morning they were afoot again, and though
+      jaded at first, and very tired, recovered before long and proceeded
+      briskly forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They often stopped to rest, but only for a short space at a time, and
+      still kept on, having had but slight refreshment since the morning. It was
+      nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, when drawing near another cluster of
+      labourers' huts, the child looked wistfully in each, doubtful at which to
+      ask for permission to rest awhile, and buy a draught of milk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of being
+      repulsed. Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife. In this, the
+      people seemed too poor; in that, too many. At length she stopped at one
+      where the family were seated round the table&mdash;chiefly because there
+      was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair beside the hearth, and she
+      thought he was a grandfather and would feel for hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young sturdy
+      children, brown as berries. The request was no sooner preferred, than
+      granted. The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged two
+      stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother's gown, and
+      looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'God save you, master,' said the old cottager in a thin piping voice; 'are
+      you travelling far?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Sir, a long way'&mdash;replied the child; for her grandfather
+      appealed to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'From London?' inquired the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child said yes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah! He had been in London many a time&mdash;used to go there often once,
+      with waggons. It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there
+      last, and he did hear say there were great changes. Like enough! He had
+      changed, himself, since then. Two-and-thirty year was a long time and
+      eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that had lived
+      to very hard upon a hundred&mdash;and not so hearty as he, neither&mdash;no,
+      nothing like it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,' said the old man, knocking
+      his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply. 'Take a pinch
+      out o' that box; I don't take much myself, for it comes dear, but I find
+      it wakes me up sometimes, and ye're but a boy to me. I should have a son
+      pretty nigh as old as you if he'd lived, but they listed him for a so'ger&mdash;he
+      come back home though, for all he had but one poor leg. He always said
+      he'd be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb upon when he was a baby,
+      did my poor boy, and his words come true&mdash;you can see the place with
+      your own eyes; we've kept the turf up, ever since.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said she
+      needn't be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more. He
+      didn't wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by what he
+      said, he asked pardon, that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How far is it to any town or village?' she asked of the husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A matter of good five mile, my dear,' was the reply, 'but you're not
+      going on to-night?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes, we are,' returned the old man fretfully. 'Further away, dear
+      Nell, pray further away.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;rough-grained and hard though it was, with work&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Didn't you stop to rest at a cottage yonder?' he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, sir,' replied the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! They asked me to look out for you,' said the man. 'I'm going your
+      way. Give me your hand&mdash;jump up, master.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, when she fell asleep, for
+      the first time that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap16"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 16
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;exhibitors
+      of the freaks of Punch&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0126m.jpg" alt="0126m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0126.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      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 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that was he who
+      took the money&mdash;had rather a careful and cautious look, which was
+      perhaps inseparable from his occupation also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why do you come here to do this?' said the old man, sitting down beside
+      them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No!' cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, 'why not, eh? why
+      not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?&mdash;certainly
+      not.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink, expressive of
+      the estimate he had formed of the travellers' finances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;except ghosts. But now you're
+      a universal mistruster. I never see a man so changed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never mind,' said Mr Codlin, with the air of a discontented philosopher.
+      'I know better now, and p'raps I'm sorry for it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised them,
+      Mr Codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of his friend:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Look here; here's all this judy's clothes falling to pieces again. You
+      haven't got a needle and thread I suppose?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'N&mdash;no further to-night, I think,' said the child, looking towards
+      her grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and
+      going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap17"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 17
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nother bright day shining in through the small casement, and claiming
+      fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her. At sight of the
+      strange room and its unaccustomed objects she started up in alarm,
+      wondering how she had been moved from the familiar chamber in which she
+      seemed to have fallen asleep last night, and whither she had been
+      conveyed. But, another glance around called to her mind all that had
+      lately passed, and she sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked out into
+      the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with her feet, and
+      often turning aside into places where it grew longer than in others, that
+      she might not tread upon the graves. She felt a curious kind of pleasure
+      in lingering among these houses of the dead, and read the inscriptions on
+      the tombs of the good people (a great number of good people were buried
+      there), passing on from one to another with increasing interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the cawing
+      of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of some tall old
+      trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the air. First, one
+      sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as it swung and dangled in the
+      wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance as it would seem, and in a
+      sober tone as though he were but talking to himself. Another answered, and
+      he called again, but louder than before; then another spoke and then
+      another; and each time the first, aggravated by contradiction, insisted on
+      his case more strongly. Other voices, silent till now, struck in from
+      boughs lower down and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and
+      from the tree-tops; and others, arriving hastily from the grey church
+      turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamour which rose and fell, and
+      swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all this noisy
+      contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and lighting on fresh branches,
+      and frequent change of place, which satirised the old restlessness of
+      those who lay so still beneath the moss and turf below, and the strife in
+      which they had worn away their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frequently raising her eyes to the trees whence these sounds came down,
+      and feeling as though they made the place more quiet than perfect silence
+      would have done, the child loitered from grave to grave, now stopping to
+      replace with careful hands the bramble which had started from some green
+      mound it helped to keep in shape, and now peeping through one of the low
+      latticed windows into the church, with its worm-eaten books upon the
+      desks, and baize of whitened-green mouldering from the pew sides and
+      leaving the naked wood to view. There were the seats where the poor old
+      people sat, worn spare, and yellow like themselves; the rugged font where
+      children had their names, the homely altar where they knelt in after life,
+      the plain black tressels that bore their weight on their last visit to the
+      cool old shady church. Everything told of long use and quiet slow decay;
+      the very bell-rope in the porch was frayed into a fringe, and hoary with
+      old age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was looking at a humble stone which told of a young man who had died
+      at twenty-three years old, fifty-five years ago, when she heard a
+      faltering step approaching, and looking round saw a feeble woman bent with
+      the weight of years, who tottered to the foot of that same grave and asked
+      her to read the writing on the stone. The old woman thanked her when she
+      had done, saying that she had had the words by heart for many a long, long
+      year, but could not see them now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Were you his mother?' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I was his wife, my dear.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She the wife of a young man of three-and-twenty! Ah, true! It was
+      fifty-five years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You wonder to hear me say that,' remarked the old woman, shaking her
+      head. 'You're not the first. Older folk than you have wondered at the same
+      thing before now. Yes, I was his wife. Death doesn't change us more than
+      life, my dear.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you come here often?' asked the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I sit here very often in the summer time,' she answered, 'I used to come
+      here once to cry and mourn, but that was a weary while ago, bless God!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I pluck the daisies as they grow, and take them home,' said the old woman
+      after a short silence. 'I like no flowers so well as these, and haven't
+      for five-and-fifty years. It's a long time, and I'm getting very old.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then growing garrulous upon a theme which was new to one listener though
+      it were but a child, she told her how she had wept and moaned and prayed
+      to die herself, when this happened; and how when she first came to that
+      place, a young creature strong in love and grief, she had hoped that her
+      heart was breaking as it seemed to be. But that time passed by, and
+      although she continued to be sad when she came there, still she could bear
+      to come, and so went on until it was pain no longer, but a solemn
+      pleasure, and a duty she had learned to like. And now that five-and-fifty
+      years were gone, she spoke of the dead man as if he had been her son or
+      grandson, with a kind of pity for his youth, growing out of her own old
+      age, and an exalting of his strength and manly beauty as compared with her
+      own weakness and decay; and yet she spoke about him as her husband too,
+      and thinking of herself in connexion with him, as she used to be and not
+      as she was now, talked of their meeting in another world, as if he were
+      dead but yesterday, and she, separated from her former self, were thinking
+      of the happiness of that comely girl who seemed to have died with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child left her gathering the flowers that grew upon the grave, and
+      thoughtfully retraced her steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man was by this time up and dressed. Mr Codlin, still doomed to
+      contemplate the harsh realities of existence, was packing among his linen
+      the candle-ends which had been saved from the previous night's
+      performance; while his companion received the compliments of all the
+      loungers in the stable-yard, who, unable to separate him from the
+      master-mind of Punch, set him down as next in importance to that merry
+      outlaw, and loved him scarcely less. When he had sufficiently acknowledged
+      his popularity he came in to breakfast, at which meal they all sat down
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And where are you going to-day?' said the little man, addressing himself
+      to Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed I hardly know&mdash;we have not determined yet,' replied the
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We're going on to the races,' said the little man. 'If that's your way
+      and you like to have us for company, let us travel together. If you prefer
+      going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we shan't trouble
+      you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We'll go with you,' said the old man. 'Nell&mdash;with them, with them.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must shortly
+      beg, and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place than where crowds
+      of rich ladies and gentlemen were assembled together for purposes of
+      enjoyment and festivity, determined to accompany these men so far. She
+      therefore thanked the little man for his offer, and said, glancing timidly
+      towards his friend, that if there was no objection to their accompanying
+      them as far as the race town&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Objection!' said the little man. 'Now be gracious for once, Tommy, and
+      say that you'd rather they went with us. I know you would. Be gracious,
+      Tommy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Trotters,' said Mr Codlin, who talked very slowly and ate very greedily,
+      as is not uncommon with philosophers and misanthropes; 'you're too free.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why what harm can it do?' urged the other.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'No harm at all in this
+      particular case, perhaps,' replied Mr Codlin; 'but the principle's a
+      dangerous one, and you're too free I tell you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, are they to go with us or not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, they are,' said Mr Codlin; 'but you might have made a favour of it,
+      mightn't you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The real name of the little man was Harris, but it had gradually merged
+      into the less euphonious one of Trotters, which, with the prefatory
+      adjective, Short, had been conferred upon him by reason of the small size
+      of his legs. Short Trotters however, being a compound name, inconvenient
+      of use in friendly dialogue, the gentleman on whom it had been bestowed
+      was known among his intimates either as 'Short,' or 'Trotters,' and was
+      seldom accosted at full length as Short Trotters, except in formal
+      conversations and on occasions of ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Short, then, or Trotters, as the reader pleases, returned unto the
+      remonstrance of his friend Mr Thomas Codlin a jocose answer calculated to
+      turn aside his discontent; and applying himself with great relish to the
+      cold boiled beef, the tea, and bread and butter, strongly impressed upon
+      his companions that they should do the like. Mr Codlin indeed required no
+      such persuasion, as he had already eaten as much as he could possibly
+      carry and was now moistening his clay with strong ale, whereof he took
+      deep draughts with a silent relish and invited nobody to partake&mdash;thus
+      again strongly indicating his misanthropical turn of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Breakfast being at length over, Mr Codlin called the bill, and charging
+      the ale to the company generally (a practice also savouring of
+      misanthropy) divided the sum-total into two fair and equal parts,
+      assigning one moiety to himself and friend, and the other to Nelly and her
+      grandfather. These being duly discharged and all things ready for their
+      departure, they took farewell of the landlord and landlady and resumed
+      their journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here Mr Codlin's false position in society and the effect it wrought
+      upon his wounded spirit, were strongly illustrated; for whereas he had
+      been last night accosted by Mr Punch as 'master,' and had by inference
+      left the audience to understand that he maintained that individual for his
+      own luxurious entertainment and delight, here he was, now, painfully
+      walking beneath the burden of that same Punch's temple, and bearing it
+      bodily upon his shoulders on a sultry day and along a dusty road. In place
+      of enlivening his patron with a constant fire of wit or the cheerful
+      rattle of his quarter-staff on the heads of his relations and
+      acquaintance, here was that beaming Punch utterly devoid of spine, all
+      slack and drooping in a dark box, with his legs doubled up round his neck,
+      and not one of his social qualities remaining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Codlin trudged heavily on, exchanging a word or two at intervals with
+      Short, and stopping to rest and growl occasionally. Short led the way;
+      with the flat box, the private luggage (which was not extensive) tied up
+      in a bundle, and a brazen trumpet slung from his shoulder-blade. Nell and
+      her grandfather walked next him on either hand, and Thomas Codlin brought
+      up the rear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they came to any town or village, or even to a detached house of good
+      appearance, Short blew a blast upon the brazen trumpet and carolled a
+      fragment of a song in that hilarious tone common to Punches and their
+      consorts. If people hurried to the windows, Mr Codlin pitched the temple,
+      and hastily unfurling the drapery and concealing Short therewith,
+      flourished hysterically on the pipes and performed an air. Then the
+      entertainment began as soon as might be; Mr Codlin having the
+      responsibility of deciding on its length and of protracting or expediting
+      the time for the hero's final triumph over the enemy of mankind, according
+      as he judged that the after-crop of half-pence would be plentiful or
+      scant. When it had been gathered in to the last farthing, he resumed his
+      load and on they went again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes they played out the toll across a bridge or ferry, and once
+      exhibited by particular desire at a turnpike, where the collector, being
+      drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to have it to himself. There
+      was one small place of rich promise in which their hopes were blighted,
+      for a favourite character in the play having gold-lace upon his coat and
+      being a meddling wooden-headed fellow was held to be a libel on the
+      beadle, for which reason the authorities enforced a quick retreat; but
+      they were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a troop
+      of ragged children shouting at their heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They made a long day's journey, despite these interruptions, and were yet
+      upon the road when the moon was shining in the sky. Short beguiled the
+      time with songs and jests, and made the best of everything that happened.
+      Mr Codlin on the other hand, cursed his fate, and all the hollow things of
+      earth (but Punch especially), and limped along with the theatre on his
+      back, a prey to the bitterest chagrin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads met, and
+      Mr Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery and seated
+      himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal eyes and disdainful
+      of the company of his fellow creatures, when two monstrous shadows were
+      seen stalking towards them from a turning in the road by which they had
+      come. The child was at first quite terrified by the sight of these gaunt
+      giants&mdash;for such they looked as they advanced with lofty strides
+      beneath the shadow of the trees&mdash;but Short, telling her there was
+      nothing to fear, blew a blast upon the trumpet, which was answered by a
+      cheerful shout.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0136m.jpg" alt="0136m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0136.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'It's Grinder's lot, an't it?' cried Mr Short in a loud key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' replied a couple of shrill voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come on then,' said Short. 'Let's have a look at you. I thought it was
+      you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus invited, 'Grinder's lot' approached with redoubled speed and soon
+      came up with the little party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Grinder's company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young
+      gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr Grinder himself, who used his
+      natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his back a drum. The
+      public costume of the young people was of the Highland kind, but the night
+      being damp and cold, the young gentleman wore over his kilt a man's pea
+      jacket reaching to his ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was
+      muffled in an old cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her
+      head. Their Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers,
+      Mr Grinder carried on his instrument.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bound for the races, I see,' said Mr Grinder coming up out of breath. 'So
+      are we. How are you, Short?' With that they shook hands in a very friendly
+      manner. The young people being too high up for the ordinary salutations,
+      saluted Short after their own fashion. The young gentleman twisted up his
+      right stilt and patted him on the shoulder, and the young lady rattled her
+      tambourine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Practice?' said Short, pointing to the stilts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' returned Grinder. 'It comes either to walkin' in 'em or carryin' of
+      'em, and they like walkin' in 'em best. It's wery pleasant for the
+      prospects. Which road are you takin'? We go the nighest.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, the fact is,' said Short, 'that we are going the longest way,
+      because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on. But three
+      or four mile gained to-night is so many saved to-morrow, and if you keep
+      on, I think our best way is to do the same.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where's your partner?' inquired Grinder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here he is,' cried Mr Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face in the
+      proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of countenance not
+      often seen there; 'and he'll see his partner boiled alive before he'll go
+      on to-night. That's what he says.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, don't say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted to
+      something pleasanter,' urged Short. 'Respect associations, Tommy, even if
+      you do cut up rough.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Rough or smooth,' said Mr Codlin, beating his hand on the little
+      footboard where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of his legs
+      and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to exhibit them to
+      popular admiration, 'rough or smooth, I won't go further than the mile and
+      a half to-night. I put up at the Jolly Sandboys and nowhere else. If you
+      like to come there, come there. If you like to go on by yourself, go on by
+      yourself, and do without me if you can.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, Mr Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately presented
+      himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at a jerk, and made
+      off with most remarkable agility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was fain to
+      part with Mr Grinder and his pupils and to follow his morose companion.
+      After lingering at the finger-post for a few minutes to see the stilts
+      frisking away in the moonlight and the bearer of the drum toiling slowly
+      after them, he blew a few notes upon the trumpet as a parting salute, and
+      hastened with all speed to follow Mr Codlin. With this view he gave his
+      unoccupied hand to Nell, and bidding her be of good cheer as they would
+      soon be at the end of their journey for that night, and stimulating the
+      old man with a similar assurance, led them at a pretty swift pace towards
+      their destination, which he was the less unwilling to make for, as the
+      moon was now overcast and the clouds were threatening rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap18"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 18
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn of pretty ancient date, with
+      a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with as many
+      jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post on the
+      opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed that day many
+      indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race town, such as
+      gipsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths and their appurtenances,
+      itinerant showmen of various kinds, and beggars and trampers of every
+      degree, all wending their way in the same direction, Mr Codlin was fearful
+      of finding the accommodations forestalled; this fear increasing as he
+      diminished the distance between himself and the hostelry, he quickened his
+      pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had to carry, maintained a round
+      trot until he reached the threshold. Here he had the gratification of
+      finding that his fears were without foundation, for the landlord was
+      leaning against the door-post looking lazily at the rain, which had by
+      this time begun to descend heavily, and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor
+      boisterous shout, nor noisy chorus, gave note of company within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All alone?' said Mr Codlin, putting down his burden and wiping his
+      forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All alone as yet,' rejoined the landlord, glancing at the sky, 'but we
+      shall have more company to-night I expect. Here one of you boys, carry
+      that show into the barn. Make haste in out of the wet, Tom; when it came
+      on to rain I told 'em to make the fire up, and there's a glorious blaze in
+      the kitchen, I can tell you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Codlin followed with a willing mind, and soon found that the landlord
+      had not commended his preparations without good reason. A mighty fire was
+      blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney with a cheerful
+      sound, which a large iron cauldron, bubbling and simmering in the heat,
+      lent its pleasant aid to swell. There was a deep red ruddy blush upon the
+      room, and when the landlord stirred the fire, sending the flames skipping
+      and leaping up&mdash;when he took off the lid of the iron pot and there
+      rushed out a savoury smell, while the bubbling sound grew deeper and more
+      rich, and an unctuous steam came floating out, hanging in a delicious mist
+      above their heads&mdash;when he did this, Mr Codlin's heart was touched.
+      He sat down in the chimney-corner and smiled.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0139m.jpg" alt="0139m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0139.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Mr Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as with a
+      roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and, feigning that his doing
+      so was needful to the welfare of the cookery, suffered the delightful
+      steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest. The glow of the fire was upon
+      the landlord's bald head, and upon his twinkling eye, and upon his
+      watering mouth, and upon his pimpled face, and upon his round fat figure.
+      Mr Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips, and said in a murmuring voice,
+      'What is it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's a stew of tripe,' said the landlord smacking his lips, 'and
+      cow-heel,' smacking them again, 'and bacon,' smacking them once more, 'and
+      steak,' smacking them for the fourth time, 'and peas, cauliflowers, new
+      potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious
+      gravy.' Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times,
+      and taking a long hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about,
+      put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At what time will it be ready?' asked Mr Codlin faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It'll be done to a turn,' said the landlord looking up to the clock&mdash;and
+      the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and looked a clock for
+      jolly Sandboys to consult&mdash;'it'll be done to a turn at twenty-two
+      minutes before eleven.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then,' said Mr Codlin, 'fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don't let nobody
+      bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time arrives.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nodding his approval of this decisive and manly course of procedure, the
+      landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it,
+      applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped funnel-wise,
+      for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire and getting at the
+      bright places. This was soon done, and he handed it over to Mr Codlin with
+      that creamy froth upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances
+      attendant on mulled malt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Greatly softened by this soothing beverage, Mr Codlin now bethought him of
+      his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys that their
+      arrival might be shortly looked for. The rain was rattling against the
+      windows and pouring down in torrents, and such was Mr Codlin's extreme
+      amiability of mind, that he more than once expressed his earnest hope that
+      they would not be so foolish as to get wet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length they arrived, drenched with the rain and presenting a most
+      miserable appearance, notwithstanding that Short had sheltered the child
+      as well as he could under the skirts of his own coat, and they were nearly
+      breathless from the haste they had made. But their steps were no sooner
+      heard upon the road than the landlord, who had been at the outer door
+      anxiously watching for their coming, rushed into the kitchen and took the
+      cover off. The effect was electrical. They all came in with smiling faces
+      though the wet was dripping from their clothes upon the floor, and Short's
+      first remark was, 'What a delicious smell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a cheerful
+      fire, and in a bright room. They were furnished with slippers and such dry
+      garments as the house or their own bundles afforded, and ensconcing
+      themselves, as Mr Codlin had already done, in the warm chimney-corner,
+      soon forgot their late troubles or only remembered them as enhancing the
+      delights of the present time. Overpowered by the warmth and comfort and
+      the fatigue they had undergone, Nelly and the old man had not long taken
+      their seats here, when they fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who are they?' whispered the landlord.
+</p>
+    <p>
+Short shook his head, and wished
+      he knew himself.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Don't you know?' asked the host, turning to Mr Codlin.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      'Not I,' he replied. 'They're no good, I suppose.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They're no harm,' said Short. 'Depend upon that. I tell you what&mdash;it's
+      plain that the old man an't in his right mind&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you haven't got anything newer than that to say,' growled Mr Codlin,
+      glancing at the clock, 'you'd better let us fix our minds upon the supper,
+      and not disturb us.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hear me out, won't you?' retorted his friend. 'It's very plain to me,
+      besides, that they're not used to this way of life. Don't tell me that
+      that handsome child has been in the habit of prowling about as she's done
+      these last two or three days. I know better.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, who <i>does </i>tell you she has?' growled Mr Codlin, again glancing at
+      the clock and from it to the cauldron, 'can't you think of anything more
+      suitable to present circumstances than saying things and then
+      contradicting 'em?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I wish somebody would give you your supper,' returned Short, 'for
+      there'll be no peace till you've got it. Have you seen how anxious the old
+      man is to get on&mdash;always wanting to be furder away&mdash;furder away.
+      Have you seen that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! what then?' muttered Thomas Codlin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This, then,' said Short. 'He has given his friends the slip. Mind what I
+      say&mdash;he has given his friends the slip, and persuaded this delicate
+      young creetur all along of her fondness for him to be his guide and
+      travelling companion&mdash;where to, he knows no more than the man in the
+      moon. Now I'm not a going to stand that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>You're</i> not a going to stand that!' cried Mr Codlin, glancing at the clock
+      again and pulling his hair with both hands in a kind of frenzy, but
+      whether occasioned by his companion's observation or the tardy pace of
+      Time, it was difficult to determine. 'Here's a world to live in!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I,' repeated Short emphatically and slowly, 'am not a-going to stand it.
+      I am not a-going to see this fair young child a falling into bad hands,
+      and getting among people that she's no more fit for, than they are to get
+      among angels as their ordinary chums. Therefore when they dewelope an
+      intention of parting company from us, I shall take measures for detaining
+      of 'em, and restoring 'em to their friends, who I dare say have had their
+      disconsolation pasted up on every wall in London by this time.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Short,' said Mr Codlin, who with his head upon his hands, and his elbows
+      on his knees, had been shaking himself impatiently from side to side up to
+      this point and occasionally stamping on the ground, but who now looked up
+      with eager eyes; 'it's possible that there may be uncommon good sense in
+      what you've said. If there is, and there should be a reward, Short,
+      remember that we're partners in everything!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this position, for
+      the child awoke at the instant. They had drawn close together during the
+      previous whispering, and now hastily separated and were rather awkwardly
+      endeavouring to exchange some casual remarks in their usual tone, when
+      strange footsteps were heard without, and fresh company entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in one
+      after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly mournful
+      aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had got as far as the
+      door, erected himself upon his hind legs and looked round at his
+      companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs, in a grave and
+      melancholy row. Nor was this the only remarkable circumstance about these
+      dogs, for each of them wore a kind of little coat of some gaudy colour
+      trimmed with tarnished spangles, and one of them had a cap upon his head,
+      tied very carefully under his chin, which had fallen down upon his nose
+      and completely obscured one eye; add to this, that the gaudy coats were
+      all wet through and discoloured with rain, and that the wearers were
+      splashed and dirty, and some idea may be formed of the unusual appearance
+      of these new visitors to the Jolly Sandboys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in the
+      least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry's dogs and that
+      Jerry could not be far behind. So there the dogs stood, patiently winking
+      and gaping and looking extremely hard at the boiling pot, until Jerry
+      himself appeared, when they all dropped down at once and walked about the
+      room in their natural manner. This posture it must be confessed did not
+      much improve their appearance, as their own personal tails and their coat
+      tails&mdash;both capital things in their way&mdash;did not agree together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-whiskered man
+      in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the landlord and his guests
+      and accosted them with great cordiality. Disencumbering himself of a
+      barrel organ which he placed upon a chair, and retaining in his hand a
+      small whip wherewith to awe his company of comedians, he came up to the
+      fire to dry himself, and entered into conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Your people don't usually travel in character, do they?' said Short,
+      pointing to the dresses of the dogs. 'It must come expensive if they do?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' replied Jerry, 'no, it's not the custom with us. But we've been
+      playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a new wardrobe
+      at the races, so I didn't think it worth while to stop to undress. Down,
+      Pedro!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who being a new member of
+      the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his unobscured eye
+      anxiously on his master, and was perpetually starting upon his hind legs
+      when there was no occasion, and falling down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I've got a animal here,' said Jerry, putting his hand into the capacious
+      pocket of his coat, and diving into one corner as if he were feeling for a
+      small orange or an apple or some such article, 'a animal here, wot I think
+      you know something of, Short.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' cried Short, 'let's have a look at him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here he is,' said Jerry, producing a little terrier from his pocket. 'He
+      was once a Toby of yours, warn't he!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In some versions of the great drama of Punch there is a small dog&mdash;a
+      modern innovation&mdash;supposed to be the private property of that
+      gentleman, whose name is always Toby. This Toby has been stolen in youth
+      from another gentleman, and fraudulently sold to the confiding hero, who
+      having no guile himself has no suspicion that it lurks in others; but
+      Toby, entertaining a grateful recollection of his old master, and scorning
+      to attach himself to any new patrons, not only refuses to smoke a pipe at
+      the bidding of Punch, but to mark his old fidelity more strongly, seizes
+      him by the nose and wrings the same with violence, at which instance of
+      canine attachment the spectators are deeply affected. This was the
+      character which the little terrier in question had once sustained; if
+      there had been any doubt upon the subject he would speedily have resolved
+      it by his conduct; for not only did he, on seeing Short, give the
+      strongest tokens of recognition, but catching sight of the flat box he
+      barked so furiously at the pasteboard nose which he knew was inside, that
+      his master was obliged to gather him up and put him into his pocket again,
+      to the great relief of the whole company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which process Mr
+      Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own knife and fork in the
+      most convenient place and establishing himself behind them. When
+      everything was ready, the landlord took off the cover for the last time,
+      and then indeed there burst forth such a goodly promise of supper, that if
+      he had offered to put it on again or had hinted at postponement, he would
+      certainly have been sacrificed on his own hearth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead thereof assisted a stout
+      servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into a large tureen;
+      a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various hot splashes which fell
+      upon their noses, watched with terrible eagerness. At length the dish was
+      lifted on the table, and mugs of ale having been previously set round,
+      little Nell ventured to say grace, and supper began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind legs quite
+      surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about to cast some
+      morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself, hungry though she
+      was, when their master interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody's hand but mine if you please.
+      That dog,' said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the troop, and
+      speaking in a terrible voice, 'lost a halfpenny to-day. He goes without
+      his supper.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unfortunate creature dropped upon his fore-legs directly, wagged his
+      tail, and looked imploringly at his master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You must be more careful, Sir,' said Jerry, walking coolly to the chair
+      where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop. 'Come here. Now, Sir,
+      you play away at that, while we have supper, and leave off if you dare.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music. His master having
+      shown him the whip resumed his seat and called up the others, who, at his
+      directions, formed in a row, standing upright as a file of soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, gentlemen,' said Jerry, looking at them attentively. 'The dog whose
+      name's called, eats. The dogs whose names an't called, keep quiet. Carlo!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel thrown
+      towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle. In this manner they
+      were fed at the discretion of their master. Meanwhile the dog in disgrace
+      ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick time, sometimes in slow, but
+      never leaving off for an instant. When the knives and forks rattled very
+      much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he
+      accompanied the music with a short howl, but he immediately checked it on
+      his master looking round, and applied himself with increased diligence to
+      the Old Hundredth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap19"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 19
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>upper was not yet over, when there arrived at the Jolly Sandboys two more
+      travellers bound for the same haven as the rest, who had been walking in
+      the rain for some hours, and came in shining and heavy with water. One of
+      these was the proprietor of a giant, and a little lady without legs or
+      arms, who had jogged forward in a van; the other, a silent gentleman who
+      earned his living by showing tricks upon the cards, and who had rather
+      deranged the natural expression of his countenance by putting small leaden
+      lozenges into his eyes and bringing them out at his mouth, which was one
+      of his professional accomplishments. The name of the first of these
+      newcomers was Vuffin; the other, probably as a pleasant satire upon his
+      ugliness, was called Sweet William. To render them as comfortable as he
+      could, the landlord bestirred himself nimbly, and in a very short time
+      both gentlemen were perfectly at their ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How's the Giant?' said Short, when they all sat smoking round the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Rather weak upon his legs,' returned Mr Vuffin. 'I begin to be afraid
+      he's going at the knees.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's a bad look-out,' said Short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye! Bad indeed,' replied Mr Vuffin, contemplating the fire with a sigh.
+      'Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more about him
+      than they do for a dead cabbage stalk.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What becomes of old giants?' said Short, turning to him again after a
+      little reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They're usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,' said Mr
+      Vuffin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The maintaining of 'em must come expensive, when they can't be shown,
+      eh?' remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's better that, than letting 'em go upon the parish or about the
+      streets,' said Mr Vuffin. 'Once make a giant common and giants will never
+      draw again. Look at wooden legs. If there was only one man with a wooden
+      leg what a property he'd be!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So he would!' observed the landlord and Short both together. 'That's very
+      true.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Instead of which,' pursued Mr Vuffin, 'if you was to advertise Shakspeare
+      played entirely by wooden legs, it's my belief you wouldn't draw a
+      sixpence.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't suppose you would,' said Short. And the landlord said so too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This shows, you see,' said Mr Vuffin, waving his pipe with an
+      argumentative air, 'this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants
+      still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all
+      their lives, and in general very glad they are to stop there. There was
+      one giant&mdash;a black 'un&mdash;as left his carawan some year ago and
+      took to carrying coach-bills about London, making himself as cheap as
+      crossing-sweepers. He died. I make no insinuation against anybody in
+      particular,' said Mr Vuffin, looking solemnly round, 'but he was ruining
+      the trade;&mdash;and he died.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlord drew his breath hard, and looked at the owner of the dogs,
+      who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know you do, Jerry,' said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning. 'I know you
+      remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served him
+      right. Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had three-and-twenty
+      wans&mdash;I remember the time when old Maunders had in his cottage in Spa
+      Fields in the winter time, when the season was over, eight male and female
+      dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was waited on by eight old
+      giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows:
+      and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his
+      giant wasn't quick enough to please him, used to stick pins in his legs,
+      not being able to reach up any higher. I know that's a fact, for Maunders
+      told it me himself.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0147m.jpg" alt="0147m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0147.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'What about the dwarfs when they get old?' inquired the landlord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,' returned Mr Vuffin; 'a
+      grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But a giant
+      weak in the legs and not standing upright!&mdash;keep him in the carawan,
+      but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be
+      offered.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the
+      time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm
+      corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth of halfpence for
+      practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other feats of
+      dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to the company,
+      who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed. At length the weary child
+      prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they withdrew, leaving the
+      company yet seated round the fire, and the dogs fast asleep at a humble
+      distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor garret, but
+      had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped at. She opened it
+      directly, and was a little startled by the sight of Mr Thomas Codlin, whom
+      she had left, to all appearance, fast asleep down stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What is the matter?' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing's the matter, my dear,' returned her visitor. 'I'm your friend.
+      Perhaps you haven't thought so, but it's me that's your friend&mdash;not
+      him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not who?' the child inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Short, my dear. I tell you what,' said Codlin, 'for all his having a kind
+      of way with him that you'd be very apt to like, I'm the real, open-hearted
+      man. I mayn't look it, but I am indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child began to be alarmed, considering that the ale had taken effect
+      upon Mr Codlin, and that this commendation of himself was the consequence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Short's very well, and seems kind,' resumed the misanthrope, 'but he
+      overdoes it. Now I don't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly if there were any fault in Mr Codlin's usual deportment, it was
+      that he rather underdid his kindness to those about him, than overdid it.
+      But the child was puzzled, and could not tell what to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Take my advice,' said Codlin: 'don't ask me why, but take it. As long as
+      you travel with us, keep as near me as you can. Don't offer to leave us&mdash;not
+      on any account&mdash;but always stick to me and say that I'm your friend.
+      Will you bear that in mind, my dear, and always say that it was me that
+      was your friend?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Say so where&mdash;and when?' inquired the child innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'O, nowhere in particular,' replied Codlin, a little put out as it seemed
+      by the question; 'I'm only anxious that you should think me so, and do me
+      justice. You can't think what an interest I have in you. Why didn't you
+      tell me your little history&mdash;that about you and the poor old
+      gentleman? I'm the best adviser that ever was, and so interested in you&mdash;so
+      much more interested than Short. I think they're breaking up down stairs;
+      you needn't tell Short, you know, that we've had this little talk
+      together. God bless you. Recollect the friend. Codlin's the friend, not
+      Short. Short's very well as far as he goes, but the real friend is Codlin&mdash;not
+      Short.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eking out these professions with a number of benevolent and protecting
+      looks and great fervour of manner, Thomas Codlin stole away on tiptoe,
+      leaving the child in a state of extreme surprise. She was still ruminating
+      upon his curious behaviour, when the floor of the crazy stairs and landing
+      cracked beneath the tread of the other travellers who were passing to
+      their beds. When they had all passed, and the sound of their footsteps had
+      died away, one of them returned, and after a little hesitation and
+      rustling in the passage, as if he were doubtful what door to knock at,
+      knocked at hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said the child from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's me&mdash;Short'&mdash;a voice called through the keyhole. 'I only
+      wanted to say that we must be off early to-morrow morning, my dear,
+      because unless we get the start of the dogs and the conjuror, the villages
+      won't be worth a penny. You'll be sure to be stirring early and go with
+      us? I'll call you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child answered in the affirmative, and returning his 'good night'
+      heard him creep away. She felt some uneasiness at the anxiety of these
+      men, increased by the recollection of their whispering together down
+      stairs and their slight confusion when she awoke, nor was she quite free
+      from a misgiving that they were not the fittest companions she could have
+      stumbled on. Her uneasiness, however, was nothing, weighed against her
+      fatigue; and she soon forgot it in sleep.
+</p>
+    <p>
+Very early next morning, Short
+      fulfilled his promise, and knocking softly at her door, entreated that she
+      would get up directly, as the proprietor of the dogs was still snoring,
+      and if they lost no time they might get a good deal in advance both of him
+      and the conjuror, who was talking in his sleep, and from what he could be
+      heard to say, appeared to be balancing a donkey in his dreams. She started
+      from her bed without delay, and roused the old man with so much expedition
+      that they were both ready as soon as Short himself, to that gentleman's
+      unspeakable gratification and relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a very unceremonious and scrambling breakfast, of which the staple
+      commodities were bacon and bread, and beer, they took leave of the
+      landlord and issued from the door of the jolly Sandboys. The morning was
+      fine and warm, the ground cool to the feet after the late rain, the hedges
+      gayer and more green, the air clear, and everything fresh and healthful.
+      Surrounded by these influences, they walked on pleasantly enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had not gone very far, when the child was again struck by the altered
+      behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on sulkily by
+      himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her, and when he had an
+      opportunity of looking at her unseen by his companion, warned her by
+      certain wry faces and jerks of the head not to put any trust in Short, but
+      to reserve all confidences for Codlin. Neither did he confine himself to
+      looks and gestures, for when she and her grandfather were walking on
+      beside the aforesaid Short, and that little man was talking with his
+      accustomed cheerfulness on a variety of indifferent subjects, Thomas
+      Codlin testified his jealousy and distrust by following close at her
+      heels, and occasionally admonishing her ankles with the legs of the
+      theatre in a very abrupt and painful manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and
+      suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to perform
+      outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while he went through
+      his share of the entertainments kept his eye steadily upon her and the old
+      man, or with a show of great friendship and consideration invited the
+      latter to lean upon his arm, and so held him tight until the
+      representation was over and they again went forward. Even Short seemed to
+      change in this respect, and to mingle with his good-nature something of a
+      desire to keep them in safe custody. This increased the child's
+      misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, they were drawing near the town where the races were to begin
+      next day; for, from passing numerous groups of gipsies and trampers on the
+      road, wending their way towards it, and straggling out from every by-way
+      and cross-country lane, they gradually fell into a stream of people, some
+      walking by the side of covered carts, others with horses, others with
+      donkeys, others toiling on with heavy loads upon their backs, but all
+      tending to the same point. The public-houses by the wayside, from being
+      empty and noiseless as those in the remoter parts had been, now sent out
+      boisterous shouts and clouds of smoke; and, from the misty windows,
+      clusters of broad red faces looked down upon the road. On every piece of
+      waste or common ground, some small gambler drove his noisy trade, and
+      bellowed to the idle passersby to stop and try their chance; the crowd
+      grew thicker and more noisy; gilt gingerbread in blanket-stalls exposed
+      its glories to the dust; and often a four-horse carriage, dashing by,
+      obscured all objects in the gritty cloud it raised, and left them, stunned
+      and blinded, far behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was dark before they reached the town itself, and long indeed the few
+      last miles had been. Here all was tumult and confusion; the streets were
+      filled with throngs of people&mdash;many strangers were there, it seemed,
+      by the looks they cast about&mdash;the church-bells rang out their noisy
+      peals, and flags streamed from windows and house-tops. In the large
+      inn-yards waiters flitted to and fro and ran against each other, horses
+      clattered on the uneven stones, carriage steps fell rattling down, and
+      sickening smells from many dinners came in a heavy lukewarm breath upon
+      the sense. In the smaller public-houses, fiddles with all their might and
+      main were squeaking out the tune to staggering feet; drunken men,
+      oblivious of the burden of their song, joined in a senseless howl, which
+      drowned the tinkling of the feeble bell and made them savage for their
+      drink; vagabond groups assembled round the doors to see the stroller woman
+      dance, and add their uproar to the shrill flageolet and deafening drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by all
+      she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her conductor,
+      and trembling lest in the press she should be separated from him and left
+      to find her way alone. Quickening their steps to get clear of all the roar
+      and riot, they at length passed through the town and made for the
+      race-course, which was upon an open heath, situated on an eminence, a full
+      mile distant from its furthest bounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or best
+      clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground, and hurrying
+      to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath&mdash;although there
+      were tired children cradled on heaps of straw between the wheels of carts,
+      crying themselves to sleep&mdash;and poor lean horses and donkeys just
+      turned loose, grazing among the men and women, and pots and kettles, and
+      half-lighted fires, and ends of candles flaring and wasting in the air&mdash;for
+      all this, the child felt it an escape from the town and drew her breath
+      more freely. After a scanty supper, the purchase of which reduced her
+      little stock so low, that she had only a few halfpence with which to buy a
+      breakfast on the morrow, she and the old man lay down to rest in a corner
+      of a tent, and slept, despite the busy preparations that were going on
+      around them all night long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon
+      after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, and rambling
+      into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses and such
+      humble flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays and offer them
+      to the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived. Her thoughts were
+      not idle while she was thus employed; when she returned and was seated
+      beside the old man in one corner of the tent, tying her flowers together,
+      while the two men lay dozing in another corner, she plucked him by the
+      sleeve, and slightly glancing towards them, said, in a low voice&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Grandfather, don't look at those I talk of, and don't seem as if I spoke
+      of anything but what I am about. What was that you told me before we left
+      the old house? That if they knew what we were going to do, they would say
+      that you were mad, and part us?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she checked
+      him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she tied them up,
+      and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said&mdash;
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0152m.jpg" alt="0152m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0152.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'I know that was what you told me. You needn't speak, dear. I recollect it
+      very well. It was not likely that I should forget it. Grandfather, these
+      men suspect that we have secretly left our friends, and mean to carry us
+      before some gentleman and have us taken care of and sent back. If you let
+      your hand tremble so, we can never get away from them, but if you're only
+      quiet now, we shall do so, easily.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How?' muttered the old man. 'Dear Nelly, how? They will shut me up in a
+      stone room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell&mdash;flog me
+      with whips, and never let me see thee more!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're trembling again,' said the child. 'Keep close to me all day. Never
+      mind them, don't look at them, but me. I shall find a time when we can
+      steal away. When I do, mind you come with me, and do not stop or speak a
+      word. Hush! That's all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?' said Mr Codlin, raising his head,
+      and yawning. Then observing that his companion was fast asleep, he added
+      in an earnest whisper, 'Codlin's the friend, remember&mdash;not Short.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Making some nosegays,' the child replied; 'I am going to try and sell
+      some, these three days of the races. Will you have one&mdash;as a present
+      I mean?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards
+      him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air
+      of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the
+      unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, 'Tom Codlin's
+      the friend, by G&mdash;!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a gayer and more brilliant
+      appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling softly on the turf.
+      Men who had lounged about all night in smock-frocks and leather leggings,
+      came out in silken vests and hats and plumes, as jugglers or mountebanks;
+      or in gorgeous liveries as soft-spoken servants at gambling booths; or in
+      sturdy yeoman dress as decoys at unlawful games. Black-eyed gipsy girls,
+      hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes, and pale
+      slender women with consumptive faces lingered upon the footsteps of
+      ventriloquists and conjurors, and counted the sixpences with anxious eyes
+      long before they were gained. As many of the children as could be kept
+      within bounds, were stowed away, with all the other signs of dirt and
+      poverty, among the donkeys, carts, and horses; and as many as could not be
+      thus disposed of ran in and out in all intricate spots, crept between
+      people's legs and carriage wheels, and came forth unharmed from under
+      horses' hoofs. The dancing-dogs, the stilts, the little lady and the tall
+      man, and all the other attractions, with organs out of number and bands
+      innumerable, emerged from the holes and corners in which they had passed
+      the night, and flourished boldly in the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen
+      trumpet and revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went Thomas
+      Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on Nelly and her
+      grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. The child bore upon her
+      arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid
+      and modest looks, to offer them at some gay carriage; but alas! there were
+      many bolder beggars there, gipsies who promised husbands, and other adepts
+      in their trade, and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook their
+      heads, and others cried to the gentlemen beside them 'See, what a pretty
+      face!' they let the pretty face pass on, and never thought that it looked
+      tired or hungry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she was one
+      who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men in dashing
+      clothes, who had just dismounted from it, talked and laughed loudly at a
+      little distance, appearing to forget her, quite. There were many ladies
+      all around, but they turned their backs, or looked another way, or at the
+      two young men (not unfavourably at them), and left her to herself. She
+      motioned away a gipsy-woman urgent to tell her fortune, saying that it was
+      told already and had been for some years, but called the child towards
+      her, and taking her flowers put money into her trembling hand, and bade
+      her go home and keep at home for God's sake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing
+      everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang to clear the
+      course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not coming out
+      again until the heat was over. Many a time, too, was Punch displayed in
+      the full zenith of his humour, but all this while the eye of Thomas Codlin
+      was upon them, and to escape without notice was impracticable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a convenient
+      spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. The
+      child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, had been thinking
+      how strange it was that horses who were such fine honest creatures should
+      seem to make vagabonds of all the men they drew about them, when a loud
+      laugh at some extemporaneous witticism of Mr Short's, having allusion to
+      the circumstances of the day, roused her from her meditation and caused
+      her to look around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment. Short was
+      plying the quarter-staves vigorously and knocking the characters in the
+      fury of the combat against the sides of the show, the people were looking
+      on with laughing faces, and Mr Codlin had relaxed into a grim smile as his
+      roving eye detected hands going into waistcoat pockets and groping
+      secretly for sixpences. If they were ever to get away unseen, that was the
+      very moment. They seized it, and fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of people, and
+      never once stopped to look behind. The bell was ringing and the course was
+      cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but they dashed across it
+      insensible to the shouts and screeching that assailed them for breaking in
+      upon its sanctity, and creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick
+      pace, made for the open fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap20"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 20
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>ay after day as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some new
+      effort to procure employment, Kit raised his eyes to the window of the
+      little room he had so much commended to the child, and hoped to see some
+      indication of her presence. His own earnest wish, coupled with the
+      assurance he had received from Quilp, filled him with the belief that she
+      would yet arrive to claim the humble shelter he had offered, and from the
+      death of each day's hope another hope sprung up to live to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh mother?' said Kit, laying
+      aside his hat with a weary air and sighing as he spoke. 'They have been
+      gone a week. They surely couldn't stop away more than a week, could they
+      now?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been
+      disappointed already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For the matter of that,' said Kit, 'you speak true and sensible enough,
+      as you always do, mother. Still, I do consider that a week is quite long
+      enough for 'em to be rambling about; don't you say so?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quite long enough, Kit, longer than enough, but they may not come back
+      for all that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit was for a moment disposed to be vexed by this contradiction, and not
+      the less so from having anticipated it in his own mind and knowing how
+      just it was. But the impulse was only momentary, and the vexed look became
+      a kind one before it had crossed the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then what do you think, mother, has become of 'em? You don't think
+      they've gone to sea, anyhow?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not gone for sailors, certainly,' returned the mother with a smile. 'But
+      I can't help thinking that they have gone to some foreign country.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I say,' cried Kit with a rueful face, 'don't talk like that, mother.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am afraid they have, and that's the truth,' she said. 'It's the talk of
+      all the neighbours, and there are some even that know of their having been
+      seen on board ship, and can tell you the name of the place they've gone
+      to, which is more than I can, my dear, for it's a very hard one.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't believe it,' said Kit. 'Not a word of it. A set of idle
+      chatterboxes, how should they know!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They may be wrong of course,' returned the mother, 'I can't tell about
+      that, though I don't think it's at all unlikely that they're in the right,
+      for the talk is that the old gentleman had put by a little money that
+      nobody knew of, not even that ugly little man you talk to me about&mdash;what's
+      his name&mdash;Quilp; and that he and Miss Nell have gone to live abroad
+      where it can't be taken from them, and they will never be disturbed. That
+      don't seem very far out of the way now, do it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit scratched his head mournfully, in reluctant admission that it did not,
+      and clambering up to the old nail took down the cage and set himself to
+      clean it and to feed the bird. His thoughts reverting from this occupation
+      to the little old gentleman who had given him the shilling, he suddenly
+      recollected that that was the very day&mdash;nay, nearly the very hour&mdash;at
+      which the little old gentleman had said he should be at the Notary's house
+      again. He no sooner remembered this, than he hung up the cage with great
+      precipitation, and hastily explaining the nature of his errand, went off
+      at full speed to the appointed place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was some two minutes after the time when he reached the spot, which was
+      a considerable distance from his home, but by great good luck the little
+      old gentleman had not yet arrived; at least there was no pony-chaise to be
+      seen, and it was not likely that he had come and gone again in so short a
+      space. Greatly relieved to find that he was not too late, Kit leant
+      against a lamp-post to take breath, and waited the advent of the pony and
+      his charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sure enough, before long the pony came trotting round the corner of the
+      street, looking as obstinate as pony might, and picking his steps as if he
+      were spying about for the cleanest places, and would by no means dirty his
+      feet or hurry himself inconveniently. Behind the pony sat the little old
+      gentleman, and by the old gentleman's side sat the little old lady,
+      carrying just such a nosegay as she had brought before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman, the old lady, the pony, and the chaise, came up the
+      street in perfect unanimity, until they arrived within some half a dozen
+      doors of the Notary's house, when the pony, deceived by a brass-plate
+      beneath a tailor's knocker, came to a halt, and maintained by a sturdy
+      silence, that that was the house they wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, Sir, will you ha' the goodness to go on; this is not the place,'
+      said the old gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pony looked with great attention into a fire-plug which was near him,
+      and appeared to be quite absorbed in contemplating it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh dear, such a naughty Whisker!' cried the old lady. 'After being so
+      good too, and coming along so well! I am quite ashamed of him. I don't
+      know what we are to do with him, I really don't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and
+      properties of the fire-plug, looked into the air after his old enemies the
+      flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling his ear at that
+      moment he shook his head and whisked his tail, after which he appeared
+      full of thought but quite comfortable and collected. The old gentleman
+      having exhausted his powers of persuasion, alighted to lead him; whereupon
+      the pony, perhaps because he held this to be a sufficient concession,
+      perhaps because he happened to catch sight of the other brass-plate, or
+      perhaps because he was in a spiteful humour, darted off with the old lady
+      and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come panting
+      on behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then that Kit presented himself at the pony's head, and touched his
+      hat with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, bless me,' cried the old gentleman, 'the lad is here! My dear, do
+      you see?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I said I'd be here, Sir,' said Kit, patting Whisker's neck. 'I hope
+      you've had a pleasant ride, sir. He's a very nice little pony.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My dear,' said the old gentleman. 'This is an uncommon lad; a good lad,
+      I'm sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm sure he is,' rejoined the old lady. 'A very good lad, and I am sure
+      he is a good son.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his hat again
+      and blushing very much. The old gentleman then handed the old lady out,
+      and after looking at him with an approving smile, they went into the house&mdash;talking
+      about him as they went, Kit could not help feeling. Presently Mr
+      Witherden, smelling very hard at the nosegay, came to the window and
+      looked at him, and after that Mr Abel came and looked at him, and after
+      that the old gentleman and lady came and looked at him again, and after
+      that they all came and looked at him together, which Kit, feeling very
+      much embarrassed by, made a pretence of not observing. Therefore he patted
+      the pony more and more; and this liberty the pony most handsomely
+      permitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faces had not disappeared from the window many moments, when Mr
+      Chuckster in his official coat, and with his hat hanging on his head just
+      as it happened to fall from its peg, appeared upon the pavement, and
+      telling him he was wanted inside, bade him go in and he would mind the
+      chaise the while. In giving him this direction Mr Chuckster remarked that
+      he wished that he might be blessed if he could make out whether he (Kit)
+      was 'precious raw' or 'precious deep,' but intimated by a distrustful
+      shake of the head, that he inclined to the latter opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit entered the office in a great tremor, for he was not used to going
+      among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and bundles of dusty
+      papers had in his eyes an awful and venerable air. Mr Witherden too was a
+      bustling gentleman who talked loud and fast, and all eyes were upon him,
+      and he was very shabby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, boy,' said Mr Witherden, 'you came to work out that shilling;&mdash;not
+      to get another, hey?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No indeed, sir,' replied Kit, taking courage to look up. 'I never thought
+      of such a thing.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Father alive?' said the Notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dead, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mother?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Married again&mdash;eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit made answer, not without some indignation, that she was a widow with
+      three children, and that as to her marrying again, if the gentleman knew
+      her he wouldn't think of such a thing. At this reply Mr Witherden buried
+      his nose in the flowers again, and whispered behind the nosegay to the old
+      gentleman that he believed the lad was as honest a lad as need be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now,' said Mr Garland when they had made some further inquiries of him,
+      'I am not going to give you anything&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you, sir,' Kit replied; and quite seriously too, for this
+      announcement seemed to free him from the suspicion which the Notary had
+      hinted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;But,' resumed the old gentleman, 'perhaps I may want to know
+      something more about you, so tell me where you live, and I'll put it down
+      in my pocket-book.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his
+      pencil. He had scarcely done so, when there was a great uproar in the
+      street, and the old lady hurrying to the window cried that Whisker had run
+      away, upon which Kit darted out to the rescue, and the others followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed that Mr Chuckster had been standing with his hands in his
+      pockets looking carelessly at the pony, and occasionally insulting him
+      with such admonitions as 'Stand still,'&mdash;'Be quiet,'&mdash;'Woa-a-a,'
+      and the like, which by a pony of spirit cannot be borne. Consequently, the
+      pony being deterred by no considerations of duty or obedience, and not
+      having before him the slightest fear of the human eye, had at length
+      started off, and was at that moment rattling down the street&mdash;Mr
+      Chuckster, with his hat off and a pen behind his ear, hanging on in the
+      rear of the chaise and making futile attempts to draw it the other way, to
+      the unspeakable admiration of all beholders. Even in running away,
+      however, Whisker was perverse, for he had not gone very far when he
+      suddenly stopped, and before assistance could be rendered, commenced
+      backing at nearly as quick a pace as he had gone forward. By these means
+      Mr Chuckster was pushed and hustled to the office again, in a most
+      inglorious manner, and arrived in a state of great exhaustion and
+      discomfiture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old lady then stepped into her seat, and Mr Abel (whom they had come
+      to fetch) into his. The old gentleman, after reasoning with the pony on
+      the extreme impropriety of his conduct, and making the best amends in his
+      power to Mr Chuckster, took his place also, and they drove away, waving a
+      farewell to the Notary and his clerk, and more than once turning to nod
+      kindly to Kit as he watched them from the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap21"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 21
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>it turned away and very soon forgot the pony, and the chaise, and the
+      little old lady, and the little old gentleman, and the little young
+      gentleman to boot, in thinking what could have become of his late master
+      and his lovely grandchild, who were the fountain-head of all his
+      meditations. Still casting about for some plausible means of accounting
+      for their non-appearance, and of persuading himself that they must soon
+      return, he bent his steps towards home, intending to finish the task which
+      the sudden recollection of his contract had interrupted, and then to sally
+      forth once more to seek his fortune for the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came to the corner of the court in which he lived, lo and behold
+      there was the pony again! Yes, there he was, looking more obstinate than
+      ever; and alone in the chaise, keeping a steady watch upon his every wink,
+      sat Mr Abel, who, lifting up his eyes by chance and seeing Kit pass by,
+      nodded to him as though he would have nodded his head off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit wondered to see the pony again, so near his own home too, but it never
+      occurred to him for what purpose the pony might have come there, or where
+      the old lady and the old gentleman had gone, until he lifted the latch of
+      the door, and walking in, found them seated in the room in conversation
+      with his mother, at which unexpected sight he pulled off his hat and made
+      his best bow in some confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We are here before you, you see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, sir,' said Kit; and as he said it, he looked towards his mother for
+      an explanation of the visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The gentleman's been kind enough, my dear,' said she, in reply to this
+      mute interrogation, 'to ask me whether you were in a good place, or in any
+      place at all, and when I told him no, you were not in any, he was so good
+      as to say that&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;That we wanted a good lad in our house,' said the old gentleman
+      and the old lady both together, 'and that perhaps we might think of it, if
+      we found everything as we would wish it to be.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As this thinking of it, plainly meant the thinking of engaging Kit, he
+      immediately partook of his mother's anxiety and fell into a great flutter;
+      for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious, and asked so
+      many questions that he began to be afraid there was no chance of his
+      success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see, my good woman,' said Mrs Garland to Kit's mother, 'that it's
+      necessary to be very careful and particular in such a matter as this, for
+      we're only three in family, and are very quiet regular folks, and it would
+      be a sad thing if we made any kind of mistake, and found things different
+      from what we hoped and expected.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this, Kit's mother replied, that certainly it was quite true, and quite
+      right, and quite proper, and Heaven forbid that she should shrink, or have
+      cause to shrink, from any inquiry into her character or that of her son,
+      who was a very good son though she was his mother, in which respect, she
+      was bold to say, he took after his father, who was not only a good son to
+      <i>his </i>mother, but the best of husbands and the best of fathers besides,
+      which Kit could and would corroborate she knew, and so would little Jacob
+      and the baby likewise if they were old enough, which unfortunately they
+      were not, though as they didn't know what a loss they had had, perhaps it
+      was a great deal better that they should be as young as they were; and so
+      Kit's mother wound up a long story by wiping her eyes with her apron, and
+      patting little Jacob's head, who was rocking the cradle and staring with
+      all his might at the strange lady and gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Kit's mother had done speaking, the old lady struck in again, and
+      said that she was quite sure she was a very honest and very respectable
+      person or she never would have expressed herself in that manner, and that
+      certainly the appearance of the children and the cleanliness of the house
+      deserved great praise and did her the utmost credit, whereat Kit's mother
+      dropped a curtsey and became consoled. Then the good woman entered in a
+      long and minute account of Kit's life and history from the earliest period
+      down to that time, not omitting to make mention of his miraculous fall out
+      of a back-parlour window when an infant of tender years, or his uncommon
+      sufferings in a state of measles, which were illustrated by correct
+      imitations of the plaintive manner in which he called for toast and water,
+      day and night, and said, 'don't cry, mother, I shall soon be better;' for
+      proof of which statements reference was made to Mrs Green, lodger, at the
+      cheesemonger's round the corner, and divers other ladies and gentlemen in
+      various parts of England and Wales (and one Mr Brown who was supposed to
+      be then a corporal in the East Indies, and who could of course be found
+      with very little trouble), within whose personal knowledge the
+      circumstances had occurred. This narration ended, Mr Garland put some
+      questions to Kit respecting his qualifications and general acquirements,
+      while Mrs Garland noticed the children, and hearing from Kit's mother
+      certain remarkable circumstances which had attended the birth of each,
+      related certain other remarkable circumstances which had attended the
+      birth of her own son, Mr Abel, from which it appeared that both Kit's
+      mother and herself had been, above and beyond all other women of what
+      condition or age soever, peculiarly hemmed in with perils and dangers.
+      Lastly, inquiry was made into the nature and extent of Kit's wardrobe, and
+      a small advance being made to improve the same, he was formally hired at
+      an annual income of Six Pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by
+      Mr and Mrs Garland, of Abel Cottage, Finchley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be difficult to say which party appeared most pleased with this
+      arrangement, the conclusion of which was hailed with nothing but pleasant
+      looks and cheerful smiles on both sides. It was settled that Kit should
+      repair to his new abode on the next day but one, in the morning; and
+      finally, the little old couple, after bestowing a bright half-crown on
+      little Jacob and another on the baby, took their leaves; being escorted as
+      far as the street by their new attendant, who held the obdurate pony by
+      the bridle while they took their seats, and saw them drive away with a
+      lightened heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, mother,' said Kit, hurrying back into the house, 'I think my
+      fortune's about made now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I should think it was indeed, Kit,' rejoined his mother. 'Six pound a
+      year! Only think!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said Kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the consideration of
+      such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in spite of himself.
+      'There's a property!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit drew a long breath when he had said this, and putting his hands deep
+      into his pockets as if there were one year's wages at least in each,
+      looked at his mother, as though he saw through her, and down an immense
+      perspective of sovereigns beyond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Please God we'll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such a
+      scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the one up
+      stairs! Six pound a year!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hem!' croaked a strange voice. 'What's that about six pound a year? What
+      about six pound a year?' And as the voice made this inquiry, Daniel Quilp
+      walked in with Richard Swiveller at his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who said he was to have six pound a year?' said Quilp, looking sharply
+      round. 'Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it? And what's he
+      to have it for, and where are they, eh!'
+</p>
+    <p>
+The good woman was so much
+      alarmed by the sudden apparition of this unknown piece of ugliness, that
+      she hastily caught the baby from its cradle and retreated into the
+      furthest corner of the room; while little Jacob, sitting upon his stool
+      with his hands on his knees, looked full at him in a species of
+      fascination, roaring lustily all the time. Richard Swiveller took an easy
+      observation of the family over Mr Quilp's head, and Quilp himself, with
+      his hands in his pockets, smiled in an exquisite enjoyment of the
+      commotion he occasioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't be frightened, mistress,' said Quilp, after a pause. 'Your son
+      knows me; I don't eat babies; I don't like 'em. It will be as well to stop
+      that young screamer though, in case I should be tempted to do him a
+      mischief. Holloa, sir! Will you be quiet?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing out of
+      his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mind you don't break out again, you villain,' said Quilp, looking sternly
+      at him, 'or I'll make faces at you and throw you into fits, I will. Now
+      you sir, why haven't you been to me as you promised?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What should I come for?' retorted Kit. 'I hadn't any business with you,
+      no more than you had with me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here, mistress,' said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from Kit
+      to his mother. 'When did his old master come or send here last? Is he here
+      now? If not, where's he gone?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He has not been here at all,' she replied. 'I wish we knew where they
+      have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his mind, and me
+      too. If you're the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should have thought you'd
+      have known, and so I told him only this very day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Humph!' muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that this was
+      true. 'That's what you tell this gentleman too, is it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can't tell him
+      anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,' was the
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met him on
+      the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some intelligence
+      of the fugitives. He supposed he was right?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Dick, 'that was the object of the present expedition. I
+      fancied it possible&mdash;but let us go ring fancy's knell. I'll begin
+      it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You seem disappointed,' observed Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that's all,' returned Dick. 'I have entered
+      upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being of brightness
+      and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs's altar. That's all,
+      sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had been
+      taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not, and
+      continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks. Quilp
+      plainly discerned that there was some secret reason for this visit and his
+      uncommon disappointment, and, in the hope that there might be means of
+      mischief lurking beneath it, resolved to worm it out. He had no sooner
+      adopted this resolution, than he conveyed as much honesty into his face as
+      it was capable of expressing, and sympathised with Mr Swiveller
+      exceedingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am disappointed myself,' said Quilp, 'out of mere friendly feeling for
+      them; but you have real reasons, private reasons I have no doubt, for your
+      disappointment, and therefore it comes heavier than mine.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, of course it does,' Dick observed, testily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Upon my word, I'm very sorry, very sorry. I'm rather cast down myself. As
+      we are companions in adversity, shall we be companions in the surest way
+      of forgetting it? If you had no particular business, now, to lead you in
+      another direction,' urged Quilp, plucking him by the sleeve and looking
+      slyly up into his face out of the corners of his eyes, 'there is a house
+      by the water-side where they have some of the noblest Schiedam&mdash;reputed
+      to be smuggled, but that's between ourselves&mdash;that can be got in all
+      the world. The landlord knows me. There's a little summer-house
+      overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this delicious
+      liquor with a whiff of the best tobacco&mdash;it's in this case, and of
+      the rarest quality, to my certain knowledge&mdash;and be perfectly snug
+      and happy, could we possibly contrive it; or is there any very particular
+      engagement that peremptorily takes you another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the dwarf spoke, Dick's face relaxed into a compliant smile, and his
+      brows slowly unbent. By the time he had finished, Dick was looking down at
+      Quilp in the same sly manner as Quilp was looking up at him, and there
+      remained nothing more to be done but to set out for the house in question.
+      This they did, straightway. The moment their backs were turned, little
+      Jacob thawed, and resumed his crying from the point where Quilp had frozen
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box,
+      rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river's mud, and threatened to
+      slide down into it. The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy building,
+      sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by great bars of wood
+      which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up so long that
+      even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and of a windy night
+      might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to
+      come toppling down. The house stood&mdash;if anything so old and feeble
+      could be said to stand&mdash;on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the
+      unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank of iron
+      wheels and rush of troubled water. Its internal accommodations amply
+      fulfilled the promise of the outside. The rooms were low and damp, the
+      clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes, the rotten floors had
+      sunk from their level, the very beams started from their places and warned
+      the timid stranger from their neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this inviting spot, entreating him to observe its beauties as they
+      passed along, Mr Quilp led Richard Swiveller, and on the table of the
+      summer-house, scored deep with many a gallows and initial letter, there
+      soon appeared a wooden keg, full of the vaunted liquor. Drawing it off
+      into the glasses with the skill of a practised hand, and mixing it with
+      about a third part of water, Mr Quilp assigned to Richard Swiveller his
+      portion, and lighting his pipe from an end of a candle in a very old and
+      battered lantern, drew himself together upon a seat and puffed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it good?' said Quilp, as Richard Swiveller smacked his lips, 'is it
+      strong and fiery? Does it make you wink, and choke, and your eyes water,
+      and your breath come short&mdash;does it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Does it?' cried Dick, throwing away part of the contents of his glass,
+      and filling it up with water, 'why, man, you don't mean to tell me that
+      you drink such fire as this?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No!' rejoined Quilp, 'Not drink it! Look here. And here. And here again.
+      Not drink it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, Daniel Quilp drew off and drank three small glassfuls of the
+      raw spirit, and then with a horrible grimace took a great many pulls at
+      his pipe, and swallowing the smoke, discharged it in a heavy cloud from
+      his nose. This feat accomplished he drew himself together in his former
+      position, and laughed excessively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Give us a toast!' cried Quilp, rattling on the table in a dexterous
+      manner with his fist and elbow alternately, in a kind of tune, 'a woman, a
+      beauty. Let's have a beauty for our toast and empty our glasses to the
+      last drop. Her name, come!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you want a name,' said Dick, 'here's Sophy Wackles.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sophy Wackles,' screamed the dwarf, 'Miss Sophy Wackles that is&mdash;Mrs
+      Richard Swiveller that shall be&mdash;that shall be&mdash;ha ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said Dick, 'you might have said that a few weeks ago, but it won't
+      do now, my buck. Immolating herself upon the shrine of Cheggs&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Poison Cheggs, cut Cheggs's ears off,' rejoined Quilp. 'I won't hear of
+      Cheggs. Her name is Swiveller or nothing. I'll drink her health again, and
+      her father's, and her mother's; and to all her sisters and brothers&mdash;the
+      glorious family of the Wackleses&mdash;all the Wackleses in one glass&mdash;down
+      with it to the dregs!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well,' said Richard Swiveller, stopping short in the act of raising the
+      glass to his lips and looking at the dwarf in a species of stupor as he
+      flourished his arms and legs about: 'you're a jolly fellow, but of all the
+      jolly fellows I ever saw or heard of, you have the queerest and most
+      extraordinary way with you, upon my life you have.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr Quilp's
+      eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see him in such a
+      roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself, for company&mdash;began
+      imperceptibly to become more companionable and confiding, so that, being
+      judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew at last very confiding indeed.
+      Having once got him into this mood, and knowing now the key-note to strike
+      whenever he was at a loss, Daniel Quilp's task was comparatively an easy
+      one, and he was soon in possession of the whole details of the scheme
+      contrived between the easy Dick and his more designing friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Stop!' said Quilp. 'That's the thing, that's the thing. It can be brought
+      about, it shall be brought about. There's my hand upon it; I am your
+      friend from this minute.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What! do you think there's still a chance?' inquired Dick, in surprise at
+      this encouragement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A chance!' echoed the dwarf, 'a certainty! Sophy Wackles may become a
+      Cheggs or anything else she likes, but not a Swiveller. Oh you lucky dog!
+      He's richer than any Jew alive; you're a made man. I see in you now
+      nothing but Nelly's husband, rolling in gold and silver. I'll help you. It
+      shall be done. Mind my words, it shall be done.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But how?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's plenty of time,' rejoined the dwarf, 'and it shall be done. We'll
+      sit down and talk it over again all the way through. Fill your glass while
+      I'm gone. I shall be back directly&mdash;directly.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+With these hasty
+      words, Daniel Quilp withdrew into a dismantled skittle-ground behind the
+      public-house, and, throwing himself upon the ground actually screamed and
+      rolled about in uncontrollable delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's sport!' he cried, 'sport ready to my hand, all invented and
+      arranged, and only to be enjoyed. It was this shallow-pated fellow who
+      made my bones ache t'other day, was it? It was his friend and
+      fellow-plotter, Mr Trent, that once made eyes at Mrs Quilp, and leered and
+      looked, was it? After labouring for two or three years in their precious
+      scheme, to find that they've got a beggar at last, and one of them tied
+      for life. Ha ha ha! He shall marry Nell. He shall have her, and I'll be
+      the first man, when the knot's tied hard and fast, to tell 'em what
+      they've gained and what I've helped 'em to. Here will be a clearing of old
+      scores, here will be a time to remind 'em what a capital friend I was, and
+      how I helped them to the heiress. Ha ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the height of his ecstasy, Mr Quilp had like to have met with a
+      disagreeable check, for rolling very near a broken dog-kennel, there leapt
+      forth a large fierce dog, who, but that his chain was of the shortest,
+      would have given him a disagreeable salute. As it was, the dwarf remained
+      upon his back in perfect safety, taunting the dog with hideous faces, and
+      triumphing over him in his inability to advance another inch, though there
+      were not a couple of feet between them.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0165m.jpg" alt="0165m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0165.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Why don't you come and bite me, why don't you come and tear me to pieces,
+      you coward?' said Quilp, hissing and worrying the animal till he was
+      nearly mad. 'You're afraid, you bully, you're afraid, you know you are.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dog tore and strained at his chain with starting eyes and furious
+      bark, but there the dwarf lay, snapping his fingers with gestures of
+      defiance and contempt. When he had sufficiently recovered from his
+      delight, he rose, and with his arms a-kimbo, achieved a kind of
+      demon-dance round the kennel, just without the limits of the chain,
+      driving the dog quite wild. Having by this means composed his spirits and
+      put himself in a pleasant train, he returned to his unsuspicious
+      companion, whom he found looking at the tide with exceeding gravity, and
+      thinking of that same gold and silver which Mr Quilp had mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap22"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 22
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he remainder of that day and the whole of the next were a busy time for
+      the Nubbles family, to whom everything connected with Kit's outfit and
+      departure was matter of as great moment as if he had been about to
+      penetrate into the interior of Africa, or to take a cruise round the
+      world. It would be difficult to suppose that there ever was a box which
+      was opened and shut so many times within four-and-twenty hours, as that
+      which contained his wardrobe and necessaries; and certainly there never
+      was one which to two small eyes presented such a mine of clothing, as this
+      mighty chest with its three shirts and proportionate allowance of
+      stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the astonished vision of
+      little Jacob. At last it was conveyed to the carrier's, at whose house at
+      Finchley Kit was to find it next day; and the box being gone, there
+      remained but two questions for consideration: firstly, whether the carrier
+      would lose, or dishonestly feign to lose, the box upon the road; secondly,
+      whether Kit's mother perfectly understood how to take care of herself in
+      the absence of her son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't think there's hardly a chance of his really losing it, but
+      carriers are under great temptation to pretend they lose things, no
+      doubt,' said Mrs Nubbles apprehensively, in reference to the first point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No doubt about it,' returned Kit, with a serious look; 'upon my word,
+      mother, I don't think it was right to trust it to itself. Somebody ought
+      to have gone with it, I'm afraid.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We can't help it now,' said his mother; 'but it was foolish and wrong.
+      People oughtn't to be tempted.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit inwardly resolved that he would never tempt a carrier any more, save
+      with an empty box; and having formed this Christian determination, he
+      turned his thoughts to the second question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>You </i>know you must keep up your spirits, mother, and not be lonesome
+      because I'm not at home. I shall very often be able to look in when I come
+      into town I dare say, and I shall send you a letter sometimes, and when
+      the quarter comes round, I can get a holiday of course; and then see if we
+      don't take little Jacob to the play, and let him know what oysters means.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hope plays mayn't be sinful, Kit, but I'm a'most afraid,' said Mrs
+      Nubbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know who has been putting that in your head,' rejoined her son
+      disconsolately; 'that's Little Bethel again. Now I say, mother, pray don't
+      take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your good-humoured face
+      that has always made home cheerful, turned into a grievous one, and the
+      baby trained to look grievous too, and to call itself a young sinner
+      (bless its heart) and a child of the devil (which is calling its dead
+      father names); if I was to see this, and see little Jacob looking grievous
+      likewise, I should so take it to heart that I'm sure I should go and list
+      for a soldier, and run my head on purpose against the first cannon-ball I
+      saw coming my way.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, Kit, don't talk like that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I would, indeed, mother, and unless you want to make me feel very
+      wretched and uncomfortable, you'll keep that bow on your bonnet, which
+      you'd more than half a mind to pull off last week. Can you suppose there's
+      any harm in looking as cheerful and being as cheerful as our poor
+      circumstances will permit? Do I see anything in the way I'm made, which
+      calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, sneaking about
+      as if I couldn't help it, and expressing myself in a most unpleasant
+      snuffle? on the contrary, don't I see every reason why I shouldn't? just
+      hear this! Ha ha ha! An't that as nat'ral as walking, and as good for the
+      health? Ha ha ha! An't that as nat'ral as a sheep's bleating, or a pig's
+      grunting, or a horse's neighing, or a bird's singing? Ha ha ha! Isn't it,
+      mother?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something contagious in Kit's laugh, for his mother, who had
+      looked grave before, first subsided into a smile, and then fell to joining
+      in it heartily, which occasioned Kit to say that he knew it was natural,
+      and to laugh the more. Kit and his mother, laughing together in a pretty
+      loud key, woke the baby, who, finding that there was something very jovial
+      and agreeable in progress, was no sooner in its mother's arms than it
+      began to kick and laugh, most vigorously. This new illustration of his
+      argument so tickled Kit, that he fell backward in his chair in a state of
+      exhaustion, pointing at the baby and shaking his sides till he rocked
+      again. After recovering twice or thrice, and as often relapsing, he wiped
+      his eyes and said grace; and a very cheerful meal their scanty supper was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With more kisses, and hugs, and tears, than many young gentlemen who start
+      upon their travels, and leave well-stocked homes behind them, would deem
+      within the bounds of probability (if matter so low could be herein set
+      down), Kit left the house at an early hour next morning, and set out to
+      walk to Finchley; feeling a sufficient pride in his appearance to have
+      warranted his excommunication from Little Bethel from that time forth, if
+      he had ever been one of that mournful congregation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lest anybody should feel a curiosity to know how Kit was clad, it may be
+      briefly remarked that he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat of
+      pepper-and-salt with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments of
+      iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustre of a new pair of
+      boots and an extremely stiff and shiny hat, which on being struck anywhere
+      with the knuckles, sounded like a drum. And in this attire, rather
+      wondering that he attracted so little attention, and attributing the
+      circumstance to the insensibility of those who got up early, he made his
+      way towards Abel Cottage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road, than
+      meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his old one, on
+      whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit arrived in course of
+      time at the carrier's house, where, to the lasting honour of human nature,
+      he found the box in safety. Receiving from the wife of this immaculate
+      man, a direction to Mr Garland's, he took the box upon his shoulder and
+      repaired thither directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be sure, it was a beautiful little cottage with a thatched roof and
+      little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in some of
+      the windows, almost as large as pocket-books. On one side of the house was
+      a little stable, just the size for the pony, with a little room over it,
+      just the size for Kit. White curtains were fluttering, and birds in cages
+      that looked as bright as if they were made of gold, were singing at the
+      windows; plants were arranged on either side of the path, and clustered
+      about the door; and the garden was bright with flowers in full bloom,
+      which shed a sweet odour all round, and had a charming and elegant
+      appearance. Everything within the house and without, seemed to be the
+      perfection of neatness and order. In the garden there was not a weed to be
+      seen, and to judge from some dapper gardening-tools, a basket, and a pair
+      of gloves which were lying in one of the walks, old Mr Garland had been at
+      work in it that very morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, and this a great many
+      times before he could make up his mind to turn his head another way and
+      ring the bell. There was abundance of time to look about him again though,
+      when he had rung it, for nobody came, so after ringing it twice or thrice
+      he sat down upon his box, and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rang the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came. But at last, as
+      he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants' castles, and princesses
+      tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads, and dragons bursting out from
+      behind gates, and other incidents of the like nature, common in
+      story-books to youths of low degree on their first visit to strange
+      houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl, very tidy,
+      modest, and demure, but very pretty too, appeared.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'I suppose you're
+      Christopher, sir,' said the servant-girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit got off the box, and said yes, he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm afraid you've rung a good many times perhaps,' she rejoined, 'but we
+      couldn't hear you, because we've been catching the pony.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit rather wondered what this meant, but as he couldn't stop there, asking
+      questions, he shouldered the box again and followed the girl into the
+      hall, where through a back-door he descried Mr Garland leading Whisker in
+      triumph up the garden, after that self-willed pony had (as he afterwards
+      learned) dodged the family round a small paddock in the rear, for one hour
+      and three quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman received him very kindly and so did the old lady, whose
+      previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his wiping his boots
+      on the mat until the soles of his feet burnt again. He was then taken into
+      the parlour to be inspected in his new clothes; and when he had been
+      surveyed several times, and had afforded by his appearance unlimited
+      satisfaction, he was taken into the stable (where the pony received him
+      with uncommon complaisance); and thence into the little chamber he had
+      already observed, which was very clean and comfortable: and thence into
+      the garden, in which the old gentleman told him he would be taught to
+      employ himself, and where he told him, besides, what great things he meant
+      to do to make him comfortable, and happy, if he found he deserved it. All
+      these kindnesses, Kit acknowledged with various expressions of gratitude,
+      and so many touches of the new hat, that the brim suffered considerably.
+      When the old gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise
+      and advice, and Kit had said all he had to say in the way of assurance and
+      thankfulness, he was handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning the
+      little servant-girl (whose name was Barbara) instructed her to take him
+      down stairs and give him something to eat and drink, after his walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down stairs, therefore, Kit went; and at the bottom of the stairs there
+      was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out of a toy-shop
+      window, with everything in it as bright and glowing, and as precisely
+      ordered too, as Barbara herself. And in this kitchen, Kit sat himself down
+      at a table as white as a tablecloth, to eat cold meat, and drink small
+      ale, and use his knife and fork the more awkwardly, because there was an
+      unknown Barbara looking on and observing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It did not appear, however, that there was anything remarkably tremendous
+      about this strange Barbara, who having lived a very quiet life, blushed
+      very much and was quite as embarrassed and uncertain what she ought to say
+      or do, as Kit could possibly be. When he had sat for some little time,
+      attentive to the ticking of the sober clock, he ventured to glance
+      curiously at the dresser, and there, among the plates and dishes, were
+      Barbara's little work-box with a sliding lid to shut in the balls of
+      cotton, and Barbara's prayer-book, and Barbara's hymn-book, and Barbara's
+      Bible. Barbara's little looking-glass hung in a good light near the
+      window, and Barbara's bonnet was on a nail behind the door. From all these
+      mute signs and tokens of her presence, he naturally glanced at Barbara
+      herself, who sat as mute as they, shelling peas into a dish; and just when
+      Kit was looking at her eyelashes and wondering&mdash;quite in the
+      simplicity of his heart&mdash;what colour her eyes might be, it perversely
+      happened that Barbara raised her head a little to look at him, when both
+      pair of eyes were hastily withdrawn, and Kit leant over his plate, and
+      Barbara over her pea-shells, each in extreme confusion at having been
+      detected by the other.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0170m.jpg" alt="0170m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0170.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap23"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 23
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r Richard Swiveller wending homeward from the Wilderness (for such was
+      the appropriate name of Quilp's choice retreat), after a sinuous and
+      corkscrew fashion, with many checks and stumbles; after stopping suddenly
+      and staring about him, then as suddenly running forward for a few paces,
+      and as suddenly halting again and shaking his head; doing everything with
+      a jerk and nothing by premeditation;&mdash;Mr Richard Swiveller wending
+      his way homeward after this fashion, which is considered by evil-minded
+      men to be symbolical of intoxication, and is not held by such persons to
+      denote that state of deep wisdom and reflection in which the actor knows
+      himself to be, began to think that possibly he had misplaced his
+      confidence and that the dwarf might not be precisely the sort of person to
+      whom to entrust a secret of such delicacy and importance. And being led
+      and tempted on by this remorseful thought into a condition which the
+      evil-minded class before referred to would term the maudlin state or stage
+      of drunkenness, it occurred to Mr Swiveller to cast his hat upon the
+      ground, and moan, crying aloud that he was an unhappy orphan, and that if
+      he had not been an unhappy orphan things had never come to this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,' said Mr Swiveller,
+      bewailing his hard lot, 'cast upon the world in my tenderest period, and
+      thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can wonder at my
+      weakness! Here's a miserable orphan for you. Here,' said Mr Swiveller
+      raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking sleepily round, 'is a
+      miserable orphan!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then,' said somebody hard by, 'let me be a father to you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance, and,
+      looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at last
+      perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he observed
+      after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and mouth. Casting
+      his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with reference to a man's
+      face, his legs are usually to be found, he observed that the face had a
+      body attached; and when he looked more intently he was satisfied that the
+      person was Mr Quilp, who indeed had been in his company all the time, but
+      whom he had some vague idea of having left a mile or two behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have deceived an orphan, Sir,' said Mr Swiveller solemnly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I! I'm a second father to you,' replied Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You my father, Sir!' retorted Dick. 'Being all right myself, Sir, I
+      request to be left alone&mdash;instantly, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What a funny fellow you are!' cried Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Go, Sir,' returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his hand. 'Go,
+      deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p'r'aps you'll waken, from pleasure's dream
+      to know, the grief of orphans forsaken. Will you go, Sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced with
+      the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement. But forgetting his
+      purpose or changing his mind before he came close to him, he seized his
+      hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring with an agreeable frankness
+      that from that time forth they were brothers in everything but personal
+      appearance. Then he told his secret over again, with the addition of being
+      pathetic on the subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave Mr Quilp to
+      understand, was the occasion of any slight incoherency he might observe in
+      his speech at that moment, which was attributable solely to the strength
+      of his affection and not to rosy wine or other fermented liquor. And then
+      they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly together.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0172m.jpg" alt="0172m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0172.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'I'm as sharp,' said Quilp to him, at parting, 'as sharp as a ferret, and
+      as cunning as a weazel. You bring Trent to me; assure him that I'm his
+      friend though I fear he a little distrusts me (I don't know why, I have
+      not deserved it); and you've both of you made your fortunes&mdash;in
+      perspective.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's the worst of it,' returned Dick. 'These fortunes in perspective
+      look such a long way off.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But they look smaller than they really are, on that account,' said Quilp,
+      pressing his arm. 'You'll have no conception of the value of your prize
+      until you draw close to it. Mark that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'D'ye think not?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye, I do; and I am certain of what I say, that's better,' returned the
+      dwarf. 'You bring Trent to me. Tell him I am his friend and yours&mdash;why
+      shouldn't I be?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's no reason why you shouldn't, certainly,' replied Dick, 'and
+      perhaps there are a great many why you should&mdash;at least there would
+      be nothing strange in your wanting to be my friend, if you were a choice
+      spirit, but then you know you're not a choice spirit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I not a choice spirit?' cried Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Devil a bit, sir,' returned Dick. 'A man of your appearance couldn't be.
+      If you're any spirit at all, sir, you're an evil spirit. Choice spirits,'
+      added Dick, smiting himself on the breast, 'are quite a different looking
+      sort of people, you may take your oath of that, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp glanced at his free-spoken friend with a mingled expression of
+      cunning and dislike, and wringing his hand almost at the same moment,
+      declared that he was an uncommon character and had his warmest esteem.
+      With that they parted; Mr Swiveller to make the best of his way home and
+      sleep himself sober; and Quilp to cogitate upon the discovery he had made,
+      and exult in the prospect of the rich field of enjoyment and reprisal it
+      opened to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not without great reluctance and misgiving that Mr Swiveller, next
+      morning, his head racked by the fumes of the renowned Schiedam, repaired
+      to the lodging of his friend Trent (which was in the roof of an old house
+      in an old ghostly inn), and recounted by very slow degrees what had
+      yesterday taken place between him and Quilp. Nor was it without great
+      surprise and much speculation on Quilp's probable motives, nor without
+      many bitter comments on Dick Swiveller's folly, that his friend received
+      the tale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't defend myself, Fred,' said the penitent Richard; 'but the fellow
+      has such a queer way with him and is such an artful dog, that first of all
+      he set me upon thinking whether there was any harm in telling him, and
+      while I was thinking, screwed it out of me. If you had seen him drink and
+      smoke, as I did, you couldn't have kept anything from him. He's a
+      Salamander you know, that's what he is.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without inquiring whether Salamanders were of necessity good confidential
+      agents, or whether a fire-proof man was as a matter of course trustworthy,
+      Frederick Trent threw himself into a chair, and, burying his head in his
+      hands, endeavoured to fathom the motives which had led Quilp to insinuate
+      himself into Richard Swiveller's confidence;&mdash;for that the disclosure
+      was of his seeking, and had not been spontaneously revealed by Dick, was
+      sufficiently plain from Quilp's seeking his company and enticing him away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf had twice encountered him when he was endeavouring to obtain
+      intelligence of the fugitives. This, perhaps, as he had not shown any
+      previous anxiety about them, was enough to awaken suspicion in the breast
+      of a creature so jealous and distrustful by nature, setting aside any
+      additional impulse to curiosity that he might have derived from Dick's
+      incautious manner. But knowing the scheme they had planned, why should he
+      offer to assist it? This was a question more difficult of solution; but as
+      knaves generally overreach themselves by imputing their own designs to
+      others, the idea immediately presented itself that some circumstances of
+      irritation between Quilp and the old man, arising out of their secret
+      transactions and not unconnected perhaps with his sudden disappearance,
+      now rendered the former desirous of revenging himself upon him by seeking
+      to entrap the sole object of his love and anxiety into a connexion of
+      which he knew he had a dread and hatred. As Frederick Trent himself,
+      utterly regardless of his sister, had this object at heart, only second to
+      the hope of gain, it seemed to him the more likely to be Quilp's main
+      principle of action. Once investing the dwarf with a design of his own in
+      abetting them, which the attainment of their purpose would serve, it was
+      easy to believe him sincere and hearty in the cause; and as there could be
+      no doubt of his proving a powerful and useful auxiliary, Trent determined
+      to accept his invitation and go to his house that night, and if what he
+      said and did confirmed him in the impression he had formed, to let him
+      share the labour of their plan, but not the profit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this conclusion,
+      he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his meditations as he thought
+      proper (Dick would have been perfectly satisfied with less), and giving
+      him the day to recover himself from his late salamandering, accompanied
+      him at evening to Mr Quilp's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mighty glad Mr Quilp was to see them, or mightily glad he seemed to be;
+      and fearfully polite Mr Quilp was to Mrs Quilp and Mrs Jiniwin; and very
+      sharp was the look he cast on his wife to observe how she was affected by
+      the recognition of young Trent. Mrs Quilp was as innocent as her own
+      mother of any emotion, painful or pleasant, which the sight of him
+      awakened, but as her husband's glance made her timid and confused, and
+      uncertain what to do or what was required of her, Mr Quilp did not fail to
+      assign her embarrassment to the cause he had in his mind, and while he
+      chuckled at his penetration was secretly exasperated by his jealousy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing of this appeared, however. On the contrary, Mr Quilp was all
+      blandness and suavity, and presided over the case-bottle of rum with
+      extraordinary open-heartedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, let me see,' said Quilp. 'It must be a matter of nearly two years
+      since we were first acquainted.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nearer three, I think,' said Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nearer three!' cried Quilp. 'How fast time flies. Does it seem as long as
+      that to you, Mrs Quilp?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, I think it seems full three years, Quilp,' was the unfortunate
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh indeed, ma'am,' thought Quilp, 'you have been pining, have you? Very
+      good, ma'am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It seems to me but yesterday that you went out to Demerara in the Mary
+      Anne,' said Quilp; 'but yesterday, I declare. Well, I like a little
+      wildness. I was wild myself once.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp accompanied this admission with such an awful wink, indicative of
+      old rovings and backslidings, that Mrs Jiniwin was indignant, and could
+      not forbear from remarking under her breath that he might at least put off
+      his confessions until his wife was absent; for which act of boldness and
+      insubordination Mr Quilp first stared her out of countenance and then
+      drank her health ceremoniously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I thought you'd come back directly, Fred. I always thought that,' said
+      Quilp setting down his glass. 'And when the Mary Anne returned with you on
+      board, instead of a letter to say what a contrite heart you had, and how
+      happy you were in the situation that had been provided for you, I was
+      amused&mdash;exceedingly amused. Ha ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man smiled, but not as though the theme was the most agreeable
+      one that could have been selected for his entertainment; and for that
+      reason Quilp pursued it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I always will say,' he resumed, 'that when a rich relation having two
+      young people&mdash;sisters or brothers, or brother and sister&mdash;dependent
+      on him, attaches himself exclusively to one, and casts off the other, he
+      does wrong.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man made a movement of impatience, but Quilp went on as calmly
+      as if he were discussing some abstract question in which nobody present
+      had the slightest personal interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's very true,' said Quilp, 'that your grandfather urged repeated
+      forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but as I
+      told him "these are common faults." "But he's a scoundrel," said he.
+      "Granting that," said I (for the sake of argument of course), "a great
+      many young noblemen and gentlemen are scoundrels too!" But he wouldn't be
+      convinced.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I wonder at that, Mr Quilp,' said the young man sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, so did I at the time,' returned Quilp, 'but he was always
+      obstinate. He was in a manner a friend of mine, but he was always
+      obstinate and wrong-headed. Little Nell is a nice girl, a charming girl,
+      but you're her brother, Frederick. You're her brother after all; as you
+      told him the last time you met, he can't alter that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He would if he could, confound him for that and all other kindnesses,'
+      said the young man impatiently. 'But nothing can come of this subject now,
+      and let us have done with it in the Devil's name.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Agreed,' returned Quilp, 'agreed on my part readily. Why have I alluded
+      to it? Just to show you, Frederick, that I have always stood your friend.
+      You little knew who was your friend, and who your foe; now did you? You
+      thought I was against you, and so there has been a coolness between us;
+      but it was all on your side, entirely on your side. Let's shake hands
+      again, Fred.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With his head sunk down between his shoulders, and a hideous grin
+      over-spreading his face, the dwarf stood up and stretched his short arm
+      across the table. After a moment's hesitation, the young man stretched out
+      his to meet it; Quilp clutched his fingers in a grip that for the moment
+      stopped the current of the blood within them, and pressing his other hand
+      upon his lip and frowning towards the unsuspicious Richard, released them
+      and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This action was not lost upon Trent, who, knowing that Richard Swiveller
+      was a mere tool in his hands and knew no more of his designs than he
+      thought proper to communicate, saw that the dwarf perfectly understood
+      their relative position, and fully entered into the character of his
+      friend. It is something to be appreciated, even in knavery. This silent
+      homage to his superior abilities, no less than a sense of the power with
+      which the dwarf's quick perception had already invested him, inclined the
+      young man towards that ugly worthy, and determined him to profit by his
+      aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It being now Mr Quilp's cue to change the subject with all convenient
+      expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness should reveal
+      anything which it was inexpedient for the women to know, he proposed a
+      game at four-handed cribbage, and partners being cut for, Mrs Quilp fell
+      to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself to Quilp. Mrs Jiniwin being very fond
+      of cards was carefully excluded by her son-in-law from any participation
+      in the game, and had assigned to her the duty of occasionally replenishing
+      the glasses from the case-bottle; Mr Quilp from that moment keeping one
+      eye constantly upon her, lest she should by any means procure a taste of
+      the same, and thereby tantalising the wretched old lady (who was as much
+      attached to the case-bottle as the cards) in a double degree and most
+      ingenious manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not to Mrs Jiniwin alone that Mr Quilp's attention was
+      restricted, as several other matters required his constant vigilance.
+      Among his various eccentric habits he had a humorous one of always
+      cheating at cards, which rendered necessary on his part, not only a close
+      observance of the game, and a sleight-of-hand in counting and scoring, but
+      also involved the constant correction, by looks, and frowns, and kicks
+      under the table, of Richard Swiveller, who being bewildered by the
+      rapidity with which his cards were told, and the rate at which the pegs
+      travelled down the board, could not be prevented from sometimes expressing
+      his surprise and incredulity. Mrs Quilp too was the partner of young
+      Trent, and for every look that passed between them, and every word they
+      spoke, and every card they played, the dwarf had eyes and ears; not
+      occupied alone with what was passing above the table, but with signals
+      that might be exchanging beneath it, which he laid all kinds of traps to
+      detect; besides often treading on his wife's toes to see whether she cried
+      out or remained silent under the infliction, in which latter case it would
+      have been quite clear that Trent had been treading on her toes before.
+      Yet, in the most of all these distractions, the one eye was upon the old
+      lady always, and if she so much as stealthily advanced a tea-spoon towards
+      a neighbouring glass (which she often did), for the purpose of abstracting
+      but one sup of its sweet contents, Quilp's hand would overset it in the
+      very moment of her triumph, and Quilp's mocking voice implore her to
+      regard her precious health. And in any one of these his many cares, from
+      first to last, Quilp never flagged nor faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, when they had played a great many rubbers and drawn pretty
+      freely upon the case-bottle, Mr Quilp warned his lady to retire to rest,
+      and that submissive wife complying, and being followed by her indignant
+      mother, Mr Swiveller fell asleep. The dwarf beckoning his remaining
+      companion to the other end of the room, held a short conference with him
+      in whispers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's as well not to say more than one can help before our worthy friend,'
+      said Quilp, making a grimace towards the slumbering Dick. 'Is it a bargain
+      between us, Fred? Shall he marry little rosy Nell by-and-by?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have some end of your own to answer, of course,' returned the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of course I have, dear Fred,' said Quilp, grinning to think how little he
+      suspected what the real end was. 'It's retaliation perhaps; perhaps whim.
+      I have influence, Fred, to help or oppose. Which way shall I use it? There
+      are a pair of scales, and it goes into one.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Throw it into mine then,' said Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's done, Fred,' rejoined Quilp, stretching out his clenched hand and
+      opening it as if he had let some weight fall out. 'It's in the scale from
+      this time, and turns it, Fred. Mind that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where have they gone?' asked Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be discovered, which
+      it might be, easily. When it was, they would begin their preliminary
+      advances. He would visit the old man, or even Richard Swiveller might
+      visit him, and by affecting a deep concern in his behalf, and imploring
+      him to settle in some worthy home, lead to the child's remembering him
+      with gratitude and favour. Once impressed to this extent, it would be
+      easy, he said, to win her in a year or two, for she supposed the old man
+      to be poor, as it was a part of his jealous policy (in common with many
+      other misers) to feign to be so, to those about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,' said Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! and to me too!' replied the dwarf. 'Which is more extraordinary, as I
+      know how rich he really is.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I suppose you should,' said Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I think I should indeed,' rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at least, he
+      spoke the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and the
+      young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was waiting to
+      depart. This was welcome news to Dick, who started up directly. After a
+      few words of confidence in the result of their project had been exchanged,
+      they bade the grinning Quilp good night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and
+      listened. Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they were
+      both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to marry such a
+      misshapen wretch as he. The dwarf after watching their retreating shadows
+      with a wider grin than his face had yet displayed, stole softly in the
+      dark to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had one
+      thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell. It would have
+      been strange if the careless profligate, who was the butt of both, had
+      been harassed by any such consideration; for his high opinion of his own
+      merits and deserts rendered the project rather a laudable one than
+      otherwise; and if he had been visited by so unwonted a guest as
+      reflection, he would&mdash;being a brute only in the gratification of his
+      appetites&mdash;have soothed his conscience with the plea that he did not
+      mean to beat or kill his wife, and would therefore, after all said and
+      done, be a very tolerable, average husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap24"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 24
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer maintain
+      the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that the old man and
+      the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest upon the borders of a
+      little wood. Here, though the course was hidden from their view, they
+      could yet faintly distinguish the noise of distant shouts, the hum of
+      voices, and the beating of drums. Climbing the eminence which lay between
+      them and the spot they had left, the child could even discern the
+      fluttering flags and white tops of booths; but no person was approaching
+      towards them, and their resting-place was solitary and still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling companion, or
+      restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity. His disordered
+      imagination represented to him a crowd of persons stealing towards them
+      beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in every ditch, and peeping from
+      the boughs of every rustling tree. He was haunted by apprehensions of
+      being led captive to some gloomy place where he would be chained and
+      scourged, and worse than all, where Nell could never come to see him, save
+      through iron bars and gratings in the wall. His terrors affected the
+      child. Separation from her grandfather was the greatest evil she could
+      dread; and feeling for the time as though, go where they would, they were
+      to be hunted down, and could never be safe but in hiding, her heart failed
+      her, and her courage drooped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one so young, and so unused to the scenes in which she had lately
+      moved, this sinking of the spirit was not surprising. But, Nature often
+      enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms&mdash;oftenest, God
+      bless her, in female breasts&mdash;and when the child, casting her tearful
+      eyes upon the old man, remembered how weak he was, and how destitute and
+      helpless he would be if she failed him, her heart swelled within her, and
+      animated her with new strength and fortitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We are quite safe now, and have nothing to fear indeed, dear
+      grandfather,' she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing to fear!' returned the old man. 'Nothing to fear if they took me
+      from thee! Nothing to fear if they parted us! Nobody is true to me. No,
+      not one. Not even Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! do not say that,' replied the child, 'for if ever anybody was true at
+      heart, and earnest, I am. I am sure you know I am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then how,' said the old man, looking fearfully round, 'how can you bear
+      to think that we are safe, when they are searching for me everywhere, and
+      may come here, and steal upon us, even while we're talking?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Because I'm sure we have not been followed,' said the child. 'Judge for
+      yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how quiet and still it is.
+      We are alone together, and may ramble where we like. Not safe! Could I
+      feel easy&mdash;did I feel at ease&mdash;when any danger threatened you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'True, too,' he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking anxiously
+      about. 'What noise was that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A bird,' said the child, 'flying into the wood, and leading the way for
+      us to follow.' You remember that we said we would walk in woods and
+      fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would be&mdash;you
+      remember that? But here, while the sun shines above our heads, and
+      everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly down, and losing
+      time. See what a pleasant path; and there's the bird&mdash;the same bird&mdash;now
+      he flies to another tree, and stays to sing. Come!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which led them
+      through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny footsteps in
+      the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure and gave it back as
+      mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured the old man on, with many a
+      backward look and merry beck, now pointing stealthily to some lone bird as
+      it perched and twittered on a branch that strayed across their path, now
+      stopping to listen to the songs that broke the happy silence, or watch the
+      sun as it trembled through the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied
+      trunks of stout old trees, opened long paths of light. As they passed
+      onward, parting the boughs that clustered in their way, the serenity which
+      the child had first assumed, stole into her breast in earnest; the old man
+      cast no longer fearful looks behind, but felt at ease and cheerful, for
+      the further they passed into the deep green shade, the more they felt that
+      the tranquil mind of God was there, and shed its peace on them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the path becoming clearer and less intricate, brought them to
+      the end of the wood, and into a public road. Taking their way along it for
+      a short distance, they came to a lane, so shaded by the trees on either
+      hand that they met together over-head, and arched the narrow way. A broken
+      finger-post announced that this led to a village three miles off; and
+      thither they resolved to bend their steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The miles appeared so long that they sometimes thought they must have
+      missed their road. But at last, to their great joy, it led downwards in a
+      steep descent, with overhanging banks over which the footpaths led; and
+      the clustered houses of the village peeped from the woody hollow below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a very small place. The men and boys were playing at cricket on the
+      green; and as the other folks were looking on, they wandered up and down,
+      uncertain where to seek a humble lodging. There was but one old man in the
+      little garden before his cottage, and him they were timid of approaching,
+      for he was the schoolmaster, and had 'School' written up over his window
+      in black letters on a white board. He was a pale, simple-looking man, of a
+      spare and meagre habit, and sat among his flowers and beehives, smoking
+      his pipe, in the little porch before his door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Speak to him, dear,' the old man whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am almost afraid to disturb him,' said the child timidly. 'He does not
+      seem to see us. Perhaps if we wait a little, he may look this way.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They waited, but the schoolmaster cast no look towards them, and still
+      sat, thoughtful and silent, in the little porch. He had a kind face. In
+      his plain old suit of black, he looked pale and meagre. They fancied, too,
+      a lonely air about him and his house, but perhaps that was because the
+      other people formed a merry company upon the green, and he seemed the only
+      solitary man in all the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were very tired, and the child would have been bold enough to address
+      even a schoolmaster, but for something in his manner which seemed to
+      denote that he was uneasy or distressed. As they stood hesitating at a
+      little distance, they saw that he sat for a few minutes at a time like one
+      in a brown study, then laid aside his pipe and took a few turns in his
+      garden, then approached the gate and looked towards the green, then took
+      up his pipe again with a sigh, and sat down thoughtfully as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length took
+      courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured to draw near,
+      leading her grandfather by the hand. The slight noise they made in raising
+      the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his attention. He looked at them
+      kindly but seemed disappointed too, and slightly shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell dropped a curtsey, and told him they were poor travellers who sought
+      a shelter for the night which they would gladly pay for, so far as their
+      means allowed. The schoolmaster looked earnestly at her as she spoke, laid
+      aside his pipe, and rose up directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you could direct us anywhere, sir,' said the child, 'we should take it
+      very kindly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have been walking a long way,' said the schoolmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A long way, Sir,' the child replied.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0181m.jpg" alt="0181m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0181.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'You're a young traveller, my child,' he said, laying his hand gently on
+      her head. 'Your grandchild, friend?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye, Sir,' cried the old man, 'and the stay and comfort of my life.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come in,' said the schoolmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without further preface he conducted them into his little school-room,
+      which was parlour and kitchen likewise, and told them that they were
+      welcome to remain under his roof till morning. Before they had done
+      thanking him, he spread a coarse white cloth upon the table, with knives
+      and platters; and bringing out some bread and cold meat and a jug of beer,
+      besought them to eat and drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked round the room as she took her seat. There were a couple
+      of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal desk perched on
+      four legs, at which no doubt the master sat; a few dog's-eared books upon
+      a high shelf; and beside them a motley collection of peg-tops, balls,
+      kites, fishing-lines, marbles, half-eaten apples, and other confiscated
+      property of idle urchins. Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their
+      terrors, were the cane and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its
+      own, the dunce's cap, made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring
+      wafers of the largest size. But, the great ornaments of the walls were
+      certain moral sentences fairly copied in good round text, and well-worked
+      sums in simple addition and multiplication, evidently achieved by the same
+      hand, which were plentifully pasted all round the room: for the double
+      purpose, as it seemed, of bearing testimony to the excellence of the
+      school, and kindling a worthy emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said the old schoolmaster, observing that her attention was caught
+      by these latter specimens. 'That's beautiful writing, my dear.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very, Sir,' replied the child modestly, 'is it yours?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mine!' he returned, taking out his spectacles and putting them on, to
+      have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart. 'I couldn't write
+      like that, now-a-days. No. They're all done by one hand; a little hand it
+      is, not so old as yours, but a very clever one.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had been
+      thrown on one of the copies, so he took a penknife from his pocket, and
+      going up to the wall, carefully scraped it out. When he had finished, he
+      walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring it as one might
+      contemplate a beautiful picture, but with something of sadness in his
+      voice and manner which quite touched the child, though she was
+      unacquainted with its cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A little hand indeed,' said the poor schoolmaster. 'Far beyond all his
+      companions, in his learning and his sports too, how did he ever come to be
+      so fond of me! That I should love him is no wonder, but that he should
+      love me&mdash;' and there the schoolmaster stopped, and took off his
+      spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hope there is nothing the matter, sir,' said Nell anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not much, my dear,' returned the schoolmaster. 'I hoped to have seen him
+      on the green to-night. He was always foremost among them. But he'll be
+      there to-morrow.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has he been ill?' asked the child, with a child's quick sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not very. They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear boy, and
+      so they said the day before. But that's a part of that kind of disorder;
+      it's not a bad sign&mdash;not at all a bad sign.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+The child was silent. He
+      walked to the door, and looked wistfully out. The shadows of night were
+      gathering, and all was still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If he could lean upon anybody's arm, he would come to me, I know,' he
+      said, returning into the room. 'He always came into the garden to say good
+      night. But perhaps his illness has only just taken a favourable turn, and
+      it's too late for him to come out, for it's very damp and there's a heavy
+      dew. It's much better he shouldn't come to-night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter, and closed
+      the door. But after he had done this, and sat silent a little time, he
+      took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy himself, if Nell would
+      sit up till he returned. The child readily complied, and he went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange and
+      lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed, and there was
+      nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock, and the whistling of
+      the wind among the trees. When he returned, he took his seat in the
+      chimney corner, but remained silent for a long time. At length he turned
+      to her, and speaking very gently, hoped she would say a prayer that night
+      for a sick child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My favourite scholar!' said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe he had
+      forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the walls. 'It is a
+      little hand to have done all that, and waste away with sickness. It is a
+      very, very little hand!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap25"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 25
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter a sound night's rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in which it
+      seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but which he had
+      lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own, the child rose early
+      in the morning and descended to the room where she had supped last night.
+      As the schoolmaster had already left his bed and gone out, she bestirred
+      herself to make it neat and comfortable, and had just finished its
+      arrangement when the kind host returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually did such
+      offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom he had told her
+      of. The child asked how he was, and hoped he was better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, 'no better.
+      They even say he is worse.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am very sorry for that, Sir,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest manner, but
+      yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily that anxious people
+      often magnified an evil and thought it greater than it was; 'for my part,'
+      he said, in his quiet, patient way, 'I hope it's not so. I don't think he
+      can be worse.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather coming
+      down stairs, they all three partook of it together. While the meal was in
+      progress, their host remarked that the old man seemed much fatigued, and
+      evidently stood in need of rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If the journey you have before you is a long one,' he said, 'and don't
+      press you for one day, you're very welcome to pass another night here. I
+      should really be glad if you would, friend.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept or
+      decline his offer; and added,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day. If you
+      can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the same time, do so.
+      If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you well through it, and
+      will walk a little way with you before school begins.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What are we to do, Nell?' said the old man irresolutely, 'say what we're
+      to do, dear.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that they
+      had better accept the invitation and remain. She was happy to show her
+      gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in the performance
+      of such household duties as his little cottage stood in need of. When
+      these were done, she took some needle-work from her basket, and sat
+      herself down upon a stool beside the lattice, where the honeysuckle and
+      woodbine entwined their tender stems, and stealing into the room filled it
+      with their delicious breath. Her grandfather was basking in the sun
+      outside, breathing the perfume of the flowers, and idly watching the
+      clouds as they floated on before the light summer wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order, took his
+      seat behind his desk and made other preparations for school, the child was
+      apprehensive that she might be in the way, and offered to withdraw to her
+      little bedroom. But this he would not allow, and as he seemed pleased to
+      have her there, she remained, busying herself with her work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you many scholars, sir?' she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely filled the
+      two forms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are the others clever, sir?' asked the child, glancing at the trophies on
+      the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good boys,' returned the schoolmaster, 'good boys enough, my dear, but
+      they'll never do like that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door while
+      he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came in and took
+      his seat upon one of the forms. The white-headed boy then put an open
+      book, astonishingly dog's-eared upon his knees, and thrusting his hands
+      into his pockets began counting the marbles with which they were filled;
+      displaying in the expression of his face a remarkable capacity of totally
+      abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his eyes were fixed. Soon
+      afterwards another white-headed little boy came straggling in, and after
+      him a red-headed lad, and after him two more with white heads, and then
+      one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the forms were occupied by a dozen
+      boys or thereabouts, with heads of every colour but grey, and ranging in
+      their ages from four years old to fourteen years or more; for the legs of
+      the youngest were a long way from the floor when he sat upon the form, and
+      the eldest was a heavy good-tempered foolish fellow, about half a head
+      taller than the schoolmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the top of the first form&mdash;the post of honour in the school&mdash;was
+      the vacant place of the little sick scholar, and at the head of the row of
+      pegs on which those who came in hats or caps were wont to hang them up,
+      one was left empty. No boy attempted to violate the sanctity of seat or
+      peg, but many a one looked from the empty spaces to the schoolmaster, and
+      whispered his idle neighbour behind his hand.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0186m.jpg" alt="0186m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0186.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by heart, the
+      whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and drawl of school;
+      and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster, the very image of
+      meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his mind upon the duties
+      of the day, and to forget his little friend. But the tedium of his office
+      reminded him more strongly of the willing scholar, and his thoughts were
+      rambling from his pupils&mdash;it was plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None knew this better than the idlest boys, who, growing bolder with
+      impunity, waxed louder and more daring; playing odd-or-even under the
+      master's eye, eating apples openly and without rebuke, pinching each other
+      in sport or malice without the least reserve, and cutting their autographs
+      in the very legs of his desk. The puzzled dunce, who stood beside it to
+      say his lesson out of book, looked no longer at the ceiling for forgotten
+      words, but drew closer to the master's elbow and boldly cast his eye upon
+      the page; the wag of the little troop squinted and made grimaces (at the
+      smallest boy of course), holding no book before his face, and his
+      approving audience knew no constraint in their delight. If the master did
+      chance to rouse himself and seem alive to what was going on, the noise
+      subsided for a moment and no eyes met his but wore a studious and a deeply
+      humble look; but the instant he relapsed again, it broke out afresh, and
+      ten times louder than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! how some of those idle fellows longed to be outside, and how they
+      looked at the open door and window, as if they half meditated rushing
+      violently out, plunging into the woods, and being wild boys and savages
+      from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and some
+      shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in the
+      water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his
+      shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning
+      his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a
+      tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling
+      day! Heat! ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest to the door gave
+      him opportunities of gliding out into the garden and driving his
+      companions to madness by dipping his face into the bucket of the well and
+      then rolling on the grass&mdash;ask him if there were ever such a day as
+      that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the cups of flowers
+      and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds to retire from
+      business and be manufacturers of honey no more. The day was made for
+      laziness, and lying on one's back in green places, and staring at the sky
+      till its brightness forced one to shut one's eyes and go to sleep; and was
+      this a time to be poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by the
+      very sun itself? Monstrous!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell sat by the window occupied with her work, but attentive still to all
+      that passed, though sometimes rather timid of the boisterous boys. The
+      lessons over, writing time began; and there being but one desk and that
+      the master's, each boy sat at it in turn and laboured at his crooked copy,
+      while the master walked about. This was a quieter time; for he would come
+      and look over the writer's shoulder, and tell him mildly to observe how
+      such a letter was turned in such a copy on the wall, praise such an
+      up-stroke here and such a down-stroke there, and bid him take it for his
+      model. Then he would stop and tell them what the sick child had said last
+      night, and how he had longed to be among them once again; and such was the
+      poor schoolmaster's gentle and affectionate manner, that the boys seemed
+      quite remorseful that they had worried him so much, and were absolutely
+      quiet; eating no apples, cutting no names, inflicting no pinches, and
+      making no grimaces, for full two minutes afterwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I think, boys,' said the schoolmaster when the clock struck twelve, 'that
+      I shall give an extra half-holiday this afternoon.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this intelligence, the boys, led on and headed by the tall boy, raised
+      a great shout, in the midst of which the master was seen to speak, but
+      could not be heard. As he held up his hand, however, in token of his wish
+      that they should be silent, they were considerate enough to leave off, as
+      soon as the longest-winded among them were quite out of breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You must promise me first,' said the schoolmaster, 'that you'll not be
+      noisy, or at least, if you are, that you'll go away and be so&mdash;away
+      out of the village I mean. I'm sure you wouldn't disturb your old playmate
+      and companion.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a general murmur (and perhaps a very sincere one, for they were
+      but boys) in the negative; and the tall boy, perhaps as sincerely as any
+      of them, called those about him to witness that he had only shouted in a
+      whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then pray don't forget, there's my dear scholars,' said the schoolmaster,
+      'what I have asked you, and do it as a favour to me. Be as happy as you
+      can, and don't be unmindful that you are blessed with health. Good-bye
+      all!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank'ee, Sir,' and 'good-bye, Sir,' were said a good many times in a
+      variety of voices, and the boys went out very slowly and softly. But there
+      was the sun shining and there were the birds singing, as the sun only
+      shines and the birds only sing on holidays and half-holidays; there were
+      the trees waving to all free boys to climb and nestle among their leafy
+      branches; the hay, entreating them to come and scatter it to the pure air;
+      the green corn, gently beckoning towards wood and stream; the smooth
+      ground, rendered smoother still by blending lights and shadows, inviting
+      to runs and leaps, and long walks God knows whither. It was more than boy
+      could bear, and with a joyous whoop the whole cluster took to their heels
+      and spread themselves about, shouting and laughing as they went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's natural, thank Heaven!' said the poor schoolmaster, looking after
+      them. 'I'm very glad they didn't mind me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is difficult, however, to please everybody, as most of us would have
+      discovered, even without the fable which bears that moral, and in the
+      course of the afternoon several mothers and aunts of pupils looked in to
+      express their entire disapproval of the schoolmaster's proceeding. A few
+      confined themselves to hints, such as politely inquiring what red-letter
+      day or saint's day the almanack said it was; a few (these were the
+      profound village politicians) argued that it was a slight to the throne
+      and an affront to church and state, and savoured of revolutionary
+      principles, to grant a half-holiday upon any lighter occasion than the
+      birthday of the Monarch; but the majority expressed their displeasure on
+      private grounds and in plain terms, arguing that to put the pupils on this
+      short allowance of learning was nothing but an act of downright robbery
+      and fraud: and one old lady, finding that she could not inflame or
+      irritate the peaceable schoolmaster by talking to him, bounced out of his
+      house and talked at him for half-an-hour outside his own window, to
+      another old lady, saying that of course he would deduct this half-holiday
+      from his weekly charge, or of course he would naturally expect to have an
+      opposition started against him; there was no want of idle chaps in that
+      neighbourhood (here the old lady raised her voice), and some chaps who
+      were too idle even to be schoolmasters, might soon find that there were
+      other chaps put over their heads, and so she would have them take care,
+      and look pretty sharp about them. But all these taunts and vexations
+      failed to elicit one word from the meek schoolmaster, who sat with the
+      child by his side&mdash;a little more dejected perhaps, but quite silent
+      and uncomplaining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards night an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily as she
+      could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was to go to Dame
+      West's directly, and had best run on before her. He and the child were on
+      the point of going out together for a walk, and without relinquishing her
+      hand, the schoolmaster hurried away, leaving the messenger to follow as
+      she might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stopped at a cottage-door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly at it
+      with his hand. It was opened without loss of time. They entered a room
+      where a little group of women were gathered about one, older than the
+      rest, who was crying very bitterly, and sat wringing her hands and rocking
+      herself to and fro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, dame!' said the schoolmaster, drawing near her chair, 'is it so bad
+      as this?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's going fast,' cried the old woman; 'my grandson's dying. It's all
+      along of you. You shouldn't see him now, but for his being so earnest on
+      it. This is what his learning has brought him to. Oh dear, dear, dear,
+      what can I do!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do not say that I am in any fault,' urged the gentle school-master. 'I am
+      not hurt, dame. No, no. You are in great distress of mind, and don't mean
+      what you say. I am sure you don't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I do,' returned the old woman. 'I mean it all. If he hadn't been poring
+      over his books out of fear of you, he would have been well and merry now,
+      I know he would.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The schoolmaster looked round upon the other women as if to entreat some
+      one among them to say a kind word for him, but they shook their heads, and
+      murmured to each other that they never thought there was much good in
+      learning, and that this convinced them. Without saying a word in reply, or
+      giving them a look of reproach, he followed the old woman who had summoned
+      him (and who had now rejoined them) into another room, where his infant
+      friend, half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a very young boy; quite a little child. His hair still hung in
+      curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light was
+      of Heaven, not earth. The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and
+      stooping over the pillow, whispered his name. The boy sprung up, stroked
+      his face with his hand, and threw his wasted arms round his neck, crying
+      out that he was his dear kind friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hope I always was. I meant to be, God knows,' said the poor
+      schoolmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who is that?' said the boy, seeing Nell. 'I am afraid to kiss her, lest I
+      should make her ill. Ask her to shake hands with me.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+The sobbing child
+      came closer up, and took the little languid hand in hers. Releasing his
+      again after a time, the sick boy laid him gently down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You remember the garden, Harry,' whispered the schoolmaster, anxious to
+      rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the child, 'and how
+      pleasant it used to be in the evening time? You must make haste to visit
+      it again, for I think the very flowers have missed you, and are less gay
+      than they used to be. You will come soon, my dear, very soon now&mdash;won't
+      you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy smiled faintly&mdash;so very, very faintly&mdash;and put his hand
+      upon his friend's grey head. He moved his lips too, but no voice came from
+      them; no, not a sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices borne upon the
+      evening air came floating through the open window. 'What's that?' said the
+      sick child, opening his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The boys at play upon the green.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his
+      head. But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Shall I do it?' said the schoolmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Please wave it at the window,' was the faint reply. 'Tie it to the
+      lattice. Some of them may see it there. Perhaps they'll think of me, and
+      look this way.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle
+      bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property upon a table
+      in the room. And then he laid him softly down once more, and asked if the
+      little girl were there, for he could not see her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the
+      coverlet. The two old friends and companions&mdash;for such they were,
+      though they were man and child&mdash;held each other in a long embrace,
+      and then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and fell
+      asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold hand
+      in his, and chafing it. It was but the hand of a dead child. He felt that;
+      and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap26"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 26
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>lmost broken-hearted, Nell withdrew with the schoolmaster from the
+      bedside and returned to his cottage. In the midst of her grief and tears
+      she was yet careful to conceal their real cause from the old man, for the
+      dead boy had been a grandchild, and left but one aged relative to mourn
+      his premature decay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was alone,
+      gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was overcharged. But
+      the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without its lesson of content and
+      gratitude; of content with the lot which left her health and freedom; and
+      gratitude that she was spared to the one relative and friend she loved,
+      and to live and move in a beautiful world, when so many young creatures&mdash;as
+      young and full of hope as she&mdash;were stricken down and gathered to
+      their graves. How many of the mounds in that old churchyard where she had
+      lately strayed, grew green above the graves of children! And though she
+      thought as a child herself, and did not perhaps sufficiently consider to
+      what a bright and happy existence those who die young are borne, and how
+      in death they lose the pain of seeing others die around them, bearing to
+      the tomb some strong affection of their hearts (which makes the old die
+      many times in one long life), still she thought wisely enough, to draw a
+      plain and easy moral from what she had seen that night, and to store it,
+      deep in her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her dreams were of the little scholar: not coffined and covered up, but
+      mingling with angels, and smiling happily. The sun darting his cheerful
+      rays into the room, awoke her; and now there remained but to take leave of
+      the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time they were ready to depart, school had begun. In the darkened
+      room, the din of yesterday was going on again: a little sobered and
+      softened down, perhaps, but only a very little, if at all. The
+      schoolmaster rose from his desk and walked with them to the gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with a trembling and reluctant hand, that the child held out to him
+      the money which the lady had given her at the races for her flowers:
+      faltering in her thanks as she thought how small the sum was, and blushing
+      as she offered it. But he bade her put it up, and stooping to kiss her
+      cheek, turned back into his house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had not gone half-a-dozen paces when he was at the door again; the
+      old man retraced his steps to shake hands, and the child did the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good fortune and happiness go with you!' said the poor schoolmaster. 'I
+      am quite a solitary man now. If you ever pass this way again, you'll not
+      forget the little village-school.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We shall never forget it, sir,' rejoined Nell; 'nor ever forget to be
+      grateful to you for your kindness to us.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have heard such words from the lips of children very often,' said the
+      schoolmaster, shaking his head, and smiling thoughtfully, 'but they were
+      soon forgotten. I had attached one young friend to me, the better friend
+      for being young&mdash;but that's over&mdash;God bless you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They bade him farewell very many times, and turned away, walking slowly
+      and often looking back, until they could see him no more. At length they
+      had left the village far behind, and even lost sight of the smoke among
+      the trees. They trudged onward now, at a quicker pace, resolving to keep
+      the main road, and go wherever it might lead them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But main roads stretch a long, long way. With the exception of two or
+      three inconsiderable clusters of cottages which they passed, without
+      stopping, and one lonely road-side public-house where they had some bread
+      and cheese, this highway had led them to nothing&mdash;late in the
+      afternoon&mdash;and still lengthened out, far in the distance, the same
+      dull, tedious, winding course, that they had been pursuing all day. As
+      they had no resource, however, but to go forward, they still kept on,
+      though at a much slower pace, being very weary and fatigued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they arrived at
+      a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck across a common. On
+      the border of this common, and close to the hedge which divided it from
+      the cultivated fields, a caravan was drawn up to rest; upon which, by
+      reason of its situation, they came so suddenly that they could not have
+      avoided it if they would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house upon
+      wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and
+      window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red, in which
+      happily-contrasted colours the whole concern shone brilliant. Neither was
+      it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated horse, for a pair
+      of horses in pretty good condition were released from the shafts and
+      grazing on the frouzy grass. Neither was it a gipsy caravan, for at the
+      open door (graced with a bright brass knocker) sat a Christian lady, stout
+      and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet trembling with bows.
+      And that it was not an unprovided or destitute caravan was clear from this
+      lady's occupation, which was the very pleasant and refreshing one of
+      taking tea. The tea-things, including a bottle of rather suspicious
+      character and a cold knuckle of ham, were set forth upon a drum, covered
+      with a white napkin; and there, as if at the most convenient round-table
+      in all the world, sat this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the
+      prospect.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0193m.jpg" alt="0193m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0193.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      It happened that at that moment the lady of the caravan had her cup
+      (which, that everything about her might be of a stout and comfortable
+      kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having her eyes lifted to
+      the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavour of the tea, not unmingled
+      possibly with just the slightest dash or gleam of something out of the
+      suspicious bottle&mdash;but this is mere speculation and not distinct
+      matter of history&mdash;it happened that being thus agreeably engaged, she
+      did not see the travellers when they first came up. It was not until she
+      was in the act of getting down the cup, and drawing a long breath after
+      the exertion of causing its contents to disappear, that the lady of the
+      caravan beheld an old man and a young child walking slowly by, and
+      glancing at her proceedings with eyes of modest but hungry admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hey!' cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her lap
+      and swallowing the same before wiping her lips. 'Yes, to be sure&mdash;Who
+      won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Won what, ma'am?' asked Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child&mdash;the plate that was run
+      for on the second day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'On the second day, ma'am?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Second day! Yes, second day,' repeated the lady with an air of
+      impatience. 'Can't you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when you're
+      asked the question civilly?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know, ma'am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't know!' repeated the lady of the caravan; 'why, you were there. I
+      saw you with my own eyes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady might
+      be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin; but what
+      followed tended to reassure her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And very sorry I was,' said the lady of the caravan, 'to see you in
+      company with a Punch; a low, practical, wulgar wretch, that people should
+      scorn to look at.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I was not there by choice,' returned the child; 'we didn't know our way,
+      and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them. Do you&mdash;do
+      you know them, ma'am?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Know 'em, child!' cried the lady of the caravan in a sort of shriek.
+      'Know them! But you're young and inexperienced, and that's your excuse for
+      asking sich a question. Do I look as if I know'd 'em, does the caravan
+      look as if it know'd 'em?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, ma'am, no,' said the child, fearing she had committed some grievous
+      fault. 'I beg your pardon.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was granted immediately, though the lady still appeared much ruffled
+      and discomposed by the degrading supposition. The child then explained
+      that they had left the races on the first day, and were travelling to the
+      next town on that road, where they purposed to spend the night. As the
+      countenance of the stout lady began to clear up, she ventured to inquire
+      how far it was. The reply&mdash;which the stout lady did not come to,
+      until she had thoroughly explained that she went to the races on the first
+      day in a gig, and as an expedition of pleasure, and that her presence
+      there had no connexion with any matters of business or profit&mdash;was,
+      that the town was eight miles off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This discouraging information a little dashed the child, who could
+      scarcely repress a tear as she glanced along the darkening road. Her
+      grandfather made no complaint, but he sighed heavily as he leaned upon his
+      staff, and vainly tried to pierce the dusty distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea equipage
+      together preparatory to clearing the table, but noting the child's anxious
+      manner she hesitated and stopped. The child curtseyed, thanked her for her
+      information, and giving her hand to the old man had already got some fifty
+      yards or so away, when the lady of the caravan called to her to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come nearer, nearer still,' said she, beckoning to her to ascend the
+      steps. 'Are you hungry, child?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not very, but we are tired, and it's&mdash;it <i>is</i> a long way.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea,' rejoined her new
+      acquaintance. 'I suppose you are agreeable to that, old gentleman?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. The lady of the
+      caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum proving an
+      inconvenient table for two, they descended again, and sat upon the grass,
+      where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, the
+      knuckle of ham, and in short everything of which she had partaken herself,
+      except the bottle which she had already embraced an opportunity of
+      slipping into her pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Set 'em out near the hind wheels, child, that's the best place,' said
+      their friend, superintending the arrangements from above. 'Now hand up the
+      teapot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of fresh tea, and then
+      both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare anything;
+      that's all I ask of you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They might perhaps have carried out the lady's wish, if it had been less
+      freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all. But as this
+      direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or uneasiness, they
+      made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted on the
+      earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large bonnet
+      trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured tread and very
+      stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to time with an air of
+      calm delight, and deriving particular gratification from the red panels
+      and the brass knocker. When she had taken this gentle exercise for some
+      time, she sat down upon the steps and called 'George'; whereupon a man in
+      a carter's frock, who had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as
+      to see everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs
+      that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting attitude, supporting on his
+      legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone bottle, and bearing in his
+      right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Missus,' said George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How did you find the cold pie, George?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It warn't amiss, mum.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And the beer,' said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of being
+      more interested in this question than the last; 'is it passable, George?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's more flatterer than it might be,' George returned, 'but it an't so
+      bad for all that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting in
+      quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and then smacked
+      his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head. No doubt with the same
+      amiable desire, he immediately resumed his knife and fork, as a practical
+      assurance that the beer had wrought no bad effect upon his appetite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady of the caravan looked on approvingly for some time, and then
+      said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you nearly finished?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Wery nigh, mum.' And indeed, after scraping the dish all round with his
+      knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth, and after taking
+      such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that, by degrees almost
+      imperceptible to the sight, his head went further and further back until
+      he lay nearly at his full length upon the ground, this gentleman declared
+      himself quite disengaged, and came forth from his retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hope I haven't hurried you, George,' said his mistress, who appeared to
+      have a great sympathy with his late pursuit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you have,' returned the follower, wisely reserving himself for any
+      favourable contingency that might occur, 'we must make up for it next
+      time, that's all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We are not a heavy load, George?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's always what the ladies say,' replied the man, looking a long way
+      round, as if he were appealing to Nature in general against such monstrous
+      propositions. 'If you see a woman a driving, you'll always perceive that
+      she never will keep her whip still; the horse can't go fast enough for
+      her. If cattle have got their proper load, you never can persuade a woman
+      that they'll not bear something more. What is the cause of this here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Would these two travellers make much difference to the horses, if we took
+      them with us?' asked his mistress, offering no reply to the philosophical
+      inquiry, and pointing to Nell and the old man, who were painfully
+      preparing to resume their journey on foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They'd make a difference in course,' said George doggedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Would they make much difference?' repeated his mistress. 'They can't be
+      very heavy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The weight o' the pair, mum,' said George, eyeing them with the look of a
+      man who was calculating within half an ounce or so, 'would be a trifle
+      under that of Oliver Cromwell.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell was very much surprised that the man should be so accurately
+      acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read of in books as having
+      lived considerably before their time, but speedily forgot the subject in
+      the joy of hearing that they were to go forward in the caravan, for which
+      she thanked its lady with unaffected earnestness. She helped with great
+      readiness and alacrity to put away the tea-things and other matters that
+      were lying about, and, the horses being by that time harnessed, mounted
+      into the vehicle, followed by her delighted grandfather. Their patroness
+      then shut the door and sat herself down by her drum at an open window;
+      and, the steps being struck by George and stowed under the carriage, away
+      they went, with a great noise of flapping and creaking and straining, and
+      the bright brass knocker, which nobody ever knocked at, knocking one
+      perpetual double knock of its own accord as they jolted heavily along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap27"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 27
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell
+      ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more closely.
+      One half of it&mdash;that moiety in which the comfortable proprietress was
+      then seated&mdash;was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end
+      as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed after the fashion of a
+      berth on board ship, which was shaded, like the little windows, with fair
+      white curtains, and looked comfortable enough, though by what kind of
+      gymnastic exercise the lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it,
+      was an unfathomable mystery. The other half served for a kitchen, and was
+      fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof. It
+      held also a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of water,
+      and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery. These latter
+      necessaries hung upon the walls, which, in that portion of the
+      establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were ornamented with
+      such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a couple of
+      well-thumbed tambourines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady of the caravan sat at one window in all the pride and poetry of
+      the musical instruments, and little Nell and her grandfather sat at the
+      other in all the humility of the kettle and saucepans, while the machine
+      jogged on and shifted the darkening prospect very slowly. At first the two
+      travellers spoke little, and only in whispers, but as they grew more
+      familiar with the place they ventured to converse with greater freedom,
+      and talked about the country through which they were passing, and the
+      different objects that presented themselves, until the old man fell
+      asleep; which the lady of the caravan observing, invited Nell to come and
+      sit beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, child,' she said, 'how do you like this way of travelling?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell replied that she thought it was very pleasant indeed, to which the
+      lady assented in the case of people who had their spirits. For herself,
+      she said, she was troubled with a lowness in that respect which required a
+      constant stimulant; though whether the aforesaid stimulant was derived
+      from the suspicious bottle of which mention has been already made or from
+      other sources, she did not say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's the happiness of you young people,' she continued. 'You don't know
+      what it is to be low in your feelings. You always have your appetites too,
+      and what a comfort that is.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell thought that she could sometimes dispense with her own appetite very
+      conveniently; and thought, moreover, that there was nothing either in the
+      lady's personal appearance or in her manner of taking tea, to lead to the
+      conclusion that her natural relish for meat and drink had at all failed
+      her. She silently assented, however, as in duty bound, to what the lady
+      had said, and waited until she should speak again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of speaking, however, she sat looking at the child for a long time
+      in silence, and then getting up, brought out from a corner a large roll of
+      canvas about a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor and spread
+      open with her foot until it nearly reached from one end of the caravan to
+      the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There, child,' she said, 'read that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the
+      inscription, 'JARLEY'S <i>WAX-WORK</i>.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Read it again,' said the lady, complacently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Jarley's Wax-Work,' repeated Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's me,' said the lady. 'I am Mrs Jarley.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giving the child an encouraging look, intended to reassure her and let her
+      know, that, although she stood in the presence of the original Jarley, she
+      must not allow herself to be utterly overwhelmed and borne down, the lady
+      of the caravan unfolded another scroll, whereon was the inscription, 'One
+      hundred figures the full size of life,' and then another scroll, on which
+      was written, 'The only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the
+      world,' and then several smaller scrolls with such inscriptions as 'Now
+      exhibiting within'&mdash;'The genuine and only Jarley'&mdash;'Jarley's
+      unrivalled collection'&mdash;'Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and
+      Gentry'&mdash;'The Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley.' When she had
+      exhibited these leviathans of public announcement to the astonished child,
+      she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in the shape of hand-bills,
+      some of which were couched in the form of parodies on popular melodies, as
+      'Believe me if all Jarley's wax-work so rare'&mdash;'I saw thy show in
+      youthful prime'&mdash;'Over the water to Jarley;' while, to consult all
+      tastes, others were composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious
+      spirits, as a parody on the favourite air of 'If I had a donkey,'
+      beginning,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+If I know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go<br />
+To see Mrs <i>JARLEY'S</i> wax-work show,<br />
+Do you think I'd acknowledge him?  Oh no no!<br />
+Then run to Jarley's&mdash;<br />
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;besides several compositions in prose, purporting to be dialogues
+      between the Emperor of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop of
+      Canterbury and a dissenter on the subject of church-rates, but all having
+      the same moral, namely, that the reader must make haste to Jarley's, and
+      that children and servants were admitted at half-price. When she had
+      brought all these testimonials of her important position in society to
+      bear upon her young companion, Mrs Jarley rolled them up, and having put
+      them carefully away, sat down again, and looked at the child in triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never go into the company of a filthy Punch any more,' said Mrs Jarley,
+      'after this.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I never saw any wax-work, ma'am,' said Nell. 'Is it funnier than Punch?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Funnier!' said Mrs Jarley in a shrill voice. 'It is not funny at all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Nell, with all possible humility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It isn't funny at all,' repeated Mrs Jarley. 'It's calm and&mdash;what's
+      that word again&mdash;critical?&mdash;no&mdash;classical, that's it&mdash;it's
+      calm and classical. No low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and
+      squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the same, with a
+      constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility; and so like life,
+      that if wax-work only spoke and walked about, you'd hardly know the
+      difference. I won't go so far as to say, that, as it is, I've seen
+      wax-work quite like life, but I've certainly seen some life that was
+      exactly like wax-work.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it here, ma'am?' asked Nell, whose curiosity was awakened by this
+      description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is what here, child?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The wax-work, ma'am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of? How could such a
+      collection be here, where you see everything except the inside of one
+      little cupboard and a few boxes? It's gone on in the other wans to the
+      assembly-rooms, and there it'll be exhibited the day after to-morrow. You
+      are going to the same town, and you'll see it I dare say. It's natural to
+      expect that you'll see it, and I've no doubt you will. I suppose you
+      couldn't stop away if you was to try ever so much.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shall not be in the town, I think, ma'am,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not there!' cried Mrs Jarley. 'Then where will you be?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I&mdash;I&mdash;don't quite know. I am not certain.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You don't mean to say that you're travelling about the country without
+      knowing where you're going to?' said the lady of the caravan. 'What
+      curious people you are! What line are you in? You looked to me at the
+      races, child, as if you were quite out of your element, and had got there
+      by accident.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We were there quite by accident,' returned Nell, confused by this abrupt
+      questioning. 'We are poor people, ma'am, and are only wandering about. We
+      have nothing to do;&mdash;I wish we had.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You amaze me more and more,' said Mrs Jarley, after remaining for some
+      time as mute as one of her own figures. 'Why, what do you call yourselves?
+      Not beggars?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed, ma'am, I don't know what else we are,' returned the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Lord bless me,' said the lady of the caravan. 'I never heard of such a
+      thing. Who'd have thought it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She remained so long silent after this exclamation, that Nell feared she
+      felt her having been induced to bestow her protection and conversation
+      upon one so poor, to be an outrage upon her dignity that nothing could
+      repair. This persuasion was rather confirmed than otherwise by the tone in
+      which she at length broke silence and said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And yet you can read. And write too, I shouldn't wonder?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, ma'am,' said the child, fearful of giving new offence by the
+      confession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, and what a thing that is,' returned Mrs Jarley. 'I can't!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell said 'indeed' in a tone which might imply, either that she was
+      reasonably surprised to find the genuine and only Jarley, who was the
+      delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the peculiar pet of the Royal
+      Family, destitute of these familiar arts; or that she presumed so great a
+      lady could scarcely stand in need of such ordinary accomplishments. In
+      whatever way Mrs Jarley received the response, it did not provoke her to
+      further questioning, or tempt her into any more remarks at the time, for
+      she relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and remained in that state so long
+      that Nell withdrew to the other window and rejoined her grandfather, who
+      was now awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the lady of the caravan shook off her fit of meditation, and,
+      summoning the driver to come under the window at which she was seated,
+      held a long conversation with him in a low tone of voice, as if she were
+      asking his advice on an important point, and discussing the pros and cons
+      of some very weighty matter. This conference at length concluded, she drew
+      in her head again, and beckoned Nell to approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And the old gentleman too,' said Mrs Jarley; 'for I want to have a word
+      with him. Do you want a good situation for your grand-daughter, master? If
+      you do, I can put her in the way of getting one. What do you say?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I can't leave her,' answered the old man. 'We can't separate. What would
+      become of me without her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I should have thought you were old enough to take care of yourself, if
+      you ever will be,' retorted Mrs Jarley sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But he never will be,' said the child in an earnest whisper. 'I fear he
+      never will be again. Pray do not speak harshly to him. We are very
+      thankful to you,' she added aloud; 'but neither of us could part from the
+      other if all the wealth of the world were halved between us.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her proposal,
+      and looked at the old man, who tenderly took Nell's hand and detained it
+      in his own, as if she could have very well dispensed with his company or
+      even his earthly existence. After an awkward pause, she thrust her head
+      out of the window again, and had another conference with the driver upon
+      some point on which they did not seem to agree quite so readily as on
+      their former topic of discussion; but they concluded at last, and she
+      addressed the grandfather again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you're really disposed to employ yourself,' said Mrs Jarley, 'there
+      would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust the figures,
+      and take the checks, and so forth. What I want your grand-daughter for, is
+      to point 'em out to the company; they would be soon learnt, and she has a
+      way with her that people wouldn't think unpleasant, though she does come
+      after me; for I've been always accustomed to go round with visitors
+      myself, which I should keep on doing now, only that my spirits make a
+      little ease absolutely necessary. It's not a common offer, bear in mind,'
+      said the lady, rising into the tone and manner in which she was accustomed
+      to address her audiences; 'it's Jarley's wax-work, remember. The duty's
+      very light and genteel, the company particularly select, the exhibition
+      takes place in assembly-rooms, town-halls, large rooms at inns, or auction
+      galleries. There is none of your open-air wagrancy at Jarley's, recollect;
+      there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley's, remember. Every expectation
+      held out in the handbills is realised to the utmost, and the whole forms
+      an effect of imposing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in this kingdom.
+      Remember that the price of admission is only sixpence, and that this is an
+      opportunity which may never occur again!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Descending from the sublime when she had reached this point, to the
+      details of common life, Mrs Jarley remarked that with reference to salary
+      she could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had sufficiently
+      tested Nell's abilities, and narrowly watched her in the performance of
+      her duties. But board and lodging, both for her and her grandfather, she
+      bound herself to provide, and she furthermore passed her word that the
+      board should always be good in quality, and in quantity plentiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell and her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so
+      engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down the
+      caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with uncommon
+      dignity and self-esteem. Nor will this appear so slight a circumstance as
+      to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered that the caravan was in
+      uneasy motion all the time, and that none but a person of great natural
+      stateliness and acquired grace could have forborne to stagger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, child?' cried Mrs Jarley, coming to a halt as Nell turned towards
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We are very much obliged to you, ma'am,' said Nell, 'and thankfully
+      accept your offer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And you'll never be sorry for it,' returned Mrs Jarley. 'I'm pretty sure
+      of that. So as that's all settled, let us have a bit of supper.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile, the caravan blundered on as if it too had been drinking
+      strong beer and was drowsy, and came at last upon the paved streets of a
+      town which were clear of passengers, and quiet, for it was by this time
+      near midnight, and the townspeople were all abed. As it was too late an
+      hour to repair to the exhibition room, they turned aside into a piece of
+      waste ground that lay just within the old town-gate, and drew up there for
+      the night, near to another caravan, which, notwithstanding that it bore on
+      the lawful panel the great name of Jarley, and was employed besides in
+      conveying from place to place the wax-work which was its country's pride,
+      was designated by a grovelling stamp-office as a 'Common Stage Waggon,'
+      and numbered too&mdash;seven thousand odd hundred&mdash;as though its
+      precious freight were mere flour or coals!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This ill-used machine being empty (for it had deposited its burden at the
+      place of exhibition, and lingered here until its services were again
+      required) was assigned to the old man as his sleeping-place for the night;
+      and within its wooden walls, Nell made him up the best bed she could, from
+      the materials at hand. For herself, she was to sleep in Mrs Jarley's own
+      travelling-carriage, as a signal mark of that lady's favour and
+      confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had taken leave of her grandfather and was returning to the other
+      waggon, when she was tempted by the coolness of the night to linger for a
+      little while in the air. The moon was shining down upon the old gateway of
+      the town, leaving the low archway very black and dark; and with a mingled
+      sensation of curiosity and fear, she slowly approached the gate, and stood
+      still to look up at it, wondering to see how dark, and grim, and old, and
+      cold, it looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an empty niche from which some old statue had fallen or been
+      carried away hundreds of years ago, and she was thinking what strange
+      people it must have looked down upon when it stood there, and how many
+      hard struggles might have taken place, and how many murders might have
+      been done, upon that silent spot, when there suddenly emerged from the
+      black shade of the arch, a man. The instant he appeared, she recognised
+      him&mdash;Who could have failed to recognise, in that instant, the ugly
+      misshapen Quilp!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The street beyond was so narrow, and the shadow of the houses on one side
+      of the way so deep, that he seemed to have risen out of the earth. But
+      there he was. The child withdrew into a dark corner, and saw him pass
+      close to her. He had a stick in his hand, and, when he had got clear of
+      the shadow of the gateway, he leant upon it, looked back&mdash;directly,
+      as it seemed, towards where she stood&mdash;and beckoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her? oh no, thank God, not to her; for as she stood, in an extremity of
+      fear, hesitating whether to scream for help, or come from her hiding-place
+      and fly, before he should draw nearer, there issued slowly forth from the
+      arch another figure&mdash;that of a boy&mdash;who carried on his back a
+      trunk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Faster, sirrah!' cried Quilp, looking up at the old gateway, and showing
+      in the moonlight like some monstrous image that had come down from its
+      niche and was casting a backward glance at its old house, 'faster!'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0203m.jpg" alt="0203m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0203.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'It's a dreadful heavy load, Sir,' the boy pleaded. 'I've come on very
+      fast, considering.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>You </i>have come fast, considering!' retorted Quilp; 'you creep, you dog,
+      you crawl, you measure distance like a worm. There are the chimes now,
+      half-past twelve.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a suddenness and
+      ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour that London coach passed
+      the corner of the road. The boy replied, at one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come on then,' said Quilp, 'or I shall be too late. Faster&mdash;do you
+      hear me? Faster.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy made all the speed he could, and Quilp led onward, constantly
+      turning back to threaten him, and urge him to greater haste. Nell did not
+      dare to move until they were out of sight and hearing, and then hurried to
+      where she had left her grandfather, feeling as if the very passing of the
+      dwarf so near him must have filled him with alarm and terror. But he was
+      sleeping soundly, and she softly withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she was making her way to her own bed, she determined to say nothing of
+      this adventure, as upon whatever errand the dwarf had come (and she feared
+      it must have been in search of them) it was clear by his inquiry about the
+      London coach that he was on his way homeward, and as he had passed through
+      that place, it was but reasonable to suppose that they were safer from his
+      inquiries there, than they could be elsewhere. These reflections did not
+      remove her own alarm, for she had been too much terrified to be easily
+      composed, and felt as if she were hemmed in by a legion of Quilps, and the
+      very air itself were filled with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The delight of the Nobility and Gentry and the patronised of Royalty had,
+      by some process of self-abridgment known only to herself, got into her
+      travelling bed, where she was snoring peacefully, while the large bonnet,
+      carefully disposed upon the drum, was revealing its glories by the light
+      of a dim lamp that swung from the roof. The child's bed was already made
+      upon the floor, and it was a great comfort to her to hear the steps
+      removed as soon as she had entered, and to know that all easy
+      communication between persons outside and the brass knocker was by this
+      means effectually prevented. Certain guttural sounds, too, which from time
+      to time ascended through the floor of the caravan, and a rustling of straw
+      in the same direction, apprised her that the driver was couched upon the
+      ground beneath, and gave her an additional feeling of security.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding these protections, she could get none but broken sleep by
+      fits and starts all night, for fear of Quilp, who throughout her uneasy
+      dreams was somehow connected with the wax-work, or was wax-work himself,
+      or was Mrs Jarley and wax-work too, or was himself, Mrs Jarley, wax-work,
+      and a barrel organ all in one, and yet not exactly any of them either. At
+      length, towards break of day, that deep sleep came upon her which succeeds
+      to weariness and over-watching, and which has no consciousness but one of
+      overpowering and irresistible enjoyment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap28"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 28
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>leep hung upon the eyelids of the child so long, that, when she awoke,
+      Mrs Jarley was already decorated with her large bonnet, and actively
+      engaged in preparing breakfast. She received Nell's apology for being so
+      late with perfect good humour, and said that she should not have roused
+      her if she had slept on until noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Because it does you good,' said the lady of the caravan, 'when you're
+      tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue quite off;
+      and that's another blessing of your time of life&mdash;you can sleep so
+      very sound.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you had a bad night, ma'am?' asked Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I seldom have anything else, child,' replied Mrs Jarley, with the air of
+      a martyr. 'I sometimes wonder how I bear it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft in the caravan
+      in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night, Nell rather
+      thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake. However, she expressed
+      herself very sorry to hear such a dismal account of her state of health,
+      and shortly afterwards sat down with her grandfather and Mrs Jarley to
+      breakfast. The meal finished, Nell assisted to wash the cups and saucers,
+      and put them in their proper places, and these household duties performed,
+      Mrs Jarley arrayed herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose
+      of making a progress through the streets of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The wan will come on to bring the boxes,' said Mrs Jarley, and you had
+      better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my will;
+      but the people expect it of me, and public characters can't be their own
+      masters and mistresses in such matters as these. How do I look, child?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a great
+      many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several abortive
+      attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last satisfied with
+      her appearance, and went forth majestically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting through the
+      streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind of place
+      they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the dreaded face
+      of Quilp. It was a pretty large town, with an open square which they were
+      crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was the Town-Hall, with
+      a clock-tower and a weather-cock. There were houses of stone, houses of
+      red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of lath and plaster; and houses
+      of wood, many of them very old, with withered faces carved upon the beams,
+      and staring down into the street. These had very little winking windows,
+      and low-arched doors, and, in some of the narrower ways, quite overhung
+      the pavement. The streets were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and
+      very dull. A few idle men lounged about the two inns, and the empty
+      market-place, and the tradesmen's doors, and some old people were dozing
+      in chairs outside an alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who
+      seemed bent on going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and
+      if perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright
+      pavement for minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the
+      clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such
+      cracked voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs
+      were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer's
+      shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to death in dusty
+      corners of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at
+      the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an admiring group of
+      children, who evidently supposed her to be an important item of the
+      curiosities, and were fully impressed with the belief that her grandfather
+      was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out with all convenient
+      despatch, and taken in to be unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by
+      George and another man in velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented with
+      turnpike tickets, were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of
+      red festoons and other ornamental devices in upholstery work) to the best
+      advantage in the decoration of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were. As the
+      stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the envious dust
+      should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred herself to assist in the
+      embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also was of great
+      service. The two men being well used to it, did a great deal in a short
+      time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks from a linen pocket like a
+      toll-collector's which she wore for the purpose, and encouraged her
+      assistants to renewed exertion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose and
+      black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the
+      sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over, but was now
+      sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare&mdash;dressed too in
+      ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps in
+      the winter of their existence&mdash;looked in at the door and smiled
+      affably. Mrs Jarley's back being then towards him, the military gentleman
+      shook his forefinger as a sign that her myrmidons were not to apprise her
+      of his presence, and stealing up close behind her, tapped her on the neck,
+      and cried playfully 'Boh!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What, Mr Slum!' cried the lady of the wax-work. 'Lot! who'd have thought
+      of seeing you here!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ''Pon my soul and honour,' said Mr Slum, 'that's a good remark. 'Pon my
+      soul and honour that's a wise remark. Who would have thought it! George,
+      my faithful feller, how are you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George received this advance with a surly indifference, observing that he
+      was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering lustily all the
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I came here,' said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley&mdash;''pon
+      my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It would puzzle me
+      to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little inspiration, a little
+      freshening up, a little change of ideas, and&mdash;'Pon my soul and
+      honour,' said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking round
+      the room, 'what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it's quite
+      Minervian.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It'll look well enough when it comes to be finished,' observed Mrs
+      Jarley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well enough!' said Mr Slum. 'Will you believe me when I say it's the
+      delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've exercised
+      my pen upon this charming theme? By the way&mdash;any orders? Is there any
+      little thing I can do for you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It comes so very expensive, sir,' replied Mrs Jarley, 'and I really don't
+      think it does much good.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hush! No, no!' returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand. 'No fibs. I'll not
+      hear it. Don't say it don't do good. Don't say it. I know better!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't think it does,' said Mrs Jarley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha, ha!' cried Mr Slum, 'you're giving way, you're coming down. Ask the
+      perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old
+      lottery-office-keepers&mdash;ask any man among 'em what my poetry has done
+      for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum. If he's an honest
+      man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of Slum&mdash;mark
+      that! You are acquainted with Westminster Abbey, Mrs Jarley?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, surely.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then upon my soul and honour, ma'am, you'll find in a certain angle of
+      that dreary pile, called Poets' Corner, a few smaller names than Slum,'
+      retorted that gentleman, tapping himself expressively on the forehead to
+      imply that there was some slight quantity of brain behind it. 'I've got a
+      little trifle here, now,' said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which was full
+      of scraps of paper, 'a little trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the
+      moment, which I should say was exactly the thing you wanted to set this
+      place on fire with. It's an acrostic&mdash;the name at this moment is
+      Warren, and the idea's a convertible one, and a positive inspiration for
+      Jarley. Have the acrostic.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I suppose it's very dear,' said Mrs Jarley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Five shillings,' returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a toothpick.
+      'Cheaper than any prose.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I couldn't give more than three,' said Mrs Jarley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;And six,' retorted Slum. 'Come. Three-and-six.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet's insinuating manner, and Mr
+      Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a three-and-sixpenny one.
+      Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, after taking a most
+      affectionate leave of his patroness, and promising to return, as soon as
+      he possibly could, with a fair copy for the printer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As his presence had not interfered with or interrupted the preparations,
+      they were now far advanced, and were completed shortly after his
+      departure. When the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be,
+      the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were displayed, on a
+      raised platform some two feet from the floor, running round the room and
+      parted from the rude public by a crimson rope breast high, divers
+      sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, singly and in groups, clad in
+      glittering dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or less
+      unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and their
+      nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of their legs and arms very
+      strongly developed, and all their countenances expressing great surprise.
+      All the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted and very blue about the
+      beards; and all the ladies were miraculous figures; and all the ladies and
+      all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with
+      extraordinary earnestness at nothing.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0208m.jpg" alt="0208m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0208.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      When Nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight, Mrs
+      Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child,
+      and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre, formally invested
+      Nell with a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out the
+      characters, and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That,' said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a figure
+      at the beginning of the platform, 'is an unfortunate Maid of Honour in the
+      Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her finger in consequence
+      of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood which is trickling from her
+      finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with which she is at
+      work.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and the
+      needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That, ladies and gentlemen,' said Mrs Jarley, 'is Jasper Packlemerton of
+      atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and destroyed
+      them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were sleeping in
+      the consciousness of innocence and virtue. On being brought to the
+      scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he replied yes,
+      he was sorry for having let 'em off so easy, and hoped all Christian
+      husbands would pardon him the offence. Let this be a warning to all young
+      ladies to be particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice.
+      Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling, and that
+      his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared when committing his
+      barbarous murders.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without
+      faltering, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin man,
+      the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a hundred
+      and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who poisoned fourteen
+      families with pickled walnuts, and other historical characters and
+      interesting but misguided individuals. And so well did Nell profit by her
+      instructions, and so apt was she to remember them, that by the time they
+      had been shut up together for a couple of hours, she was in full
+      possession of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly
+      competent to the enlightenment of visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result,
+      and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining
+      arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage had been already
+      converted into a grove of green-baize hung with the inscription she had
+      already seen (Mr Slum's productions), and a highly ornamented table placed
+      at the upper end for Mrs Jarley herself, at which she was to preside and
+      take the money, in company with his Majesty King George the Third, Mr
+      Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots, an anonymous gentleman of the
+      Quaker persuasion, and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the
+      bill for the imposition of the window duty. The preparations without doors
+      had not been neglected either; a nun of great personal attractions was
+      telling her beads on the little portico over the door; and a brigand with
+      the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest possible complexion,
+      was at that moment going round the town in a cart, consulting the
+      miniature of a lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It now only remained that Mr Slum's compositions should be judiciously
+      distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all
+      private houses and tradespeople; and that the parody commencing 'If I
+      know'd a donkey,' should be confined to the taverns, and circulated only
+      among the lawyers' clerks and choice spirits of the place. When this had
+      been done, and Mrs Jarley had waited upon the boarding-schools in person,
+      with a handbill composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly
+      proved that wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged
+      the sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable lady sat down to
+      dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing campaign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap29"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 29
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">U</span>nquestionably Mrs Jarley had an inventive genius. In the midst of the
+      various devices for attracting visitors to the exhibition, little Nell was
+      not forgotten. The light cart in which the Brigand usually made his
+      perambulations being gaily dressed with flags and streamers, and the
+      Brigand placed therein, contemplating the miniature of his beloved as
+      usual, Nell was accommodated with a seat beside him, decorated with
+      artificial flowers, and in this state and ceremony rode slowly through the
+      town every morning, dispersing handbills from a basket, to the sound of
+      drum and trumpet. The beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and
+      timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country place. The
+      Brigand, heretofore a source of exclusive interest in the streets, became
+      a mere secondary consideration, and to be important only as a part of the
+      show of which she was the chief attraction. Grown-up folks began to be
+      interested in the bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell
+      desperately in love, and constantly left enclosures of nuts and apples,
+      directed in small-text, at the wax-work door.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0211m.jpg" alt="0211m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0211.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      This desirable impression was not lost on Mrs Jarley, who, lest Nell
+      should become too cheap, soon sent the Brigand out alone again, and kept
+      her in the exhibition room, where she described the figures every
+      half-hour to the great satisfaction of admiring audiences. And these
+      audiences were of a very superior description, including a great many
+      young ladies' boarding-schools, whose favour Mrs Jarley had been at great
+      pains to conciliate, by altering the face and costume of Mr Grimaldi as
+      clown to represent Mr Lindley Murray as he appeared when engaged in the
+      composition of his English Grammar, and turning a murderess of great
+      renown into Mrs Hannah More&mdash;both of which likenesses were admitted
+      by Miss Monflathers, who was at the head of the head Boarding and Day
+      Establishment in the town, and who condescended to take a Private View
+      with eight chosen young ladies, to be quite startling from their extreme
+      correctness. Mr Pitt in a nightcap and bedgown, and without his boots,
+      represented the poet Cowper with perfect exactness; and Mary Queen of
+      Scots in a dark wig, white shirt-collar, and male attire, was such a
+      complete image of Lord Byron that the young ladies quite screamed when
+      they saw it. Miss Monflathers, however, rebuked this enthusiasm, and took
+      occasion to reprove Mrs Jarley for not keeping her collection more select:
+      observing that His Lordship had held certain opinions quite incompatible
+      with wax-work honours, and adding something about a Dean and Chapter,
+      which Mrs Jarley did not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although her duties were sufficiently laborious, Nell found in the lady of
+      the caravan a very kind and considerate person, who had not only a
+      peculiar relish for being comfortable herself, but for making everybody
+      about her comfortable also; which latter taste, it may be remarked, is,
+      even in persons who live in much finer places than caravans, a far more
+      rare and uncommon one than the first, and is not by any means its
+      necessary consequence. As her popularity procured her various little fees
+      from the visitors on which her patroness never demanded any toll, and as
+      her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, she had no cause of
+      anxiety in connexion with the wax-work, beyond that which sprung from her
+      recollection of Quilp, and her fears that he might return and one day
+      suddenly encounter them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp indeed was a perpetual night-mare to the child, who was constantly
+      haunted by a vision of his ugly face and stunted figure. She slept, for
+      their better security, in the room where the wax-work figures were, and
+      she never retired to this place at night but she tortured herself&mdash;she
+      could not help it&mdash;with imagining a resemblance, in some one or other
+      of their death-like faces, to the dwarf, and this fancy would sometimes so
+      gain upon her that she would almost believe he had removed the figure and
+      stood within the clothes. Then there were so many of them with their great
+      glassy eyes&mdash;and, as they stood one behind the other all about her
+      bed, they looked so like living creatures, and yet so unlike in their grim
+      stillness and silence, that she had a kind of terror of them for their own
+      sakes, and would often lie watching their dusky figures until she was
+      obliged to rise and light a candle, or go and sit at the open window and
+      feel a companionship in the bright stars. At these times, she would recall
+      the old house and the window at which she used to sit alone; and then she
+      would think of poor Kit and all his kindness, until the tears came into
+      her eyes, and she would weep and smile together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Often and anxiously at this silent hour, her thoughts reverted to her
+      grandfather, and she would wonder how much he remembered of their former
+      life, and whether he was ever really mindful of the change in their
+      condition and of their late helplessness and destitution. When they were
+      wandering about, she seldom thought of this, but now she could not help
+      considering what would become of them if he fell sick, or her own strength
+      were to fail her. He was very patient and willing, happy to execute any
+      little task, and glad to be of use; but he was in the same listless state,
+      with no prospect of improvement&mdash;a mere child&mdash;a poor,
+      thoughtless, vacant creature&mdash;a harmless fond old man, susceptible of
+      tender love and regard for her, and of pleasant and painful impressions,
+      but alive to nothing more. It made her very sad to know that this was so&mdash;so
+      sad to see it that sometimes when he sat idly by, smiling and nodding to
+      her when she looked round, or when he caressed some little child and
+      carried it to and fro, as he was fond of doing by the hour together,
+      perplexed by its simple questions, yet patient under his own infirmity,
+      and seeming almost conscious of it too, and humbled even before the mind
+      of an infant&mdash;so sad it made her to see him thus, that she would
+      burst into tears, and, withdrawing into some secret place, fall down upon
+      her knees and pray that he might be restored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, the bitterness of her grief was not in beholding him in this
+      condition, when he was at least content and tranquil, nor in her solitary
+      meditations on his altered state, though these were trials for a young
+      heart. Cause for deeper and heavier sorrow was yet to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, a holiday night with them, Nell and her grandfather went out
+      to walk. They had been rather closely confined for some days, and the
+      weather being warm, they strolled a long distance. Clear of the town, they
+      took a footpath which struck through some pleasant fields, judging that it
+      would terminate in the road they quitted and enable them to return that
+      way. It made, however, a much wider circuit than they had supposed, and
+      thus they were tempted onward until sunset, when they reached the track of
+      which they were in search, and stopped to rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and
+      lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up masses of
+      gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there
+      through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth. The wind
+      began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down carrying glad day
+      elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it, menaced
+      thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the
+      storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left
+      behind and spread over all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of
+      distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an
+      hour seemed to have gathered in an instant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fearful of taking shelter beneath a tree or hedge, the old man and the
+      child hurried along the high road, hoping to find some house in which they
+      could seek a refuge from the storm, which had now burst forth in earnest,
+      and every moment increased in violence. Drenched with the pelting rain,
+      confused by the deafening thunder, and bewildered by the glare of the
+      forked lightning, they would have passed a solitary house without being
+      aware of its vicinity, had not a man, who was standing at the door, called
+      lustily to them to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Your ears ought to be better than other folks' at any rate, if you make
+      so little of the chance of being struck blind,' he said, retreating from
+      the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the jagged lightning came
+      again. 'What were you going past for, eh?' he added, as he closed the door
+      and led the way along a passage to a room behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We didn't see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,' Nell replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No wonder,' said the man, 'with this lightning in one's eyes, by-the-by.
+      You had better stand by the fire here, and dry yourselves a bit. You can
+      call for what you like if you want anything. If you don't want anything,
+      you are not obliged to give an order. Don't be afraid of that. This is a
+      public-house, that's all. The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known
+      hereabouts.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, Sir?' asked Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I thought everybody knew that,' replied the landlord. 'Where have you
+      come from, if you don't know the Valiant Soldier as well as the church
+      catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves&mdash;Jem Groves&mdash;honest
+      Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral character, and has a good dry
+      skittle-ground. If any man has got anything to say again Jem Groves, let
+      him say it <i>to</i> Jem Groves, and Jem Groves can accommodate him with a
+      customer on any terms from four pound a side to forty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to intimate
+      that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized; sparred scientifically at
+      a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at society in general from a
+      black frame over the chimney-piece; and, applying a half-emptied glass of
+      spirits and water to his lips, drank Jem Groves's health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the room, for
+      a barrier against the heat of the fire. It seemed as if somebody on the
+      other side of this screen had been insinuating doubts of Mr Groves's
+      prowess, and had thereby given rise to these egotistical expressions, for
+      Mr Groves wound up his defiance by giving a loud knock upon it with his
+      knuckles and pausing for a reply from the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There an't many men,' said Mr Groves, no answer being returned, 'who
+      would ventur' to cross Jem Groves under his own roof. There's only one
+      man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that man's not a hundred
+      mile from here neither. But he's worth a dozen men, and I let him say of
+      me whatever he likes in consequence&mdash;he knows that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade
+      Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.' And the same voice remarked
+      that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in brag, for most people
+      knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was made of.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nell, they're&mdash;they're playing cards,' whispered the old man,
+      suddenly interested. 'Don't you hear them?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Look sharp with that candle,' said the voice; 'it's as much as I can do
+      to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter closed as
+      quick as you can, will you? Your beer will be the worse for to-night's
+      thunder I expect.&mdash;Game! Seven-and-sixpence to me, old Isaac. Hand
+      over.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?' whispered the old man again, with
+      increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I haven't seen such a storm as this,' said a sharp cracked voice of most
+      disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had died away,
+      'since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen times running on the
+      red. We all said he had the Devil's luck and his own, and as it was the
+      kind of night for the Devil to be out and busy, I suppose he was looking
+      over his shoulder, if anybody could have seen him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you hear what he says?' whispered the old man. 'Do you hear that,
+      Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;better let me throw it
+      away, than you take it now. Let us go; do let us go.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Give me the money,' returned the old man, 'I must have it. There&mdash;there&mdash;that's
+      my dear Nell. I'll right thee one day, child, I'll right thee, never
+      fear!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;stooping, and high in the
+      shoulders&mdash;with a very ill-favoured face, and a most sinister and
+      villainous squint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now old gentleman,' said Isaac, looking round. 'Do you know either of us?
+      This side of the screen is private, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No offence, I hope,' returned the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But by G&mdash;, sir, there is offence,' said the other, interrupting
+      him, 'when you intrude yourself upon a couple of gentlemen who are
+      particularly engaged.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I had no intention to offend,' said the old man, looking anxiously at the
+      cards. 'I thought that&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now bully boy,' said the stout man, raising his eyes from his cards for
+      the first time, 'can't you let him speak?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well then, do it, will you?' said the landlord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr List's squint assumed a portentous character, which seemed to threaten
+      a prolongation of this controversy, when his companion, who had been
+      looking sharply at the old man, put a timely stop to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I did mean it,' cried the old man. 'That is what I mean. That is what I
+      want now!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We'll make a four-handed game of it, and take in Groves,' said the stout
+      man. 'Come, Jemmy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come; and we may be so happy,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We <i>will </i>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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'God help us!' cried the child. 'Oh! what hard fortune brought us here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, mister,' said the stout man. 'If you're not coming yourself, give us
+      the cards, will you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;all&mdash;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!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;nothing venture, nothing have&mdash;but the gentleman knows
+      best.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why I am ready. You have all been slow but me,' said the old man. 'I
+      wonder who is more anxious to begin than I.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three closing
+      round it at the same time, the game commenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the contrary, the other three&mdash;knaves and gamesters by their trade&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0219m.jpg" alt="0219m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0219.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap30"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 30
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;and there&mdash;and here
+      again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Put them away,' urged the child. 'Try to forget them.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Try to forget them!' he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers, and
+      regarding her with an incredulous stare. 'To forget them! How are we ever
+      to grow rich if I forget them?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child could only shake her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;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&mdash;nothing. Come, I am
+      ready.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you know what the time is?' said Mr Groves, who was smoking with his
+      friends. 'Past twelve o'clock&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;And a rainy night,' added the stout man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total two
+      shillings and sixpence,' replied the Valiant Soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I had had but that money before&mdash;If I had only known of it a few
+      minutes ago!' muttered the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We will decide to stop here if you please,' said Nell, turning hastily to
+      the landlord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I think that's prudent,' returned Mr Groves. 'You shall have your suppers
+      directly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 embraced an opportunity of following
+      the landlord when he went out of the room, and tendered it to him in the
+      little bar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Will you give me the change here, if you please?' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, and, being very certain that no person
+      had passed in or out while she stood there, the thought struck her that
+      she had been watched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a final promise of knocking at the
+      door early in the morning&mdash;and 'Good night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 her. The men were very
+      ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and murdering
+      travellers. Who could tell?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a little
+      while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the night gave
+      rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in her grandfather's breast,
+      and to what further distraction it might tempt him Heaven only knew. What
+      fears their absence might have occasioned already! Persons might be
+      seeking for them even then. Would they be forgiven in the morning, or
+      turned adrift again! Oh! why had they stopped in that strange place? It
+      would have been better, under any circumstances, to have gone on!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, sleep gradually stole upon her&mdash;a broken, fitful sleep,
+      troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start
+      and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this&mdash;and then&mdash;What!
+      That figure in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light
+      when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the
+      dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with noiseless
+      hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry for help, no
+      power to move, but lay still, watching it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On it came&mdash;on, silently and stealthily, to the bed's head. The
+      breath so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those
+      wandering hands should light upon her face. Back again it stole to the
+      window&mdash;then turned its head towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the room, but
+      she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how the eyes looked and
+      the ears listened. There it remained, motionless as she. At length, still
+      keeping the face towards her, it busied its hands in something, and she
+      heard the chink of money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and replacing the
+      garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon its hands and knees,
+      and crawled away. How slowly it seemed to move, now that she could hear
+      but not see it, creeping along the floor! It reached the door at last, and
+      stood upon its feet. The steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it
+      was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being by
+      herself in that room&mdash;to have somebody by&mdash;not to be alone&mdash;and
+      then her power of speech would be restored. With no consciousness of
+      having moved, she gained the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the darkness
+      without being seized, but her blood curdled at the thought. The figure
+      stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly, but of necessity; for going
+      back into the room was hardly less terrible than going on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing streams
+      from the thatched roof. Some summer insect, with no escape into the air,
+      flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the walls and ceiling,
+      and filling the silent place with murmurs. The figure moved again. The
+      child involuntarily did the same. Once in her grandfather's room, she
+      would be safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she longed so
+      ardently to reach. The child, in the agony of being so near, had almost
+      darted forward with the design of bursting into the room and closing it
+      behind her, when the figure stopped again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea flashed suddenly upon her&mdash;what if it entered there, and had
+      a design upon the old man's life! She turned faint and sick. It did. It
+      went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now within the chamber,
+      and she, still dumb&mdash;quite dumb, and almost senseless&mdash;stood
+      looking on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but meaning to
+      preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and looked in. What sight was that which met her view!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a table sat
+      the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face
+      pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally
+      bright&mdash;counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap31"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 31
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ith steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had
+      approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her way
+      back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately felt was nothing
+      compared with that which now oppressed her. No strange robber, no
+      treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing to
+      their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however
+      terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread which
+      the recognition of her silent visitor inspired. The grey-headed old man
+      gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while he supposed
+      her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the
+      ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse&mdash;immeasurably worse,
+      and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon&mdash;than anything
+      her wildest fancy could have suggested. If he should return&mdash;there
+      was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if, distrustful of having left some
+      money yet behind, he should come back to seek for more&mdash;a vague awe
+      and horror surrounded the idea of his slinking in again with stealthy
+      tread, and turning his face toward the empty bed, while she shrank down
+      close at his feet to avoid his touch, which was almost insupportable. She
+      sat and listened. Hark! A footstep on the stairs, and now the door was
+      slowly opening. It was but imagination, yet imagination had all the
+      terrors of reality; nay, it was worse, for the reality would have come and
+      gone, and there an end, but in imagination it was always coming, and never
+      went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The feeling which beset the child was one of dim uncertain horror. She had
+      no fear of the dear old grandfather, in whose love for her this disease of
+      the brain had been engendered; but the man she had seen that night, wrapt
+      in the game of chance, lurking in her room, and counting the money by the
+      glimmering light, seemed like another creature in his shape, a monstrous
+      distortion of his image, a something to recoil from, and be the more
+      afraid of, because it bore a likeness to him, and kept close about her, as
+      he did. She could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion, save by
+      his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him. She had wept to
+      see him dull and quiet. How much greater cause she had for weeping now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child sat watching and thinking of these things, until the phantom in
+      her mind so increased in gloom and terror, that she felt it would be a
+      relief to hear the old man's voice, or, if he were asleep, even to see
+      him, and banish some of the fears that clustered round his image. She
+      stole down the stairs and passage again. The door was still ajar as she
+      had left it, and the candle burning as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had her own candle in her hand, prepared to say, if he were waking,
+      that she was uneasy and could not rest, and had come to see if his were
+      still alight. Looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his bed,
+      and so took courage to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fast asleep. No passion in the face, no avarice, no anxiety, no wild
+      desire; all gentle, tranquil, and at peace. This was not the gambler, or
+      the shadow in her room; this was not even the worn and jaded man whose
+      face had so often met her own in the grey morning light; this was her dear
+      old friend, her harmless fellow-traveller, her good, kind grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had a
+      deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'God bless him!' said the child, stooping softly to kiss his placid cheek.
+      'I see too well now, that they would indeed part us if they found us out,
+      and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. He has only me to help
+      him. God bless us both!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and,
+      gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that long,
+      long, miserable night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the day turned her waning candle pale, and she fell asleep. She
+      was quickly roused by the girl who had shown her up to bed; and, as soon
+      as she was dressed, prepared to go down to her grandfather. But first she
+      searched her pocket and found that her money was all gone&mdash;not a
+      sixpence remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man was ready, and in a few seconds they were on their road. The
+      child thought he rather avoided her eye, and appeared to expect that she
+      would tell him of her loss. She felt she must do that, or he might suspect
+      the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Grandfather,' she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked about
+      a mile in silence, 'do you think they are honest people at the house
+      yonder?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why?' returned the old man trembling. 'Do I think them honest&mdash;yes,
+      they played honestly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll tell you why I ask,' rejoined Nell. 'I lost some money last night&mdash;out
+      of my bedroom, I am sure. Unless it was taken by somebody in jest&mdash;only
+      in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh heartily if I could
+      but know it&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who would take money in jest?' returned the old man in a hurried manner.
+      'Those who take money, take it to keep. Don't talk of jest.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then it was stolen out of my room, dear,' said the child, whose last hope
+      was destroyed by the manner of this reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But is there no more, Nell?' said the old man; 'no more anywhere? Was it
+      all taken&mdash;every farthing of it&mdash;was there nothing left?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing,' replied the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We must get more,' said the old man, 'we must earn it, Nell, hoard it up,
+      scrape it together, come by it somehow. Never mind this loss. Tell nobody
+      of it, and perhaps we may regain it. Don't ask how;&mdash;we may regain
+      it, and a great deal more;&mdash;but tell nobody, or trouble may come of
+      it. And so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert asleep!' he added
+      in a compassionate tone, very different from the secret, cunning way in
+      which he had spoken until now. 'Poor Nell, poor little Nell!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child hung down her head and wept. The sympathising tone in which he
+      spoke, was quite sincere; she was sure of that. It was not the lightest
+      part of her sorrow to know that this was done for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not a word about it to any one but me,' said the old man, 'no, not even
+      to me,' he added hastily, 'for it can do no good. All the losses that ever
+      were, are not worth tears from thy eyes, darling. Why should they be, when
+      we will win them back?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let them go,' said the child looking up. 'Let them go, once and for ever,
+      and I would never shed another tear if every penny had been a thousand
+      pounds.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, well,' returned the old man, checking himself as some impetuous
+      answer rose to his lips, 'she knows no better. I ought to be thankful of
+      it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But listen to me,' said the child earnestly, 'will you listen to me?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye, aye, I'll listen,' returned the old man, still without looking at
+      her; 'a pretty voice. It has always a sweet sound to me. It always had
+      when it was her mother's, poor child.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let me persuade you, then&mdash;oh, do let me persuade you,' said the
+      child, 'to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the
+      fortune we pursue together.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We pursue this aim together,' retorted her grandfather, still looking
+      away and seeming to confer with himself. 'Whose image sanctifies the
+      game?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have we been worse off,' resumed the child, 'since you forgot these
+      cares, and we have been travelling on together? Have we not been much
+      better and happier without a home to shelter us, than ever we were in that
+      unhappy house, when they were on your mind?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She speaks the truth,' murmured the old man in the same tone as before.
+      'It must not turn me, but it is the truth; no doubt it is.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we turned
+      our backs upon it for the last time,' said Nell, 'only remember what we
+      have been since we have been free of all those miseries&mdash;what
+      peaceful days and quiet nights we have had&mdash;what pleasant times we
+      have known&mdash;what happiness we have enjoyed. If we have been tired or
+      hungry, we have been soon refreshed, and slept the sounder for it. Think
+      what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have felt. And
+      why was this blessed change?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no more
+      just then, for he was busy. After a time he kissed her cheek, still
+      motioning her to silence, and walked on, looking far before him, and
+      sometimes stopping and gazing with a puckered brow upon the ground, as if
+      he were painfully trying to collect his disordered thoughts. Once she saw
+      tears in his eyes. When he had gone on thus for some time, he took her
+      hand in his as he was accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or
+      animation of his late manner; and so, by degrees so fine that the child
+      could not trace them, he settled down into his usual quiet way, and
+      suffered her to lead him where she would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they presented themselves in the midst of the stupendous collection,
+      they found, as Nell had anticipated, that Mrs Jarley was not yet out of
+      bed, and that, although she had suffered some uneasiness on their account
+      overnight, and had indeed sat up for them until past eleven o'clock, she
+      had retired in the persuasion, that, being overtaken by storm at some
+      distance from home, they had sought the nearest shelter, and would not
+      return before morning. Nell immediately applied herself with great
+      assiduity to the decoration and preparation of the room, and had the
+      satisfaction of completing her task, and dressing herself neatly, before
+      the beloved of the Royal Family came down to breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We haven't had,' said Mrs Jarley when the meal was over, 'more than eight
+      of Miss Monflathers's young ladies all the time we've been here, and
+      there's twenty-six of 'em, as I was told by the cook when I asked her a
+      question or two and put her on the free-list. We must try 'em with a
+      parcel of new bills, and you shall take it, my dear, and see what effect
+      that has upon 'em.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proposed expedition being one of paramount importance, Mrs Jarley
+      adjusted Nell's bonnet with her own hands, and declaring that she
+      certainly did look very pretty, and reflected credit on the establishment,
+      dismissed her with many commendations, and certain needful directions as
+      to the turnings on the right which she was to take, and the turnings on
+      the left which she was to avoid. Thus instructed, Nell had no difficulty
+      in finding out Miss Monflathers's Boarding and Day Establishment, which
+      was a large house, with a high wall, and a large garden-gate with a large
+      brass plate, and a small grating through which Miss Monflathers's
+      parlour-maid inspected all visitors before admitting them; for nothing in
+      the shape of a man&mdash;no, not even a milkman&mdash;was suffered,
+      without special license, to pass that gate. Even the tax-gatherer, who was
+      stout, and wore spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat, had the taxes handed
+      through the grating. More obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this
+      gate of Miss Monflathers's frowned on all mankind. The very butcher
+      respected it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the
+      bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges with a
+      creaking noise, and, forth from the solemn grove beyond, came a long file
+      of young ladies, two and two, all with open books in their hands, and some
+      with parasols likewise. And last of the goodly procession came Miss
+      Monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac silk, and supported by two
+      smiling teachers, each mortally envious of the other, and devoted unto
+      Miss Monflathers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, Nell stood with downcast
+      eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until Miss Monflathers,
+      bringing up the rear, approached her, when she curtseyed and presented her
+      little packet; on receipt whereof Miss Monflathers commanded that the line
+      should halt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're the wax-work child, are you not?' said Miss Monflathers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, ma'am,' replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had
+      collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were fixed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child,' said Miss
+      Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no opportunity
+      of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the young ladies, 'to
+      be a wax-work child at all?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing
+      what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't you know,' said Miss Monflathers, 'that it's very naughty and
+      unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly
+      transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their dormant
+      state through the medium of cultivation?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this home-thrust,
+      and looked at Nell as though they would have said that there indeed Miss
+      Monflathers had hit her very hard. Then they smiled and glanced at Miss
+      Monflathers, and then, their eyes meeting, they exchanged looks which
+      plainly said that each considered herself smiler in ordinary to Miss
+      Monflathers, and regarded the other as having no right to smile, and that
+      her so doing was an act of presumption and impertinence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't you feel how naughty it is of you,' resumed Miss Monflathers, 'to
+      be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud consciousness of
+      assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of your
+      country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of the
+      steam-engine; and of earning a comfortable and independent subsistence of
+      from two-and-ninepence to three shillings per week? Don't you know that
+      the harder you are at work, the happier you are?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '"How doth the little&mdash;"' murmured one of the teachers, in quotation
+      from Doctor Watts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Eh?' said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round. 'Who said that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who had,
+      whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace; by that
+      means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The little busy bee,' said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up, 'is
+      applicable only to genteel children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In books, or work, or healthful play"<br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means painting
+      on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery. In such cases as these,'
+      pointing to Nell, with her parasol, 'and in the case of all poor people's
+      children, we should read it thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="poem">
+      "In work, work, work. In work alway<br /> Let my first years be past,<br />
+      That I may give for ev'ry day<br /> Some good account at last."'<br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but from all
+      the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss Monflathers
+      improvising after this brilliant style; for although she had been long
+      known as a politician, she had never appeared before as an original poet.
+      Just then somebody happened to discover that Nell was crying, and all eyes
+      were again turned towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief to
+      brush them away, she happened to let it fall. Before she could stoop to
+      pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who had been
+      standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no recognised
+      place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand. She was gliding
+      timidly away again, when she was arrested by the governess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It was Miss Edwards who did that, I <i>know</i>,' said Miss Monflathers
+      predictively. 'Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss
+      Edwards herself admitted that it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it not,' said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a
+      severer view of the offender, 'a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards, that
+      you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you to
+      their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that all I
+      say and do will not wean you from propensities which your original station
+      in life have unhappily rendered habitual to you, you extremely
+      vulgar-minded girl?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I really intended no harm, ma'am,' said a sweet voice. 'It was a
+      momentary impulse, indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'An impulse!' repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully. 'I wonder that you
+      presume to speak of impulses to me'&mdash;both the teachers assented&mdash;'I
+      am astonished'&mdash;both the teachers were astonished&mdash;'I suppose it
+      is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and
+      debased person that comes in your way'&mdash;both the teachers supposed so
+      too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,' resumed the governess in a tone
+      of increased severity, 'that you cannot be permitted&mdash;if it be only
+      for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this
+      establishment&mdash;that you cannot be permitted, and that you shall not
+      be permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in this exceedingly
+      gross manner. If you have no reason to feel a becoming pride before
+      wax-work children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must
+      either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, Miss
+      Edwards.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the school&mdash;taught
+      for nothing&mdash;teaching others what she learnt, for nothing&mdash;boarded
+      for nothing&mdash;lodged for nothing&mdash;and set down and rated as
+      something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers in the
+      house. The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for they were better
+      treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations with much
+      more respect. The teachers were infinitely superior, for they had paid to
+      go to school in their time, and were paid now. The pupils cared little for
+      a companion who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to
+      come with post-horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and
+      wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear her home
+      for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and nothing to display.
+      But why was Miss Monflathers always vexed and irritated with the poor
+      apprentice&mdash;how did that come to pass?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers's cap, and the brightest glory
+      of Miss Monflathers's school, was a baronet's daughter&mdash;the real live
+      daughter of a real live baronet&mdash;who, by some extraordinary reversal
+      of the Laws of Nature, was not only plain in features but dull in
+      intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit, and a handsome
+      face and figure. It seems incredible. Here was Miss Edwards, who only paid
+      a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and
+      excelling the baronet's daughter, who learned all the extras (or was
+      taught them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to double that of any
+      other young lady's in the school, making no account of the honour and
+      reputation of her pupilage. Therefore, and because she was a dependent,
+      Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss Edwards, and was spiteful to
+      her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had compassion on little Nell,
+      verbally fell upon and maltreated her as we have already seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,' said Miss Monflathers.
+      'Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to leave it without
+      permission.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in nautical
+      phrase, 'brought to' by a subdued shriek from Miss Monflathers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She has passed me without any salute!' cried the governess, raising her
+      eyes to the sky. 'She has actually passed me without the slightest
+      acknowledgment of my presence!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady turned and curtsied. Nell could see that she raised her
+      dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and that
+      of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most touching
+      appeal against this ungenerous usage. Miss Monflathers only tossed her
+      head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As for you, you wicked child,' said Miss Monflathers, turning to Nell,
+      'tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty of sending to
+      me any more, I will write to the legislative authorities and have her put
+      in the stocks, or compelled to do penance in a white sheet; and you may
+      depend upon it that you shall certainly experience the treadmill if you
+      dare to come here again. Now ladies, on.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols, and
+      Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet's daughter to walk with her and
+      smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers&mdash;who by this
+      time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy&mdash;and left them
+      to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little more for being obliged
+      to walk together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap32"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 32
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>rs Jarley's wrath on first learning that she had been threatened with the
+      indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description. The genuine and
+      only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by children, and flouted by
+      beadles! The delight of the Nobility and Gentry shorn of a bonnet which a
+      Lady Mayoress might have sighed to wear, and arrayed in a white sheet as a
+      spectacle of mortification and humility! And Miss Monflathers, the
+      audacious creature who presumed, even in the dimmest and remotest distance
+      of her imagination, to conjure up the degrading picture, 'I am a'most
+      inclined,' said Mrs Jarley, bursting with the fulness of her anger and the
+      weakness of her means of revenge, 'to turn atheist when I think of it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on second
+      thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering glasses to be
+      set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into a chair behind it,
+      called her satellites about her, and to them several times recounted, word
+      for word, the affronts she had received. This done, she begged them in a
+      kind of deep despair to drink; then laughed, then cried, then took a
+      little sip herself, then laughed and cried again, and took a little more;
+      and so, by degrees, the worthy lady went on, increasing in smiles and
+      decreasing in tears, until at last she could not laugh enough at Miss
+      Monflathers, who, from being an object of dire vexation, became one of
+      sheer ridicule and absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For which of us is best off, I wonder,' quoth Mrs Jarley, 'she or me!
+      It's only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks of me in
+      the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is a good deal
+      funnier if we come to that. Lord, what does it matter, after all!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had been
+      greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of the
+      philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind words, and
+      requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought of Miss
+      Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her, all the days of
+      her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So ended Mrs Jarley's wrath, which subsided long before the going down of
+      the sun. Nell's anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind, and the checks
+      they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so easily removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and did not
+      come back until the night was far spent. Worn out as she was, and fatigued
+      in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the minutes, until he
+      returned&mdash;penniless, broken-spirited, and wretched, but still hotly
+      bent upon his infatuation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Get me money,' he said wildly, as they parted for the night. 'I must have
+      money, Nell. It shall be paid thee back with gallant interest one day, but
+      all the money that comes into thy hands, must be mine&mdash;not for
+      myself, but to use for thee. Remember, Nell, to use for thee!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him every
+      penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to rob their
+      benefactress? If she told the truth (so thought the child) he would be
+      treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with money, he would supply
+      himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that burnt him up, and put him
+      perhaps beyond recovery. Distracted by these thoughts, borne down by the
+      weight of the sorrow which she dared not tell, tortured by a crowd of
+      apprehensions whenever the old man was absent, and dreading alike his stay
+      and his return, the colour forsook her cheek, her eye grew dim, and her
+      heart was oppressed and heavy. All her old sorrows had come back upon her,
+      augmented by new fears and doubts; by day they were ever present to her
+      mind; by night they hovered round her pillow, and haunted her in dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should often
+      revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught a hasty
+      glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief action, dwelt in
+      her memory like the kindnesses of years. She would often think, if she had
+      such a friend as that to whom to tell her griefs, how much lighter her
+      heart would be&mdash;that if she were but free to hear that voice, she
+      would be happier. Then she would wish that she were something better, that
+      she were not quite so poor and humble, that she dared address her without
+      fearing a repulse; and then feel that there was an immeasurable distance
+      between them, and have no hope that the young lady thought of her any
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had gone
+      home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in London, and
+      damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but nobody said anything
+      about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home, or whether she had any home
+      to go to, whether she was still at the school, or anything about her. But
+      one evening, as Nell was returning from a lonely walk, she happened to
+      pass the inn where the stage-coaches stopped, just as one drove up, and
+      there was the beautiful girl she so well remembered, pressing forward to
+      embrace a young child whom they were helping down from the roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than Nell, whom
+      she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five years, and to
+      bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had been saving her poor
+      means all that time. Nell felt as if her heart would break when she saw
+      them meet. They went a little apart from the knot of people who had
+      congregated about the coach, and fell upon each other's neck, and sobbed,
+      and wept with joy. Their plain and simple dress, the distance which the
+      child had come alone, their agitation and delight, and the tears they
+      shed, would have told their history by themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away, not so
+      much hand in hand as clinging to each other. 'Are you sure you're happy,
+      sister?' said the child as they passed where Nell was standing. 'Quite
+      happy now,' she answered. 'But always?' said the child. 'Ah, sister, why
+      do you turn away your face?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell could not help following at a little distance. They went to the house
+      of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a bed-room for the
+      child. 'I shall come to you early every morning,' she said, 'and we can be
+      together all the day.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Why not at night-time too? Dear sister, would
+      they be angry with you for that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like those of
+      the two sisters? Why did she bear a grateful heart because they had met,
+      and feel it pain to think that they would shortly part? Let us not believe
+      that any selfish reference&mdash;unconscious though it might have been&mdash;to
+      her own trials awoke this sympathy, but thank God that the innocent joys
+      of others can strongly move us, and that we, even in our fallen nature,
+      have one source of pure emotion which must be prized in Heaven!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By morning's cheerful glow, but oftener still by evening's gentle light,
+      the child, with a respect for the short and happy intercourse of these two
+      sisters which forbade her to approach and say a thankful word, although
+      she yearned to do so, followed them at a distance in their walks and
+      rambles, stopping when they stopped, sitting on the grass when they sat
+      down, rising when they went on, and feeling it a companionship and delight
+      to be so near them. Their evening walk was by a river's side. Here, every
+      night, the child was too, unseen by them, unthought of, unregarded; but
+      feeling as if they were her friends, as if they had confidences and trusts
+      together, as if her load were lightened and less hard to bear; as if they
+      mingled their sorrows, and found mutual consolation. It was a weak fancy
+      perhaps, the childish fancy of a young and lonely creature; but night
+      after night, and still the sisters loitered in the same place, and still
+      the child followed with a mild and softened heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was much startled, on returning home one night, to find that Mrs
+      Jarley had commanded an announcement to be prepared, to the effect that
+      the stupendous collection would only remain in its present quarters one
+      day longer; in fulfilment of which threat (for all announcements connected
+      with public amusements are well known to be irrevocable and most exact),
+      the stupendous collection shut up next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are we going from this place directly, ma'am?' said Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Look here, child,' returned Mrs Jarley. 'That'll inform you.' And so
+      saying Mrs Jarley produced another announcement, wherein it was stated,
+      that, in consequence of numerous inquiries at the wax-work door, and in
+      consequence of crowds having been disappointed in obtaining admission, the
+      Exhibition would be continued for one week longer, and would re-open next
+      day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For now that the schools are gone, and the regular sight-seers
+      exhausted,' said Mrs Jarley, 'we come to the General Public, and they want
+      stimulating.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0235m.jpg" alt="0235m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0235.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Upon the following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself behind the
+      highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished effigies before
+      mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open for the readmission of
+      a discerning and enlightened public. But the first day's operations were
+      by no means of a successful character, inasmuch as the general public,
+      though they manifested a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and
+      such of her waxen satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not
+      affected by any impulses moving them to the payment of sixpence a head.
+      Thus, notwithstanding that a great many people continued to stare at the
+      entry and the figures therein displayed; and remained there with great
+      perseverance, by the hour at a time, to hear the barrel-organ played and
+      to read the bills; and notwithstanding that they were kind enough to
+      recommend their friends to patronise the exhibition in the like manner,
+      until the door-way was regularly blockaded by half the population of the
+      town, who, when they went off duty, were relieved by the other half; it
+      was not found that the treasury was any the richer, or that the prospects
+      of the establishment were at all encouraging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this depressed state of the classical market, Mrs Jarley made
+      extraordinary efforts to stimulate the popular taste, and whet the popular
+      curiosity. Certain machinery in the body of the nun on the leads over the
+      door was cleaned up and put in motion, so that the figure shook its head
+      paralytically all day long, to the great admiration of a drunken, but very
+      Protestant, barber over the way, who looked upon the said paralytic motion
+      as typical of the degrading effect wrought upon the human mind by the
+      ceremonies of the Romish Church and discoursed upon that theme with great
+      eloquence and morality. The two carters constantly passed in and out of
+      the exhibition-room, under various disguises, protesting aloud that the
+      sight was better worth the money than anything they had beheld in all
+      their lives, and urging the bystanders, with tears in their eyes, not to
+      neglect such a brilliant gratification. Mrs Jarley sat in the pay-place,
+      chinking silver moneys from noon till night, and solemnly calling upon the
+      crowd to take notice that the price of admission was only sixpence, and
+      that the departure of the whole collection, on a short tour among the
+      Crowned Heads of Europe, was positively fixed for that day week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So be in time, be in time, be in time,' said Mrs Jarley at the close of
+      every such address. 'Remember that this is Jarley's stupendous collection
+      of upwards of One Hundred Figures, and that it is the only collection in
+      the world; all others being imposters and deceptions. Be in time, be in
+      time, be in time!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap33"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 33
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the course of this tale requires that we should become acquainted,
+      somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected with the domestic
+      economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more convenient place than the
+      present is not likely to occur for that purpose, the historian takes the
+      friendly reader by the hand, and springing with him into the air, and
+      cleaving the same at a greater rate than ever Don Cleophas Leandro Perez
+      Zambullo and his familiar travelled through that pleasant region in
+      company, alights with him upon the pavement of Bevis Marks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the
+      residence of Mr Sampson Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close upon
+      the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the dim glass
+      with his coat sleeve&mdash;much to its improvement, for it is very dirty&mdash;in
+      this parlour window in the days of its occupation by Sampson Brass, there
+      hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured by the sun, a curtain of faded
+      green, so threadbare from long service as by no means to intercept the
+      view of the little dark room, but rather to afford a favourable medium
+      through which to observe it accurately. There was not much to look at. A
+      rickety table, with spare bundles of papers, yellow and ragged from long
+      carriage in the pocket, ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a couple of
+      stools set face to face on opposite sides of this crazy piece of
+      furniture; a treacherous old chair by the fire-place, whose withered arms
+      had hugged full many a client and helped to squeeze him dry; a second-hand
+      wig box, used as a depository for blank writs and declarations and other
+      small forms of law, once the sole contents of the head which belonged to
+      the wig which belonged to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two
+      or three common books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted
+      hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with the
+      tightness of desperation to its tacks&mdash;these, with the yellow
+      wainscot of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and
+      cobwebs, were among the most prominent decorations of the office of Mr
+      Sampson Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the plate,
+      '<i>Brass</i>, Solicitor,' upon the door, and the bill, 'First floor to let to a
+      single gentleman,' which was tied to the knocker. The office commonly held
+      two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of this history, and
+      in whom it has a stronger interest and more particular concern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in these
+      pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary,
+      confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of cost increaser, Miss
+      Brass&mdash;a kind of amazon at common law, of whom it may be desirable to
+      offer a brief description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a
+      gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it repressed the
+      softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly
+      inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers who
+      had the happiness to approach her. In face she bore a striking resemblance
+      to her brother, Sampson&mdash;so exact, indeed, was the likeness between
+      them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass's maiden modesty and gentle
+      womanhood to have assumed her brother's clothes in a frolic and sat down
+      beside him, it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the
+      family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the
+      lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which, if
+      the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been mistaken
+      for a beard. These were, however, in all probability, nothing more than
+      eyelashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss Brass were quite free from
+      any such natural impertinencies. In complexion Miss Brass was sallow&mdash;rather
+      a dirty sallow, so to speak&mdash;but this hue was agreeably relieved by
+      the healthy glow which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose.
+      Her voice was exceedingly impressive&mdash;deep and rich in quality, and,
+      once heard, not easily forgotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in
+      colour not unlike the curtain of the office window, made tight to the
+      figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a
+      peculiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity
+      and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or
+      kerchief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a
+      brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which, twisted
+      into any form that happened to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful
+      head-dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, she was of a strong and vigorous
+      turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour
+      to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights,
+      which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and
+      eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like
+      many persons of great intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped
+      short where practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross,
+      fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in short,
+      transact any ordinary duty of the office down to pouncing a skin of
+      parchment or mending a pen. It is difficult to understand how, possessed
+      of these combined attractions, she should remain Miss Brass; but whether
+      she had steeled her heart against mankind, or whether those who might have
+      wooed and won her, were deterred by fears that, being learned in the law,
+      she might have too near her fingers' ends those particular statutes which
+      regulate what are familiarly termed actions for breach, certain it is that
+      she was still in a state of celibacy, and still in daily occupation of her
+      old stool opposite to that of her brother Sampson. And equally certain it
+      is, by the way, that between these two stools a great many people had come
+      to the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning Mr Sampson Brass sat upon his stool copying some legal
+      process, and viciously digging his pen deep into the paper, as if he were
+      writing upon the very heart of the party against whom it was directed; and
+      Miss Sally Brass sat upon her stool making a new pen preparatory to
+      drawing out a little bill, which was her favourite occupation; and so they
+      sat in silence for a long time, until Miss Brass broke silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you nearly done, Sammy?' said Miss Brass; for in her mild and
+      feminine lips, Sampson became Sammy, and all things were softened down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' returned her brother. 'It would have been all done though, if you
+      had helped at the right time.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes, indeed,' cried Miss Sally; 'you want my help, don't you?&mdash;<i>you</i>,
+      too, that are going to keep a clerk!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Am I going to keep a clerk for my own pleasure, or because of my own
+      wish, you provoking rascal!' said Mr Brass, putting his pen in his mouth,
+      and grinning spitefully at his sister. 'What do you taunt me about going
+      to keep a clerk for?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be observed in this place, lest the fact of Mr Brass calling a lady
+      a rascal, should occasion any wonderment or surprise, that he was so
+      habituated to having her near him in a man's capacity, that he had
+      gradually accustomed himself to talk to her as though she were really a
+      man. And this feeling was so perfectly reciprocal, that not only did Mr
+      Brass often call Miss Brass a rascal, or even put an adjective before the
+      rascal, but Miss Brass looked upon it as quite a matter of course, and was
+      as little moved as any other lady would be by being called an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What do you taunt me, after three hours' talk last night, with going to
+      keep a clerk for?' repeated Mr Brass, grinning again with the pen in his
+      mouth, like some nobleman's or gentleman's crest. 'Is it my fault?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All I know is,' said Miss Sally, smiling drily, for she delighted in
+      nothing so much as irritating her brother, 'that if every one of your
+      clients is to force us to keep a clerk, whether we want to or not, you had
+      better leave off business, strike yourself off the roll, and get taken in
+      execution, as soon as you can.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have we got any other client like him?' said Brass. 'Have we got another
+      client like him now&mdash;will you answer me that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you mean in the face!' said his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do I mean in the face!' sneered Sampson Brass, reaching over to take up
+      the bill-book, and fluttering its leaves rapidly. 'Look here&mdash;Daniel
+      Quilp, Esquire&mdash;Daniel Quilp, Esquire&mdash;Daniel Quilp, Esquire&mdash;all
+      through. Whether should I take a clerk that he recommends, and says, "this
+      is the man for you," or lose all this, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sally deigned to make no reply, but smiled again, and went on with
+      her work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But I know what it is,' resumed Brass after a short silence. 'You're
+      afraid you won't have as long a finger in the business as you've been used
+      to have. Do you think I don't see through that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The business wouldn't go on very long, I expect, without me,' returned
+      his sister composedly. 'Don't you be a fool and provoke me, Sammy, but
+      mind what you're doing, and do it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sampson Brass, who was at heart in great fear of his sister, sulkily bent
+      over his writing again, and listened as she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I determined that the clerk ought not to come, of course he wouldn't
+      be allowed to come. You know that well enough, so don't talk nonsense.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass received this observation with increased meekness, merely
+      remarking, under his breath, that he didn't like that kind of joking, and
+      that Miss Sally would be 'a much better fellow' if she forbore to
+      aggravate him. To this compliment Miss Sally replied, that she had a
+      relish for the amusement, and had no intention to forego its
+      gratification. Mr Brass not caring, as it seemed, to pursue the subject
+      any further, they both plied their pens at a great pace, and there the
+      discussion ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were thus employed, the window was suddenly darkened, as by
+      some person standing close against it. As Mr Brass and Miss Sally looked
+      up to ascertain the cause, the top sash was nimbly lowered from without,
+      and Quilp thrust in his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hallo!' he said, standing on tip-toe on the window-sill, and looking down
+      into the room. 'Is there anybody at home? Is there any of the Devil's ware
+      here? Is Brass at a premium, eh?'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0240m.jpg" alt="0240m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0240.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the lawyer in an affected ecstasy. 'Oh, very good,
+      Sir! Oh, very good indeed! Quite eccentric! Dear me, what humour he has!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is that my Sally?' croaked the dwarf, ogling the fair Miss Brass. 'Is it
+      Justice with the bandage off her eyes, and without the sword and scales?
+      Is it the Strong Arm of the Law? Is it the Virgin of Bevis?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What an amazing flow of spirits!' cried Brass. 'Upon my word, it's quite
+      extraordinary!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Open the door,' said Quilp, 'I've got him here. Such a clerk for you,
+      Brass, such a prize, such an ace of trumps. Be quick and open the door, or
+      if there's another lawyer near and he should happen to look out of window,
+      he'll snap him up before your eyes, he will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is probable that the loss of the phoenix of clerks, even to a rival
+      practitioner, would not have broken Mr Brass's heart; but, pretending
+      great alacrity, he rose from his seat, and going to the door, returned,
+      introducing his client, who led by the hand no less a person than Mr
+      Richard Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There she is,' said Quilp, stopping short at the door, and wrinkling up
+      his eyebrows as he looked towards Miss Sally; 'there is the woman I ought
+      to have married&mdash;there is the beautiful Sarah&mdash;there is the
+      female who has all the charms of her sex and none of their weaknesses. Oh
+      Sally, Sally!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this amorous address Miss Brass briefly responded 'Bother!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hard-hearted as the metal from which she takes her name,' said Quilp.
+      'Why don't she change it&mdash;melt down the brass, and take another
+      name?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hold your nonsense, Mr Quilp, do,' returned Miss Sally, with a grim
+      smile. 'I wonder you're not ashamed of yourself before a strange young
+      man.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The strange young man,' said Quilp, handing Dick Swiveller forward, 'is
+      too susceptible himself not to understand me well. This is Mr Swiveller,
+      my intimate friend&mdash;a gentleman of good family and great
+      expectations, but who, having rather involved himself by youthful
+      indiscretion, is content for a time to fill the humble station of a clerk&mdash;humble,
+      but here most enviable. What a delicious atmosphere!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Mr Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air breathed
+      by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that dainty creature, he
+      had doubtless good reason for what he said. But if he spoke of the
+      delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass's office in a literal sense, he had
+      certainly a peculiar taste, as it was of a close and earthy kind, and,
+      besides being frequently impregnated with strong whiffs of the second-hand
+      wearing apparel exposed for sale in Duke's Place and Houndsditch, had a
+      decided flavour of rats and mice, and a taint of mouldiness. Perhaps some
+      doubts of its pure delight presented themselves to Mr Swiveller, as he
+      gave vent to one or two short abrupt sniffs, and looked incredulously at
+      the grinning dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Swiveller,' said Quilp, 'being pretty well accustomed to the
+      agricultural pursuits of sowing wild oats, Miss Sally, prudently considers
+      that half a loaf is better than no bread. To be out of harm's way he
+      prudently thinks is something too, and therefore he accepts your brother's
+      offer. Brass, Mr Swiveller is yours.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am very glad, Sir,' said Mr Brass, 'very glad indeed. Mr Swiveller,
+      Sir, is fortunate enough to have your friendship. You may be very proud,
+      Sir, to have the friendship of Mr Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to give
+      him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of
+      friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared to
+      be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he stared
+      with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf beyond
+      measure. As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her hands as men
+      of business do, and took a few turns up and down the office with her pen
+      behind her ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I suppose,' said the dwarf, turning briskly to his legal friend, 'that Mr
+      Swiveller enters upon his duties at once? It's Monday morning.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At once, if you please, Sir, by all means,' returned Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Sally will teach him law, the delightful study of the law,' said
+      Quilp; 'she'll be his guide, his friend, his companion, his Blackstone,
+      his Coke upon Littleton, his Young Lawyer's Best Companion.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He is exceedingly eloquent,' said Brass, like a man abstracted, and
+      looking at the roofs of the opposite houses, with his hands in his
+      pockets; 'he has an extraordinary flow of language. Beautiful, really.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'With Miss Sally,' Quilp went on, 'and the beautiful fictions of the law,
+      his days will pass like minutes. Those charming creations of the poet,
+      John Doe and Richard Roe, when they first dawn upon him, will open a new
+      world for the enlargement of his mind and the improvement of his heart.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Beau-ti-ful indeed!' cried Brass. 'It's a treat
+      to hear him!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where will Mr Swiveller sit?' said Quilp, looking round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, we'll buy another stool, sir,' returned Brass. 'We hadn't any
+      thoughts of having a gentleman with us, sir, until you were kind enough to
+      suggest it, and our accommodation's not extensive. We'll look about for a
+      second-hand stool, sir. In the meantime, if Mr Swiveller will take my
+      seat, and try his hand at a fair copy of this ejectment, as I shall be out
+      pretty well all the morning&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Walk with me,' said Quilp. 'I have a word or two to say to you on points
+      of business. Can you spare the time?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Can I spare the time to walk with you, sir? You're joking, sir, you're
+      joking with me,' replied the lawyer, putting on his hat. 'I'm ready, sir,
+      quite ready. My time must be fully occupied indeed, sir, not to leave me
+      time to walk with you. It's not everybody, sir, who has an opportunity of
+      improving himself by the conversation of Mr Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf glanced sarcastically at his brazen friend, and, with a short
+      dry cough, turned upon his heel to bid adieu to Miss Sally. After a very
+      gallant parting on his side, and a very cool and gentlemanly sort of one
+      on hers, he nodded to Dick Swiveller, and withdrew with the attorney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick stood at the desk in a state of utter stupefaction, staring with all
+      his might at the beauteous Sally, as if she had been some curious animal
+      whose like had never lived. When the dwarf got into the street, he mounted
+      again upon the window-sill, and looked into the office for a moment with a
+      grinning face, as a man might peep into a cage. Dick glanced upward at
+      him, but without any token of recognition; and long after he had
+      disappeared, still stood gazing upon Miss Sally Brass, seeing or thinking
+      of nothing else, and rooted to the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Brass being by this time deep in the bill of costs, took no notice
+      whatever of Dick, but went scratching on, with a noisy pen, scoring down
+      the figures with evident delight, and working like a steam-engine. There
+      stood Dick, gazing now at the green gown, now at the brown head-dress, now
+      at the face, and now at the rapid pen, in a state of stupid perplexity,
+      wondering how he got into the company of that strange monster, and whether
+      it was a dream and he would ever wake. At last he heaved a deep sigh, and
+      began slowly pulling off his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller pulled off his coat, and folded it up with great elaboration,
+      staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue jacket with a
+      double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally ordered for aquatic
+      expeditions, but had brought with him that morning for office purposes;
+      and, still keeping his eye upon her, suffered himself to drop down
+      silently upon Mr Brass's stool. Then he underwent a relapse, and becoming
+      powerless again, rested his chin upon his hand, and opened his eyes so
+      wide, that it appeared quite out of the question that he could ever close
+      them any more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had looked so long that he could see nothing, Dick took his eyes
+      off the fair object of his amazement, turned over the leaves of the draft
+      he was to copy, dipped his pen into the inkstand, and at last, and by slow
+      approaches, began to write. But he had not written half-a-dozen words
+      when, reaching over to the inkstand to take a fresh dip, he happened to
+      raise his eyes. There was the intolerable brown head-dress&mdash;there was
+      the green gown&mdash;there, in short, was Miss Sally Brass, arrayed in all
+      her charms, and more tremendous than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This happened so often, that Mr Swiveller by degrees began to feel strange
+      influences creeping over him&mdash;horrible desires to annihilate this
+      Sally Brass&mdash;mysterious promptings to knock her head-dress off and
+      try how she looked without it. There was a very large ruler on the table;
+      a large, black, shining ruler. Mr Swiveller took it up and began to rub
+      his nose with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From rubbing his nose with the ruler, to poising it in his hand and giving
+      it an occasional flourish after the tomahawk manner, the transition was
+      easy and natural. In some of these flourishes it went close to Miss
+      Sally's head; the ragged edges of the head-dress fluttered with the wind
+      it raised; advance it but an inch, and that great brown knot was on the
+      ground: yet still the unconscious maiden worked away, and never raised her
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, this was a great relief. It was a good thing to write doggedly and
+      obstinately until he was desperate, and then snatch up the ruler and whirl
+      it about the brown head-dress with the consciousness that he could have it
+      off if he liked. It was a good thing to draw it back, and rub his nose
+      very hard with it, if he thought Miss Sally was going to look up, and to
+      recompense himself with more hardy flourishes when he found she was still
+      absorbed. By these means Mr Swiveller calmed the agitation of his
+      feelings, until his applications to the ruler became less fierce and
+      frequent, and he could even write as many as half-a-dozen consecutive
+      lines without having recourse to it&mdash;which was a great victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap34"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 34
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>n course of time, that is to say, after a couple of hours or so, of
+      diligent application, Miss Brass arrived at the conclusion of her task,
+      and recorded the fact by wiping her pen upon the green gown, and taking a
+      pinch of snuff from a little round tin box which she carried in her
+      pocket. Having disposed of this temperate refreshment, she arose from her
+      stool, tied her papers into a formal packet with red tape, and taking them
+      under her arm, marched out of the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller had scarcely sprung off his seat and commenced the
+      performance of a maniac hornpipe, when he was interrupted, in the fulness
+      of his joy at being again alone, by the opening of the door, and the
+      reappearance of Miss Sally's head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am going out,' said Miss Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very good, ma'am,' returned Dick. 'And don't hurry yourself on my account
+      to come back, ma'am,' he added inwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If anybody comes on office business, take their messages, and say that
+      the gentleman who attends to that matter isn't in at present, will you?'
+      said Miss Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I will, ma'am,' replied Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shan't be very long,' said Miss Brass, retiring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm sorry to hear it, ma'am,' rejoined Dick when she had shut the door.
+      'I hope you may be unexpectedly detained, ma'am. If you could manage to be
+      run over, ma'am, but not seriously, so much the better.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uttering these expressions of good-will with extreme gravity, Mr Swiveller
+      sat down in the client's chair and pondered; then took a few turns up and
+      down the room and fell into the chair again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So I'm Brass's clerk, am I?' said Dick. 'Brass's clerk, eh? And the clerk
+      of Brass's sister&mdash;clerk to a female Dragon. Very good, very good!
+      What shall I be next? Shall I be a convict in a felt hat and a grey suit,
+      trotting about a dockyard with my number neatly embroidered on my uniform,
+      and the order of the garter on my leg, restrained from chafing my ankle by
+      a twisted belcher handkerchief? Shall I be that? Will that do, or is it
+      too genteel? Whatever you please, have it your own way, of course.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was entirely alone, it may be presumed that, in these remarks, Mr
+      Swiveller addressed himself to his fate or destiny, whom, as we learn by
+      the precedents, it is the custom of heroes to taunt in a very bitter and
+      ironical manner when they find themselves in situations of an unpleasant
+      nature. This is the more probable from the circumstance of Mr Swiveller
+      directing his observations to the ceiling, which these bodily personages
+      are usually supposed to inhabit&mdash;except in theatrical cases, when
+      they live in the heart of the great chandelier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quilp offers me this place, which he says he can insure me,' resumed Dick
+      after a thoughtful silence, and telling off the circumstances of his
+      position, one by one, upon his fingers; 'Fred, who, I could have taken my
+      affidavit, would not have heard of such a thing, backs Quilp to my
+      astonishment, and urges me to take it also&mdash;staggerer, number one! My
+      aunt in the country stops the supplies, and writes an affectionate note to
+      say that she has made a new will, and left me out of it&mdash;staggerer,
+      number two. No money; no credit; no support from Fred, who seems to turn
+      steady all at once; notice to quit the old lodgings&mdash;staggerers,
+      three, four, five, and six! Under an accumulation of staggerers, no man
+      can be considered a free agent. No man knocks himself down; if his destiny
+      knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again. Then I'm very glad
+      that mine has brought all this upon itself, and I shall be as careless as
+      I can, and make myself quite at home to spite it. So go on my buck,' said
+      Mr Swiveller, taking his leave of the ceiling with a significant nod, 'and
+      let us see which of us will be tired first!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dismissing the subject of his downfall with these reflections, which were
+      no doubt very profound, and are indeed not altogether unknown in certain
+      systems of moral philosophy, Mr Swiveller shook off his despondency and
+      assumed the cheerful ease of an irresponsible clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a means towards his composure and self-possession, he entered into a
+      more minute examination of the office than he had yet had time to make;
+      looked into the wig-box, the books, and ink-bottle; untied and inspected
+      all the papers; carved a few devices on the table with a sharp blade of Mr
+      Brass's penknife; and wrote his name on the inside of the wooden
+      coal-scuttle. Having, as it were, taken formal possession of his clerkship
+      in virtue of these proceedings, he opened the window and leaned
+      negligently out of it until a beer-boy happened to pass, whom he commanded
+      to set down his tray and to serve him with a pint of mild porter, which he
+      drank upon the spot and promptly paid for, with the view of breaking
+      ground for a system of future credit and opening a correspondence tending
+      thereto, without loss of time. Then, three or four little boys dropped in,
+      on legal errands from three or four attorneys of the Brass grade: whom Mr
+      Swiveller received and dismissed with about as professional a manner, and
+      as correct and comprehensive an understanding of their business, as would
+      have been shown by a clown in a pantomime under similar circumstances.
+      These things done and over, he got upon his stool again and tried his hand
+      at drawing caricatures of Miss Brass with a pen and ink, whistling very
+      cheerfully all the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was occupied in this diversion when a coach stopped near the door, and
+      presently afterwards there was a loud double-knock. As this was no
+      business of Mr Swiveller's, the person not ringing the office bell, he
+      pursued his diversion with perfect composure, notwithstanding that he
+      rather thought there was nobody else in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this, however, he was mistaken; for, after the knock had been repeated
+      with increased impatience, the door was opened, and somebody with a very
+      heavy tread went up the stairs and into the room above. Mr Swiveller was
+      wondering whether this might be another Miss Brass, twin sister to the
+      Dragon, when there came a rapping of knuckles at the office door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come in!' said Dick. 'Don't stand upon ceremony. The business will get
+      rather complicated if I've many more customers. Come in!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, please,' said a little voice very low down in the doorway, 'will you
+      come and show the lodgings?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a dirty
+      coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her face and
+      feet. She might as well have been dressed in a violin-case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, who are you?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To which the only reply was, 'Oh, please will you come and show the
+      lodgings?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and manner. She
+      must have been at work from her cradle. She seemed as much afraid of Dick,
+      as Dick was amazed at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hav'n't got anything to do with the lodgings,' said Dick. 'Tell 'em to
+      call again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,' returned the girl;
+      'It's eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and linen. Boots and
+      clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is eightpence a day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why don't you show 'em yourself? You seem to know all about 'em,' said
+      Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Sally said I wasn't to, because people wouldn't believe the
+      attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, but they'll see how small you are afterwards, won't they?' said
+      Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! But then they'll have taken 'em for a fortnight certain,' replied the
+      child with a shrewd look; 'and people don't like moving when they're once
+      settled.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is a queer sort of thing,' muttered Dick, rising. 'What do you mean
+      to say you are&mdash;the cook?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, I do plain cooking;' replied the child. 'I'm housemaid too; I do all
+      the work of the house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,' thought
+      Dick. And he might have thought much more, being in a doubtful and
+      hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her request, and certain
+      mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and staircase seemed to give note
+      of the applicant's impatience. Richard Swiveller, therefore, sticking a
+      pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his mouth as a token of his
+      great importance and devotion to business, hurried out to meet and treat
+      with the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were
+      occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman's trunk,
+      which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and exceedingly heavy
+      withal, it was no easy matter for the united exertions of the single
+      gentleman and the coachman to convey up the steep ascent. But there they
+      were, crushing each other, and pushing and pulling with all their might,
+      and getting the trunk tight and fast in all kinds of impossible angles,
+      and to pass them was out of the question; for which sufficient reason, Mr
+      Swiveller followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair
+      against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus taken by storm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word, but when
+      the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon it and wiped
+      his bald head and face with his handkerchief. He was very warm, and well
+      he might be; for, not to mention the exertion of getting the trunk up
+      stairs, he was closely muffled in winter garments, though the thermometer
+      had stood all day at eighty-one in the shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I believe, sir,' said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his mouth,
+      'that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very charming
+      apartments, sir. They command an uninterrupted view of&mdash;of over the
+      way, and they are within one minute's walk of&mdash;of the corner of the
+      street. There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in the immediate vicinity,
+      and the contingent advantages are extraordinary.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's the rent?' said the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'One pound per week,' replied Dick, improving on the terms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll take 'em.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The boots and clothes are extras,' said Dick; 'and the fires in winter
+      time are&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are all agreed to,' answered the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Two weeks certain,' said Dick, 'are the&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Two weeks!' cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from top to
+      toe. 'Two years. I shall live here for two years. Here. Ten pounds down.
+      The bargain's made.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why you see,' said Dick, 'my name is not Brass, and&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who said it was? My name's not Brass. What then?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The name of the master of the house is,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm glad of it,' returned the single gentleman; 'it's a good name for a
+      lawyer. Coachman, you may go. So may you, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding
+      roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him almost as
+      hard as he had looked at Miss Sally. The single gentleman, however, was
+      not in the slightest degree affected by this circumstance, but proceeded
+      with perfect composure to unwind the shawl which was tied round his neck,
+      and then to pull off his boots. Freed of these encumbrances, he went on to
+      divest himself of his other clothing, which he folded up, piece by piece,
+      and ranged in order on the trunk. Then, he pulled down the window-blinds,
+      drew the curtains, wound up his watch, and, quite leisurely and
+      methodically, got into bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Take down the bill,' were his parting words, as he looked out from
+      between the curtains; 'and let nobody call me till I ring the bell.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!' said Mr
+      Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand.
+      'She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like professional
+      gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing mysteriously from
+      under ground; strangers walking in and going to bed without leave or
+      licence in the middle of the day! If he should be one of the miraculous
+      fellows that turn up now and then, and has gone to sleep for two years, I
+      shall be in a pleasant situation. It's my destiny, however, and I hope
+      Brass may like it. I shall be sorry if he don't. But it's no business of
+      mine&mdash;I have nothing whatever to do with it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap35"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 35
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r Brass on returning home received the report of his clerk with much
+      complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring after the
+      ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a good and lawful note
+      of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, increased his
+      good-humour considerably. Indeed he so overflowed with liberality and
+      condescension, that, in the fulness of his heart, he invited Mr Swiveller
+      to partake of a bowl of punch with him at that remote and indefinite
+      period which is currently denominated 'one of these days,' and paid him
+      many handsome compliments on the uncommon aptitude for business which his
+      conduct on the first day of his devotion to it had so plainly evinced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a maxim with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a
+      man's tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful member ought
+      never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a
+      practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he
+      lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome
+      speeches and eulogistic expressions. And this had passed into such a habit
+      with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at
+      his fingers' ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but in
+      his face: which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and repulsive
+      character, was not oiled so easily, but frowned above all the smooth
+      speeches&mdash;one of nature's beacons, warning off those who navigated
+      the shoals and breakers of the World, or of that dangerous strait the Law,
+      and admonishing them to seek less treacherous harbours and try their
+      fortune elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Mr Brass by turns overwhelmed his clerk with compliments and
+      inspected the ten-pound note, Miss Sally showed little emotion and that of
+      no pleasurable kind, for as the tendency of her legal practice had been to
+      fix her thoughts on small gains and gripings, and to whet and sharpen her
+      natural wisdom, she was not a little disappointed that the single
+      gentleman had obtained the lodgings at such an easy rate, arguing that
+      when he was seen to have set his mind upon them, he should have been at
+      the least charged double or treble the usual terms, and that, in exact
+      proportion as he pressed forward, Mr Swiveller should have hung back. But
+      neither the good opinion of Mr Brass, nor the dissatisfaction of Miss
+      Sally, wrought any impression upon that young gentleman, who, throwing the
+      responsibility of this and all other acts and deeds thereafter to be done
+      by him, upon his unlucky destiny, was quite resigned and comfortable:
+      fully prepared for the worst, and philosophically indifferent to the best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good morning, Mr Richard,' said Brass, on the second day of Mr
+      Swiveller's clerkship. 'Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir,
+      yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She's a rare fellow at a bargain, I can
+      tell you, Mr Richard. You'll find that a first-rate stool, Sir, take my
+      word for it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's rather a crazy one to look at,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may depend,'
+      returned Mr Brass. 'It was bought in the open street just opposite the
+      hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of two, it has got
+      rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that's all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hope it hasn't got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,' said
+      Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson and the
+      chaste Sally. 'One of the legs is longer than the others.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,' retorted Brass. 'Ha, ha, ha! We get
+      a bit of timber in, Sir, and that's another advantage of my sister's going
+      to market for us. Miss Brass, Mr Richard is the&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Will you keep quiet?' interrupted the fair subject of these remarks,
+      looking up from her papers. 'How am I to work if you keep on chattering?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What an uncertain chap you are!' returned the lawyer. 'Sometimes you're
+      all for a chat. At another time you're all for work. A man never knows
+      what humour he'll find you in.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm in a working humour now,' said Sally, 'so don't disturb me, if you
+      please. And don't take him,' Miss Sally pointed with the feather of her
+      pen to Richard, 'off his business. He won't do more than he can help, I
+      dare say.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply, but
+      was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only muttered
+      something about aggravation and a vagabond; not associating the terms with
+      any individual, but mentioning them as connected with some abstract ideas
+      which happened to occur to him. They went on writing for a long time in
+      silence after this&mdash;in such a dull silence that Mr Swiveller (who
+      required excitement) had several times fallen asleep, and written divers
+      strange words in an unknown character with his eyes shut, when Miss Sally
+      at length broke in upon the monotony of the office by pulling out the
+      little tin box, taking a noisy pinch of snuff, and then expressing her
+      opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had 'done it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Done what, ma'am?' said Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you know,' returned Miss Brass, 'that the lodger isn't up yet&mdash;
+      that nothing has been seen or heard of him since he went to bed yesterday
+      afternoon?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, ma'am,' said Dick, 'I suppose he may sleep his ten pound out, in
+      peace and quietness, if he likes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! I begin to think he'll never wake,' observed Miss Sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's a very remarkable circumstance,' said Brass, laying down his pen;
+      'really, very remarkable. Mr Richard, you'll remember, if this gentleman
+      should be found to have hung himself to the bed-post, or any unpleasant
+      accident of that kind should happen&mdash;you'll remember, Mr Richard,
+      that this ten pound note was given to you in part payment of two years'
+      rent? You'll bear that in mind, Mr Richard; you had better make a note of
+      it, sir, in case you should ever be called upon to give evidence.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller took a large sheet of foolscap, and with a countenance of
+      profound gravity, began to make a very small note in one corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We can never be too cautious,' said Mr Brass. 'There is a deal of
+      wickedness going about the world, a deal of wickedness. Did the gentleman
+      happen to say, Sir&mdash;but never mind that at present, sir; finish that
+      little memorandum first.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick did so, and handed it to Mr Brass, who had dismounted from his stool,
+      and was walking up and down the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, this is the memorandum, is it?' said Brass, running his eye over the
+      document. 'Very good. Now, Mr Richard, did the gentleman say anything
+      else?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you sure, Mr Richard,' said Brass, solemnly, 'that the gentleman said
+      nothing else?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Devil a word, Sir,' replied Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Think again, Sir,' said Brass; 'it's my duty, Sir, in the position in
+      which I stand, and as an honourable member of the legal profession&mdash;the
+      first profession in this country, Sir, or in any other country, or in any
+      of the planets that shine above us at night and are supposed to be
+      inhabited&mdash;it's my duty, Sir, as an honourable member of that
+      profession, not to put to you a leading question in a matter of this
+      delicacy and importance. Did the gentleman, Sir, who took the first floor
+      of you yesterday afternoon, and who brought with him a box of property&mdash;a
+      box of property&mdash;say anything more than is set down in this
+      memorandum?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come, don't be a fool,' said Miss Sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick looked at her, and then at Brass, and then at Miss Sally again, and
+      still said 'No.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!' cried Brass,
+      relaxing into a smile. 'Did he say anything about his property?&mdash;there!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's the way to put it,' said Miss Sally, nodding to her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did he say, for instance,' added Brass, in a kind of comfortable, cozy
+      tone&mdash;'I don't assert that he did say so, mind; I only ask you, to
+      refresh your memory&mdash;did he say, for instance, that he was a stranger
+      in London&mdash;that it was not his humour or within his ability to give
+      any references&mdash;that he felt we had a right to require them&mdash;and
+      that, in case anything should happen to him, at any time, he particularly
+      desired that whatever property he had upon the premises should be
+      considered mine, as some slight recompense for the trouble and annoyance I
+      should sustain&mdash;and were you, in short,' added Brass, still more
+      comfortably and cozily than before, 'were you induced to accept him on my
+      behalf, as a tenant, upon those conditions?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly not,' replied Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why then, Mr Richard,' said Brass, darting at him a supercilious and
+      reproachful look, 'it's my opinion that you've mistaken your calling, and
+      will never make a lawyer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not if you live a thousand years,' added Miss Sally. Whereupon the
+      brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the little tin
+      box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing further passed up to Mr Swiveller's dinner-time, which was at
+      three o'clock, and seemed about three weeks in coming. At the first stroke
+      of the hour, the new clerk disappeared. At the last stroke of five, he
+      reappeared, and the office, as if by magic, became fragrant with the smell
+      of gin and water and lemon-peel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Richard,' said Brass, 'this man's not up yet. Nothing will wake him,
+      sir. What's to be done?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I should let him have his sleep out,' returned Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sleep out!' cried Brass; 'why he has been asleep now, six-and-twenty
+      hours. We have been moving chests of drawers over his head, we have
+      knocked double knocks at the street-door, we have made the servant-girl
+      fall down stairs several times (she's a light weight, and it don't hurt
+      her much,) but nothing wakes him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Perhaps a ladder,' suggested Dick, 'and getting in at the first-floor
+      window&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But then there's a door between; besides, the neighbours would be up in
+      arms,' said Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What do you say to getting on the roof of the house through the
+      trap-door, and dropping down the chimney?' suggested Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That would be an excellent plan,' said Brass, 'if anybody would be&mdash;'
+      and here he looked very hard at Mr Swiveller&mdash;'would be kind, and
+      friendly, and generous enough, to undertake it. I dare say it would not be
+      anything like as disagreeable as one supposes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick had made the suggestion, thinking that the duty might possibly fall
+      within Miss Sally's department. As he said nothing further, and declined
+      taking the hint, Mr Brass was fain to propose that they should go up
+      stairs together, and make a last effort to awaken the sleeper by some less
+      violent means, which, if they failed on this last trial, must positively
+      be succeeded by stronger measures. Mr Swiveller, assenting, armed himself
+      with his stool and the large ruler, and repaired with his employer to the
+      scene of action, where Miss Brass was already ringing a hand-bell with all
+      her might, and yet without producing the smallest effect upon their
+      mysterious lodger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There are his boots, Mr Richard!' said Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very obstinate-looking articles they are too,' quoth Richard Swiveller.
+      And truly, they were as sturdy and bluff a pair of boots as one would wish
+      to see; as firmly planted on the ground as if their owner's legs and feet
+      had been in them; and seeming, with their broad soles and blunt toes, to
+      hold possession of their place by main force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I can't see anything but the curtain of the bed,' said Brass, applying
+      his eye to the keyhole of the door. 'Is he a strong man, Mr Richard?'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0254m.jpg" alt="0254m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0254.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Very,' answered Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It would be an extremely unpleasant circumstance if he was to bounce out
+      suddenly,' said Brass. 'Keep the stairs clear. I should be more than a
+      match for him, of course, but I'm the master of the house, and the laws of
+      hospitality must be respected.&mdash;Hallo there! Hallo, hallo!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Mr Brass, with his eye curiously twisted into the keyhole, uttered
+      these sounds as a means of attracting the lodger's attention, and while
+      Miss Brass plied the hand-bell, Mr Swiveller put his stool close against
+      the wall by the side of the door, and mounting on the top and standing
+      bolt upright, so that if the lodger did make a rush, he would most
+      probably pass him in its onward fury, began a violent battery with the
+      ruler upon the upper panels of the door. Captivated with his own
+      ingenuity, and confident in the strength of his position, which he had
+      taken up after the method of those hardy individuals who open the pit and
+      gallery doors of theatres on crowded nights, Mr Swiveller rained down such
+      a shower of blows, that the noise of the bell was drowned; and the small
+      servant, who lingered on the stairs below, ready to fly at a moment's
+      notice, was obliged to hold her ears lest she should be rendered deaf for
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the door was unlocked on the inside, and flung violently open.
+      The small servant flew to the coal-cellar; Miss Sally dived into her own
+      bed-room; Mr Brass, who was not remarkable for personal courage, ran into
+      the next street, and finding that nobody followed him, armed with a poker
+      or other offensive weapon, put his hands in his pockets, walked very
+      slowly all at once, and whistled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Mr Swiveller, on the top of the stool, drew himself into as
+      flat a shape as possible against the wall, and looked, not unconcernedly,
+      down upon the single gentleman, who appeared at the door growling and
+      cursing in a very awful manner, and, with the boots in his hand, seemed to
+      have an intention of hurling them down stairs on speculation. This idea,
+      however, he abandoned. He was turning into his room again, still growling
+      vengefully, when his eyes met those of the watchful Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have <i>you </i>been making that horrible noise?' said the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have been helping, sir,' returned Dick, keeping his eye upon him, and
+      waving the ruler gently in his right hand, as an indication of what the
+      single gentleman had to expect if he attempted any violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How dare you then,' said the lodger, 'Eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this, Dick made no other reply than by inquiring whether the lodger
+      held it to be consistent with the conduct and character of a gentleman to
+      go to sleep for six-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and whether the peace
+      of an amiable and virtuous family was to weigh as nothing in the balance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is my peace nothing?' said the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is their peace nothing, sir?' returned Dick. 'I don't wish to hold out
+      any threats, sir&mdash;indeed the law does not allow of threats, for to
+      threaten is an indictable offence&mdash;but if ever you do that again,
+      take care you're not sat upon by the coroner and buried in a cross road
+      before you wake. We have been distracted with fears that you were dead,
+      Sir,' said Dick, gently sliding to the ground, 'and the short and the long
+      of it is, that we cannot allow single gentlemen to come into this
+      establishment and sleep like double gentlemen without paying extra for
+      it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed!' cried the lodger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Sir, indeed,' returned Dick, yielding to his destiny and saying
+      whatever came uppermost; 'an equal quantity of slumber was never got out
+      of one bed and bedstead, and if you're going to sleep in that way, you
+      must pay for a double-bedded room.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of being thrown into a greater passion by these remarks, the
+      lodger lapsed into a broad grin and looked at Mr Swiveller with twinkling
+      eyes. He was a brown-faced sun-burnt man, and appeared browner and more
+      sun-burnt from having a white nightcap on. As it was clear that he was a
+      choleric fellow in some respects, Mr Swiveller was relieved to find him in
+      such good humour, and, to encourage him in it, smiled himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lodger, in the testiness of being so rudely roused, had pushed his
+      nightcap very much on one side of his bald head. This gave him a rakish
+      eccentric air which, now that he had leisure to observe it, charmed Mr
+      Swiveller exceedingly; therefore, by way of propitiation, he expressed his
+      hope that the gentleman was going to get up, and further that he would
+      never do so any more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come here, you impudent rascal!' was the lodger's answer as he re-entered
+      his room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller followed him in, leaving the stool outside, but reserving the
+      ruler in case of a surprise. He rather congratulated himself on his
+      prudence when the single gentleman, without notice or explanation of any
+      kind, double-locked the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Can you drink anything?' was his next inquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller replied that he had very recently been assuaging the pangs of
+      thirst, but that he was still open to 'a modest quencher,' if the
+      materials were at hand. Without another word spoken on either side, the
+      lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of polished
+      silver, and placed it carefully on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him closely.
+      Into one little chamber of this temple, he dropped an egg; into another
+      some coffee; into a third a compact piece of raw steak from a neat tin
+      case; into a fourth, he poured some water. Then, with the aid of a
+      phosphorus-box and some matches, he procured a light and applied it to a
+      spirit-lamp which had a place of its own below the temple; then, he shut
+      down the lids of all the little chambers; then he opened them; and then,
+      by some wonderful and unseen agency, the steak was done, the egg was
+      boiled, the coffee was accurately prepared, and his breakfast was ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hot water&mdash;' said the lodger, handing it to Mr Swiveller with as
+      much coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him&mdash;'extraordinary
+      rum&mdash;sugar&mdash;and a travelling glass. Mix for yourself. And make
+      haste.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on the
+      table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which seemed to
+      hold everything. The lodger took his breakfast like a man who was used to
+      work these miracles, and thought nothing of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?' said the lodger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick nodded. The rum was amazing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The woman of the house&mdash;what's she?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A dragon,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things in his
+      travels, or perhaps because he <i>was </i>a single gentleman, evinced no
+      surprise, but merely inquired 'Wife or sister?'&mdash;'Sister,' said Dick.&mdash;'So
+      much the better,' said the single gentleman, 'he can get rid of her when
+      he likes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I want to do as I like, young man,' he added after a short silence; 'to
+      go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in when I like, go out
+      when I like&mdash;to be asked no questions and be surrounded by no spies.
+      In this last respect, servants are the devil. There's only one here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And a very little one,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And a very little one,' repeated the lodger. 'Well, the place will suit
+      me, will it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sharks, I suppose?' said the lodger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let them know my humour,' said the single gentleman, rising. 'If they
+      disturb me, they lose a good tenant. If they know me to be that, they know
+      enough. If they try to know more, it's a notice to quit. It's better to
+      understand these things at once. Good day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I beg your pardon,' said Dick, halting in his passage to the door, which
+      the lodger prepared to open. 'When he who adores thee has left but the
+      name&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What do you mean?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;But the name,' said Dick&mdash;'has left but the name&mdash;in
+      case of letters or parcels&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I never have any,' returned the lodger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Or in the case anybody should call.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nobody ever calls on me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don't say it was my
+      fault, Sir,' added Dick, still lingering.&mdash;'Oh blame not the bard&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll blame nobody,' said the lodger, with such irascibility that in a
+      moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked door between
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed, only
+      routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller's abrupt exit. As their utmost
+      exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of the interview,
+      however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence, which, though limited
+      of necessity to pushes and pinches and such quiet pantomime, had lasted
+      the whole time, they hurried him down to the office to hear his account of
+      the conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Mr Swiveller gave them&mdash;faithfully as regarded the wishes and
+      character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the great
+      trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for brilliancy of
+      imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring, with many strong
+      asseverations, that it contained a specimen of every kind of rich food and
+      wine, known in these times, and in particular that it was of a self-acting
+      kind and served up whatever was required, as he supposed by clock-work. He
+      also gave them to understand that the cooking apparatus roasted a fine
+      piece of sirloin of beef, weighing about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two
+      minutes and a quarter, as he had himself witnessed, and proved by his
+      sense of taste; and further, that, however the effect was produced, he had
+      distinctly seen water boil and bubble up when the single gentleman winked;
+      from which facts he (Mr Swiveller) was led to infer that the lodger was
+      some great conjuror or chemist, or both, whose residence under that roof
+      could not fail at some future days to shed a great credit and distinction
+      on the name of Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis
+      Marks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to enlarge
+      upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which, by reason of
+      its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the heels of the
+      temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner, awakened a slight degree of
+      fever, and rendered necessary two or three other modest quenchers at the
+      public-house in the course of the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap36"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 36
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s the single gentleman after some weeks' occupation of his lodgings,
+      still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either with Mr Brass or
+      his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard Swiveller as his channel of
+      communication; and as he proved himself in all respects a highly desirable
+      inmate, paying for everything beforehand, giving very little trouble,
+      making no noise, and keeping early hours; Mr Richard imperceptibly rose to
+      an important position in the family, as one who had influence over this
+      mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with him, for good or evil, when
+      nobody else durst approach his person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller's approaches to the single
+      gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small encouragement;
+      but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic conference with the unknown,
+      without quoting such expressions as 'Swiveller, I know I can rely upon
+      you,'&mdash;'I have no hesitation in saying, Swiveller, that I entertain a
+      regard for you,'&mdash;'Swiveller, you are my friend, and will stand by me
+      I am sure,' with many other short speeches of the same familiar and
+      confiding kind, purporting to have been addressed by the single gentleman
+      to himself, and to form the staple of their ordinary discourse, neither Mr
+      Brass nor Miss Sally for a moment questioned the extent of his influence,
+      but accorded to him their fullest and most unqualified belief.
+</p>
+    <p>
+But quite
+      apart from, and independent of, this source of popularity, Mr Swiveller
+      had another, which promised to be equally enduring, and to lighten his
+      position considerably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass. Let not the light
+      scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new tale of
+      love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass, however accurately
+      formed to be beloved, was not of the loving kind. That amiable virgin,
+      having clung to the skirts of the Law from her earliest youth; having
+      sustained herself by their aid, as it were, in her first running alone,
+      and maintained a firm grasp upon them ever since; had passed her life in a
+      kind of legal childhood. She had been remarkable, when a tender prattler
+      for an uncommon talent in counterfeiting the walk and manner of a bailiff:
+      in which character she had learned to tap her little playfellows on the
+      shoulder, and to carry them off to imaginary sponging-houses, with a
+      correctness of imitation which was the surprise and delight of all who
+      witnessed her performances, and which was only to be exceeded by her
+      exquisite manner of putting an execution into her doll's house, and taking
+      an exact inventory of the chairs and tables. These artless sports had
+      naturally soothed and cheered the decline of her widowed father: a most
+      exemplary gentleman (called 'old Foxey' by his friends from his extreme
+      sagacity,) who encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on
+      finding that he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his
+      daughter could not take out an attorney's certificate and hold a place
+      upon the roll. Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he had
+      solemnly confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable auxiliary; and
+      from the old gentleman's decease to the period of which we treat, Miss
+      Sally Brass had been the prop and pillar of his business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one
+      pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world,
+      otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted
+      with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in
+      which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for. Miss Sally's
+      accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind. They
+      began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it. She was in
+      a state of lawful innocence, so to speak. The law had been her nurse. And,
+      as bandy-legs or such physical deformities in children are held to be the
+      consequence of bad nursing, so, if in a mind so beautiful any moral twist
+      or handiness could be found, Miss Sally Brass's nurse was alone to blame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was upon this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full freshness as
+      something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up the office with
+      scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with inkstands and boxes of
+      wafers, catching three oranges in one hand, balancing stools upon his chin
+      and penknives on his nose, and constantly performing a hundred other feats
+      with equal ingenuity; for with such unbendings did Richard, in Mr Brass's
+      absence, relieve the tedium of his confinement. These social qualities,
+      which Miss Sally first discovered by accident, gradually made such an
+      impression upon her, that she would entreat Mr Swiveller to relax as
+      though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller, nothing loth, would readily
+      consent to do. By these means a friendship sprung up between them. Mr
+      Swiveller gradually came to look upon her as her brother Sampson did, and
+      as he would have looked upon any other clerk. He imparted to her the
+      mystery of going the odd man or plain Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer,
+      baked potatoes, or even a modest quencher, of which Miss Brass did not
+      scruple to partake. He would often persuade her to undertake his share of
+      writing in addition to her own; nay, he would sometimes reward her with a
+      hearty slap on the back, and protest that she was a devilish good fellow,
+      a jolly dog, and so forth; all of which compliments Miss Sally would
+      receive in entire good part and with perfect satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One circumstance troubled Mr Swiveller's mind very much, and that was that
+      the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels of the earth
+      under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface unless the single
+      gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it and immediately
+      disappear again. She never went out, or came into the office, or had a
+      clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or looked out of any one of the
+      windows, or stood at the street-door for a breath of air, or had any rest
+      or enjoyment whatever. Nobody ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her,
+      nobody cared about her. Mr Brass had said once, that he believed she was a
+      'love-child' (which means anything but a child of love), and that was all
+      the information Richard Swiveller could obtain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's of no use asking the dragon,' thought Dick one day, as he sat
+      contemplating the features of Miss Sally Brass. 'I suspect if I asked any
+      questions on that head, our alliance would be at an end. I wonder whether
+      she is a dragon by-the-bye, or something in the mermaid way. She has
+      rather a scaly appearance. But mermaids are fond of looking at themselves
+      in the glass, which she can't be. And they have a habit of combing their
+      hair, which she hasn't. No, she's a dragon.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where are you going, old fellow?' said Dick aloud, as Miss Sally wiped
+      her pen as usual on the green dress, and uprose from her seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To dinner,' answered the dragon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To dinner!' thought Dick, 'that's another circumstance. I don't believe
+      that small servant ever has anything to eat.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sammy won't be home,' said Miss Brass. 'Stop till I come back. I sha'n't
+      be long.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick nodded, and followed Miss Brass&mdash;with his eyes to the door, and
+      with his ears to a little back parlour, where she and her brother took
+      their meals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now,' said Dick, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, 'I'd
+      give something&mdash;if I had it&mdash;to know how they use that child,
+      and where they keep her. My mother must have been a very inquisitive
+      woman; I have no doubt I'm marked with a note of interrogation somewhere.
+      My feelings I smother, but thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my&mdash;upon
+      my word,' said Mr Swiveller, checking himself and falling thoughtfully
+      into the client's chair, 'I should like to know how they use her!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After running on, in this way, for some time, Mr Swiveller softly opened
+      the office door, with the intention of darting across the street for a
+      glass of the mild porter. At that moment he caught a parting glimpse of
+      the brown head-dress of Miss Brass flitting down the kitchen stairs. 'And
+      by Jove!' thought Dick, 'she's going to feed the small servant. Now or
+      never!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First peeping over the handrail and allowing the head-dress to disappear
+      in the darkness below, he groped his way down, and arrived at the door of
+      a back kitchen immediately after Miss Brass had entered the same, bearing
+      in her hand a cold leg of mutton. It was a very dark miserable place, very
+      low and very damp: the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches.
+      The water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was
+      lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. The grate,
+      which was a wide one, was wound and screwed up tight, so as to hold no
+      more than a little thin sandwich of fire. Everything was locked up; the
+      coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all
+      padlocked. There was nothing that a beetle could have lunched upon. The
+      pinched and meagre aspect of the place would have killed a chameleon. He
+      would have known, at the first mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and
+      must have given up the ghost in despair. The small servant stood with humility in presence of Miss Sally, and hung
+      her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you there?' said Miss Sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, ma'am,' was the answer in a weak voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you'll be picking it, I know,'
+      said Miss Sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass took a key from her
+      pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary waste of cold
+      potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge. This she placed before the
+      small servant, ordering her to sit down before it, and then, taking up a
+      great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it upon the
+      carving-fork.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you see this?' said Miss Brass, slicing off about two square inches of
+      cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it out on the point
+      of the fork.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see
+      every shred of it, small as it was, and answered, 'yes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then don't you ever go and say,' retorted Miss Sally, 'that you hadn't
+      meat here. There, eat it up.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was soon done. 'Now, do you want any more?' said Miss Sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hungry creature answered with a faint 'No.' They were evidently going
+      through an established form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You've been helped once to meat,' said Miss Brass, summing up the facts;
+      'you have had as much as you can eat, you're asked if you want any more,
+      and you answer, 'no!' Then don't you ever go and say you were allowanced,
+      mind that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away and locked the safe, and
+      then drawing near to the small servant, overlooked her while she finished
+      the potatoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was plain that some extraordinary grudge was working in Miss Brass's
+      gentle breast, and that it was that which impelled her, without the
+      smallest present cause, to rap the child with the blade of the knife, now
+      on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back, as if she found it
+      quite impossible to stand so close to her without administering a few
+      slight knocks. But Mr Swiveller was not a little surprised to see his
+      fellow-clerk, after walking slowly backwards towards the door, as if she
+      were trying to withdraw herself from the room but could not accomplish it,
+      dart suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant give her some hard
+      blows with her clenched hand. The victim cried, but in a subdued manner as
+      if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss Sally, comforting herself with
+      a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs, just as Richard had safely reached
+      the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap37"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 37
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he single gentleman among his other peculiarities&mdash;and he had a very
+      plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new specimen&mdash;took
+      a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the exhibition of Punch.
+      If the sound of a Punch's voice, at ever so remote a distance, reached
+      Bevis Marks, the single gentleman, though in bed and asleep, would start
+      up, and, hurrying on his clothes, make for the spot with all speed, and
+      presently return at the head of a long procession of idlers, having in the
+      midst the theatre and its proprietors. Straightway, the stage would be set
+      up in front of Mr Brass's house; the single gentleman would establish
+      himself at the first floor window; and the entertainment would proceed,
+      with all its exciting accompaniments of fife and drum and shout, to the
+      excessive consternation of all sober votaries of business in that silent
+      thoroughfare. It might have been expected that when the play was done,
+      both players and audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as
+      bad as the play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of the
+      puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to his
+      chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his private
+      store, and where they held with him long conversations, the purport of
+      which no human being could fathom. But the secret of these discussions was
+      of little importance. It was sufficient to know that while they were
+      proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round the house; that
+      boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated Punch with their
+      tender voices; that the office-window was rendered opaque by flattened
+      noses, and the key-hole of the street-door luminous with eyes; that every
+      time the single gentleman or either of his guests was seen at the upper
+      window, or so much as the end of one of their noses was visible, there was
+      a great shout of execration from the excluded mob, who remained howling
+      and yelling, and refusing consolation, until the exhibitors were delivered
+      up to them to be attended elsewhere. It was sufficient, in short, to know
+      that Bevis Marks was revolutionised by these popular movements, and that
+      peace and quietness fled from its precincts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr Sampson
+      Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so profitable an
+      inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger's affront along with his
+      cash, and to annoy the audiences who clustered round his door by such
+      imperfect means of retaliation as were open to him, and which were
+      confined to the trickling down of foul water on their heads from unseen
+      watering pots, pelting them with fragments of tile and mortar from the
+      roof of the house, and bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to come
+      suddenly round the corner and dash in among them precipitately. It may, at
+      first sight, be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few that Mr Brass,
+      being a professional gentleman, should not have legally indicted some
+      party or parties, active in the promotion of the nuisance, but they will
+      be good enough to remember, that as Doctors seldom take their own
+      prescriptions, and Divines do not always practise what they preach, so
+      lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it
+      to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the
+      working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving, than
+      for its always shaving the right person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come,' said Mr Brass one afternoon, 'this is two days without a Punch.
+      I'm in hopes he has run through 'em all, at last.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why are you in hopes?' returned Miss Sally. 'What harm do they do?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's a pretty sort of a fellow!' cried Brass, laying down his pen in
+      despair. 'Now here's an aggravating animal!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, what harm do they do?' retorted Sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What harm!' cried Brass. 'Is it no harm to have a constant hallooing and
+      hooting under one's very nose, distracting one from business, and making
+      one grind one's teeth with vexation? Is it no harm to be blinded and
+      choked up, and have the king's highway stopped with a set of screamers and
+      roarers whose throats must be made of&mdash;of&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Brass,' suggested Mr Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! of brass,' said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure himself
+      that he had suggested the word in good faith and without any sinister
+      intention. 'Is that no harm?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a moment, and
+      recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon his hand, raised
+      his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly, 'There's another!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up went the single gentleman's window directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's another,' repeated Brass; 'and if I could get a break and four
+      blood horses to cut into the Marks when the crowd is at its thickest, I'd
+      give eighteen-pence and never grudge it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distant squeak was heard again. The single gentleman's door burst
+      open. He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street, and so past
+      the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence the sound
+      proceeded&mdash;bent, no doubt, upon securing the strangers' services
+      directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I wish I only knew who his friends were,' muttered Sampson, filling his
+      pocket with papers; 'if they'd just get up a pretty little Commission de
+      lunatico at the Gray's Inn Coffee House and give me the job, I'd be
+      content to have the lodgings empty for one while, at all events.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With which words, and knocking his hat over his eyes as if for the purpose
+      of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation, Mr Brass rushed
+      from the house and hurried away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mr Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances, upon the
+      ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at anything out of
+      window, was better than working; and as he had been, for this reason, at
+      some pains to awaken in his fellow clerk a sense of their beauties and
+      manifold deserts; both he and Miss Sally rose as with one accord and took
+      up their positions at the window: upon the sill whereof, as in a post of
+      honour, sundry young ladies and gentlemen who were employed in the dry
+      nurture of babies, and who made a point of being present, with their young
+      charges, on such occasions, had already established themselves as
+      comfortably as the circumstances would allow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The glass being dim, Mr Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom which he
+      had established between them, hitched off the brown head-dress from Miss
+      Sally's head, and dusted it carefully therewith. By the time he had handed
+      it back, and its beautiful wearer had put it on again (which she did with
+      perfect composure and indifference), the lodger returned with the show and
+      showmen at his heels, and a strong addition to the body of spectators. The
+      exhibitor disappeared with all speed behind the drapery; and his partner,
+      stationing himself by the side of the Theatre, surveyed the audience with
+      a remarkable expression of melancholy, which became more remarkable still
+      when he breathed a hornpipe tune into that sweet musical instrument which
+      is popularly termed a mouth-organ, without at all changing the mournful
+      expression of the upper part of his face, though his mouth and chin were,
+      of necessity, in lively spasms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained in the
+      customary manner. The sensation which kindles in large assemblies, when
+      they are relieved from a state of breathless suspense and are again free
+      to speak and move, was yet rife, when the lodger, as usual, summoned the
+      men up stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Both of you,' he called from the window; for only the actual exhibitor&mdash;a
+      little fat man&mdash;prepared to obey the summons. 'I want to talk to you.
+      Come both of you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come, Tommy,' said the little man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I an't a talker,' replied the other. 'Tell him so. What should I go and
+      talk for?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't you see the gentleman's got a bottle and glass up there?' returned
+      the little man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And couldn't you have said so at first?' retorted the other with sudden
+      alacrity. 'Now, what are you waiting for? Are you going to keep the
+      gentleman expecting us all day? haven't you no manners?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, my men,' said the single gentleman; 'you have done very well. What
+      will you take? Tell that little man behind, to shut the door.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;each on the extreme edge of the chair pointed out
+      to him&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0267m.jpg" alt="0267m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0267.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'You're pretty well browned by the sun, both of you,' said their
+      entertainer. 'Have you been travelling?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?' pursued the single
+      gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, sir,' returned Short, 'pretty nigh all over the West of England.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let me fill your glass again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;oh dear, down with him, down with him directly.
+      It isn't his place to grumble. That's quite out of the question.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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 an't neither, so don't throw that out
+      against me, for the cap fits your head quite as correct as it fits mine.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You may as well drop the subject, Tom,' said Short. 'It isn't particular
+      agreeable to the gentleman, I dare say.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir?' said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you&mdash;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&mdash;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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>You </i>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&mdash;"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."'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0269m.jpg" alt="0269m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0269.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Stay a minute,' said Short. 'A man of the name of Jerry&mdash;you know
+      Jerry, Thomas?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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 Short," she says, "but I
+      cotton to Codlin." Once,' said that gentleman reflectively, 'she called me
+      Father Codlin. I thought I should have bust!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;But
+      I can, if you like.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is this man in town?' said the impatient single gentleman. 'Speak
+      faster.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No he isn't, but he will be to-morrow, for he lodges in our house,'
+      replied Mr Short rapidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;though I need hardly tell you that; for you'll do so
+      for your own sakes. Now, give me your address, and leave me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap38"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 38
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>it&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stay&mdash;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&mdash;albeit they were but a mother and
+      two young babies&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And let me linger in this place, for an instant, to remark that if ever
+      household affections and loves are graceful things, they are 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember this&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;no outcry from the working vulgar&mdash;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&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 square-folded 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!'&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Pull up, Snobby,' cried Mr Chuckster, addressing himself to Kit. 'You're
+      wanted inside here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has Mr Abel forgotten anything, I wonder?' said Kit as he dismounted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! come in, Christopher,' said Mr Witherden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is that the lad?' asked an elderly gentleman, but of a stout, bluff
+      figure&mdash;who was in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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 introduce Mr Abel
+      Garland, sir&mdash;his young master; my articled pupil, sir, and most
+      particular friend:&mdash;my most particular friend, sir,' repeated the
+      Notary, drawing out his silk handkerchief and flourishing it about his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Your servant, sir,' said the stranger gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yours, sir, I'm sure,' replied Mr Abel mildly. 'You were wishing to speak
+      to Christopher, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, I was. Have I your permission?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'By all means.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My business is no secret; or I should rather say it need be no secret
+      here,' said the stranger, observing that Mr Abel and the Notary were
+      preparing to retire. 'It relates to a dealer in curiosities with whom he
+      lived, and in whom I am earnestly and warmly interested. I have been a
+      stranger to this country, gentlemen, for very many years, and if I am
+      deficient in form and ceremony, I hope you will forgive me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No forgiveness is necessary, sir;&mdash;none whatever,' replied the
+      Notary. And so said Mr Abel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have been making inquiries in the neighbourhood in which his old master
+      lived,' said the stranger, 'and I learn that he was served by this lad. I
+      have found out his mother's house, and have been directed by her to this
+      place as the nearest in which I should be likely to find him. That's the
+      cause of my presenting myself here this morning.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am very glad of any cause, sir,' said the Notary, 'which procures me
+      the honour of this visit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir,' retorted the stranger, 'you speak like a mere man of the world, and
+      I think you something better. Therefore, pray do not sink your real
+      character in paying unmeaning compliments to me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hem!' coughed the Notary. 'You're a plain speaker, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And a plain dealer,' returned the stranger. 'It may be my long absence
+      and inexperience that lead me to the conclusion; but if plain speakers are
+      scarce in this part of the world, I fancy plain dealers are still scarcer.
+      If my speaking should offend you, sir, my dealing, I hope, will make
+      amends.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Witherden seemed a little disconcerted by the elderly gentleman's mode
+      of conducting the dialogue; and as for Kit, he looked at him in
+      open-mouthed astonishment: wondering what kind of language he would
+      address to him, if he talked in that free and easy way to a Notary. It was
+      with no harshness, however, though with something of constitutional
+      irritability and haste, that he turned to Kit and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you think, my lad, that I am pursuing these inquiries with any other
+      view than that of serving and reclaiming those I am in search of, you do
+      me a very great wrong, and deceive yourself. Don't be deceived, I beg of
+      you, but rely upon my assurance. The fact is, gentlemen,' he added,
+      turning again to the Notary and his pupil, 'that I am in a very painful
+      and wholly unexpected position. I came to this city with a darling object
+      at my heart, expecting to find no obstacle or difficulty in the way of its
+      attainment. I find myself suddenly checked and stopped short, in the
+      execution of my design, by a mystery which I cannot penetrate. Every
+      effort I have made to penetrate it, has only served to render it darker
+      and more obscure; and I am afraid to stir openly in the matter, lest those
+      whom I anxiously pursue, should fly still farther from me. I assure you
+      that if you could give me any assistance, you would not be sorry to do so,
+      if you knew how greatly I stand in need of it, and what a load it would
+      relieve me from.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a simplicity in this confidence which occasioned it to find a
+      quick response in the breast of the good-natured Notary, who replied, in
+      the same spirit, that the stranger had not mistaken his desire, and that
+      if he could be of service to him, he would, most readily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit was then put under examination and closely questioned by the unknown
+      gentleman, touching his old master and the child, their lonely way of
+      life, their retired habits, and strict seclusion. The nightly absence of
+      the old man, the solitary existence of the child at those times, his
+      illness and recovery, Quilp's possession of the house, and their sudden
+      disappearance, were all the subjects of much questioning and answer.
+      Finally, Kit informed the gentleman that the premises were now to let, and
+      that a board upon the door referred all inquirers to Mr Sampson Brass,
+      Solicitor, of Bevis Marks, from whom he might perhaps learn some further
+      particulars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not by inquiry,' said the gentleman shaking his head. 'I live there.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Live at Brass's the attorney's!' cried Mr Witherden in some surprise:
+      having professional knowledge of the gentleman in question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye,' was the reply. 'I entered on his lodgings t'other day, chiefly
+      because I had seen this very board. It matters little to me where I live,
+      and I had a desperate hope that some intelligence might be cast in my way
+      there, which would not reach me elsewhere. Yes, I live at Brass's&mdash;more
+      shame for me, I suppose?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's a mere matter of opinion,' said the Notary, shrugging his
+      shoulders. 'He is looked upon as rather a doubtful character.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Doubtful?' echoed the other. 'I am glad to hear there's any doubt about
+      it. I supposed that had been thoroughly settled, long ago. But will you
+      let me speak a word or two with you in private?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Witherden consenting, they walked into that gentleman's private closet,
+      and remained there, in close conversation, for some quarter of an hour,
+      when they returned into the outer office. The stranger had left his hat in
+      Mr Witherden's room, and seemed to have established himself in this short
+      interval on quite a friendly footing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll not detain you any longer now,' he said, putting a crown into Kit's
+      hand, and looking towards the Notary. 'You shall hear from me again. Not a
+      word of this, you know, except to your master and mistress.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mother, sir, would be glad to know&mdash;' said Kit, faltering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Glad to know what?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Anything&mdash;so that it was no harm&mdash;about Miss Nell.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Would she? Well then, you may tell her if she can keep a secret. But
+      mind, not a word of this to anybody else. Don't forget that. Be
+      particular.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll take care, sir,' said Kit. 'Thankee, sir, and good morning.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, it happened that the gentleman, in his anxiety to impress upon Kit
+      that he was not to tell anybody what had passed between them, followed him
+      out to the door to repeat his caution, and it further happened that at
+      that moment the eyes of Mr Richard Swiveller were turned in that
+      direction, and beheld his mysterious friend and Kit together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite an accident, and the way in which it came about was this. Mr
+      Chuckster, being a gentleman of a cultivated taste and refined spirit, was
+      one of that Lodge of Glorious Apollos whereof Mr Swiveller was Perpetual
+      Grand. Mr Swiveller, passing through the street in the execution of some
+      Brazen errand, and beholding one of his Glorious Brotherhood intently
+      gazing on a pony, crossed over to give him that fraternal greeting with
+      which Perpetual Grands are, by the very constitution of their office,
+      bound to cheer and encourage their disciples. He had scarcely bestowed
+      upon him his blessing, and followed it with a general remark touching the
+      present state and prospects of the weather, when, lifting up his eyes, he
+      beheld the single gentleman of Bevis Marks in earnest conversation with
+      Christopher Nubbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hallo!' said Dick, 'who is that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He called to see my Governor this morning,' replied Mr Chuckster; 'beyond
+      that, I don't know him from Adam.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At least you know his name?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming a
+      Glorious Apollo, that he was 'everlastingly blessed' if he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All I know, my dear feller,' said Mr Chuckster, running his fingers
+      through his hair, 'is, that he is the cause of my having stood here twenty
+      minutes, for which I hate him with a mortal and undying hatred, and would
+      pursue him to the confines of eternity if I could afford the time.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were thus discoursing, the subject of their conversation (who
+      had not appeared to recognise Mr Richard Swiveller) re-entered the house,
+      and Kit came down the steps and joined them; to whom Mr Swiveller again
+      propounded his inquiry with no better success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He is a very nice gentleman, Sir,' said Kit, 'and that's all I know about
+      him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Chuckster waxed wroth at this answer, and without applying the remark
+      to any particular case, mentioned, as a general truth, that it was
+      expedient to break the heads of Snobs, and to tweak their noses. Without
+      expressing his concurrence in this sentiment, Mr Swiveller after a few
+      moments of abstraction inquired which way Kit was driving, and, being
+      informed, declared it was his way, and that he would trespass on him for a
+      lift. Kit would gladly have declined the proffered honour, but as Mr
+      Swiveller was already established in the seat beside him, he had no means
+      of doing so, otherwise than by a forcible ejectment, and therefore, drove
+      briskly off&mdash;so briskly indeed, as to cut short the leave-taking
+      between Mr Chuckster and his Grand Master, and to occasion the former
+      gentleman some inconvenience from having his corns squeezed by the
+      impatient pony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Whisker was tired of standing, and Mr Swiveller was kind enough to
+      stimulate him by shrill whistles, and various sporting cries, they rattled
+      off at too sharp a pace to admit of much conversation: especially as the
+      pony, incensed by Mr Swiveller's admonitions, took a particular fancy for
+      the lamp-posts and cart-wheels, and evinced a strong desire to run on the
+      pavement and rasp himself against the brick walls. It was not, therefore,
+      until they had arrived at the stable, and the chaise had been extricated
+      from a very small doorway, into which the pony dragged it under the
+      impression that he could take it along with him into his usual stall, that
+      Mr Swiveller found time to talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's hard work,' said Richard. 'What do you say to some beer?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit at first declined, but presently consented, and they adjourned to the
+      neighbouring bar together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We'll drink our friend what's-his-name,' said Dick, holding up the bright
+      frothy pot; '&mdash;that was talking to you this morning, you know&mdash;I
+      know him&mdash;a good fellow, but eccentric&mdash;very&mdash;here's
+      what's-his-name!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit pledged him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He lives in my house,' said Dick; 'at least in the house occupied by the
+      firm in which I'm a sort of a&mdash;of a managing partner&mdash;a
+      difficult fellow to get anything out of, but we like him&mdash;we like
+      him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I must be going, sir, if you please,' said Kit, moving away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't be in a hurry, Christopher,' replied his patron, 'we'll drink your
+      mother.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'An excellent woman that mother of yours, Christopher,' said Mr Swiveller.
+      'Who ran to catch me when I fell, and kissed the place to make it well? My
+      mother. A charming woman. He's a liberal sort of fellow. We must get him
+      to do something for your mother. Does he know her, Christopher?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit shook his head, and glancing slyly at his questioner, thanked him, and
+      made off before he could say another word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Humph!' said Mr Swiveller pondering, 'this is queer. Nothing but
+      mysteries in connection with Brass's house. I'll keep my own counsel,
+      however. Everybody and anybody has been in my confidence as yet, but now I
+      think I'll set up in business for myself. Queer&mdash;very queer!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After pondering deeply and with a face of exceeding wisdom for some time,
+      Mr Swiveller drank some more of the beer, and summoning a small boy who
+      had been watching his proceedings, poured forth the few remaining drops as
+      a libation on the gravel, and bade him carry the empty vessel to the bar
+      with his compliments, and above all things to lead a sober and temperate
+      life, and abstain from all intoxicating and exciting liquors. Having given
+      him this piece of moral advice for his trouble (which, as he wisely
+      observed, was far better than half-pence) the Perpetual Grand Master of
+      the Glorious Apollos thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered away:
+      still pondering as he went.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0278m.jpg" alt="0278m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0278.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap39"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 39
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>ll that day, though he waited for Mr Abel until evening, Kit kept clear
+      of his mother's house, determined not to anticipate the pleasures of the
+      morrow, but to let them come in their full rush of delight; for to-morrow
+      was the great and long looked-for epoch in his life&mdash;to-morrow was
+      the end of his first quarter&mdash;the day of receiving, for the first
+      time, one fourth part of his annual income of Six Pounds in one vast sum
+      of Thirty Shillings&mdash;to-morrow was to be a half-holiday devoted to a
+      whirl of entertainments, and little Jacob was to know what oysters meant,
+      and to see a play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All manner of incidents combined in favour of the occasion: not only had
+      Mr and Mrs Garland forewarned him that they intended to make no deduction
+      for his outfit from the great amount, but to pay it him unbroken in all
+      its gigantic grandeur; not only had the unknown gentleman increased the
+      stock by the sum of five shillings, which was a perfect god-send and in
+      itself a fortune; not only had these things come to pass which nobody
+      could have calculated upon, or in their wildest dreams have hoped; but it
+      was Barbara's quarter too&mdash;Barbara's quarter, that very day&mdash;and
+      Barbara had a half-holiday as well as Kit, and Barbara's mother was going
+      to make one of the party, and to take tea with Kit's mother, and cultivate
+      her acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be sure Kit looked out of his window very early that morning to see
+      which way the clouds were flying, and to be sure Barbara would have been
+      at hers too, if she had not sat up so late over-night, starching and
+      ironing small pieces of muslin, and crimping them into frills, and sewing
+      them on to other pieces to form magnificent wholes for next day's wear.
+      But they were both up very early for all that, and had small appetites for
+      breakfast and less for dinner, and were in a state of great excitement
+      when Barbara's mother came in, with astonishing accounts of the fineness
+      of the weather out of doors (but with a very large umbrella
+      notwithstanding, for people like Barbara's mother seldom make holiday
+      without one), and when the bell rang for them to go up stairs and receive
+      their quarter's money in gold and silver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, wasn't Mr Garland kind when he said 'Christopher, here's your money,
+      and you have earned it well;' and wasn't Mrs Garland kind when she said
+      'Barbara, here's yours, and I'm much pleased with you;' and didn't Kit
+      sign his name bold to his receipt, and didn't Barbara sign her name all a
+      trembling to hers; and wasn't it beautiful to see how Mrs Garland poured
+      out Barbara's mother a glass of wine; and didn't Barbara's mother speak up
+      when she said 'Here's blessing you, ma'am, as a good lady, and you, sir,
+      as a good gentleman, and Barbara, my love to you, and here's towards you,
+      Mr Christopher;' and wasn't she as long drinking it as if it had been a
+      tumblerful; and didn't she look genteel, standing there with her gloves
+      on; and wasn't there plenty of laughing and talking among them as they
+      reviewed all these things upon the top of the coach, and didn't they pity
+      the people who hadn't got a holiday!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Kit's mother, again&mdash;wouldn't anybody have supposed she had come
+      of a good stock and been a lady all her life! There she was, quite ready
+      to receive them, with a display of tea-things that might have warmed the
+      heart of a china-shop; and little Jacob and the baby in such a state of
+      perfection that their clothes looked as good as new, though Heaven knows
+      they were old enough! Didn't she say before they had sat down five minutes
+      that Barbara's mother was exactly the sort of lady she expected, and
+      didn't Barbara's mother say that Kit's mother was the very picture of what
+      she had expected, and didn't Kit's mother compliment Barbara's mother on
+      Barbara, and didn't Barbara's mother compliment Kit's mother on Kit, and
+      wasn't Barbara herself quite fascinated with little Jacob, and did ever a
+      child show off when he was wanted, as that child did, or make such friends
+      as he made!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And we are both widows too!' said Barbara's mother. 'We must have been
+      made to know each other.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I haven't a doubt about it,' returned Mrs Nubbles. 'And what a pity it is
+      we didn't know each other sooner.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But then, you know, it's such a pleasure,' said Barbara's mother, 'to
+      have it brought about by one's son and daughter, that it's fully made up
+      for. Now, an't it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this, Kit's mother yielded her full assent, and tracing things back
+      from effects to causes, they naturally reverted to their deceased
+      husbands, respecting whose lives, deaths, and burials, they compared
+      notes, and discovered sundry circumstances that tallied with wonderful
+      exactness; such as Barbara's father having been exactly four years and ten
+      months older than Kit's father, and one of them having died on a Wednesday
+      and the other on a Thursday, and both of them having been of a very fine
+      make and remarkably good-looking, with other extraordinary coincidences.
+      These recollections being of a kind calculated to cast a shadow on the
+      brightness of the holiday, Kit diverted the conversation to general
+      topics, and they were soon in great force again, and as merry as before.
+      Among other things, Kit told them about his old place, and the
+      extraordinary beauty of Nell (of whom he had talked to Barbara a thousand
+      times already); but the last-named circumstance failed to interest his
+      hearers to anything like the extent he had supposed, and even his mother
+      said (looking accidentally at Barbara at the same time) that there was no
+      doubt Miss Nell was very pretty, but she was but a child after all, and
+      there were many young women quite as pretty as she; and Barbara mildly
+      observed that she should think so, and that she never could help believing
+      Mr Christopher must be under a mistake&mdash;which Kit wondered at very
+      much, not being able to conceive what reason she had for doubting him.
+      Barbara's mother too, observed that it was very common for young folks to
+      change at about fourteen or fifteen, and whereas they had been very pretty
+      before, to grow up quite plain; which truth she illustrated by many
+      forcible examples, especially one of a young man, who, being a builder
+      with great prospects, had been particular in his attentions to Barbara,
+      but whom Barbara would have nothing to say to; which (though everything
+      happened for the best) she almost thought was a pity. Kit said he thought
+      so too, and so he did honestly, and he wondered what made Barbara so
+      silent all at once, and why his mother looked at him as if he shouldn't
+      have said it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, it was high time now to be thinking of the play; for which great
+      preparation was required, in the way of shawls and bonnets, not to mention
+      one handkerchief full of oranges and another of apples, which took some
+      time tying up, in consequence of the fruit having a tendency to roll out
+      at the corners. At length, everything was ready, and they went off very
+      fast; Kit's mother carrying the baby, who was dreadfully wide awake, and
+      Kit holding little Jacob in one hand, and escorting Barbara with the other&mdash;a
+      state of things which occasioned the two mothers, who walked behind, to
+      declare that they looked quite family folks, and caused Barbara to blush
+      and say, 'Now don't, mother!' But Kit said she had no call to mind what
+      they said; and indeed she need not have had, if she had known how very far
+      from Kit's thoughts any love-making was. Poor Barbara!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last they got to the theatre, which was Astley's: and in some two
+      minutes after they had reached the yet unopened door, little Jacob was
+      squeezed flat, and the baby had received divers concussions, and Barbara's
+      mother's umbrella had been carried several yards off and passed back to
+      her over the shoulders of the people, and Kit had hit a man on the head
+      with the handkerchief of apples for 'scrowdging' his parent with
+      unnecessary violence, and there was a great uproar. But, when they were
+      once past the pay-place and tearing away for very life with their checks
+      in their hands, and, above all, when they were fairly in the theatre, and
+      seated in such places that they couldn't have had better if they had
+      picked them out, and taken them beforehand, all this was looked upon as
+      quite a capital joke, and an essential part of the entertainment.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0282m.jpg" alt="0282m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0282.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Dear, dear, what a place it looked, that Astley's; with all the paint,
+      gilding, and looking-glass; the vague smell of horses suggestive of coming
+      wonders; the curtain that hid such gorgeous mysteries; the clean white
+      sawdust down in the circus; the company coming in and taking their places;
+      the fiddlers looking carelessly up at them while they tuned their
+      instruments, as if they didn't want the play to begin, and knew it all
+      beforehand! What a glow was that, which burst upon them all, when that
+      long, clear, brilliant row of lights came slowly up; and what the feverish
+      excitement when the little bell rang and the music began in good earnest,
+      with strong parts for the drums, and sweet effects for the triangles! Well
+      might Barbara's mother say to Kit's mother that the gallery was the place
+      to see from, and wonder it wasn't much dearer than the boxes; well might
+      Barbara feel doubtful whether to laugh or cry, in her flutter of delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the play itself! the horses which little Jacob believed from the
+      first to be alive, and the ladies and gentlemen of whose reality he could
+      be by no means persuaded, having never seen or heard anything at all like
+      them&mdash;the firing, which made Barbara wink&mdash;the forlorn lady, who
+      made her cry&mdash;the tyrant, who made her tremble&mdash;the man who sang
+      the song with the lady's-maid and danced the chorus, who made her laugh&mdash;the
+      pony who reared up on his hind legs when he saw the murderer, and wouldn't
+      hear of walking on all fours again until he was taken into custody&mdash;the
+      clown who ventured on such familiarities with the military man in boots&mdash;the
+      lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty ribbons and came down safe upon
+      the horse's back&mdash;everything was delightful, splendid, and
+      surprising! Little Jacob applauded till his hands were sore; Kit cried
+      'an-kor' at the end of everything, the three-act piece included; and
+      Barbara's mother beat her umbrella on the floor, in her ecstasies, until
+      it was nearly worn down to the gingham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of all these fascinations, Barbara's thoughts seemed to have
+      been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for, when they were
+      coming out of the play, she asked him, with an hysterical simper, if Miss
+      Nell was as handsome as the lady who jumped over the ribbons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As handsome as her?' said Kit. 'Double as handsome.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh Christopher! I'm sure she was the beautifullest creature ever was,'
+      said Barbara.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nonsense!' returned Kit. 'She was well enough, I don't deny that; but
+      think how she was dressed and painted, and what a difference that made.
+      Why <i>you </i>are a good deal better looking than her, Barbara.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh Christopher!' said Barbara, looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are, any day,' said Kit, '&mdash;and so's your mother.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Barbara!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was all this though&mdash;even all this&mdash;to the extraordinary
+      dissipation that ensued, when Kit, walking into an oyster-shop as bold as
+      if he lived there, and not so much as looking at the counter or the man
+      behind it, led his party into a box&mdash;a private box, fitted up with
+      red curtains, white table-cloth, and cruet-stand complete&mdash;and
+      ordered a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who acted as waiter and called
+      him, him Christopher Nubbles, 'sir,' to bring three dozen of his
+      largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it! Yes, Kit told this
+      gentleman to look sharp, and he not only said he would look sharp, but he
+      actually did, and presently came running back with the newest loaves, and
+      the freshest butter, and the largest oysters, ever seen. Then said Kit to
+      this gentleman, 'a pot of beer'&mdash;just so&mdash;and the gentleman,
+      instead of replying, 'Sir, did you address that language to me?' only
+      said, 'Pot o' beer, sir? Yes, sir,' and went off and fetched it, and put
+      it on the table in a small decanter-stand, like those which blind-men's
+      dogs carry about the streets in their mouths, to catch the half-pence in;
+      and both Kit's mother and Barbara's mother declared as he turned away that
+      he was one of the slimmest and gracefullest young men she had ever looked
+      upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and there was Barbara,
+      that foolish Barbara, declaring that she could not eat more than two, and
+      wanting more pressing than you would believe before she would eat four:
+      though her mother and Kit's mother made up for it pretty well, and ate and
+      laughed and enjoyed themselves so thoroughly that it did Kit good to see
+      them, and made him laugh and eat likewise from strong sympathy. But the
+      greatest miracle of the night was little Jacob, who ate oysters as if he
+      had been born and bred to the business&mdash;sprinkled the pepper and the
+      vinegar with a discretion beyond his years&mdash;and afterwards built a
+      grotto on the table with the shells. There was the baby too, who had never
+      closed an eye all night, but had sat as good as gold, trying to force a
+      large orange into his mouth, and gazing intently at the lights in the
+      chandelier&mdash;there he was, sitting up in his mother's lap, staring at
+      the gas without winking, and making indentations in his soft visage with
+      an oyster-shell, to that degree that a heart of iron must have loved him!
+      In short, there never was a more successful supper; and when Kit ordered
+      in a glass of something hot to finish with, and proposed Mr and Mrs
+      Garland before sending it round, there were not six happier people in all
+      the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all happiness has an end&mdash;hence the chief pleasure of its next
+      beginning&mdash;and as it was now growing late, they agreed it was time to
+      turn their faces homewards. So, after going a little out of their way to
+      see Barbara and Barbara's mother safe to a friend's house where they were
+      to pass the night, Kit and his mother left them at the door, with an early
+      appointment for returning to Finchley next morning, and a great many plans
+      for next quarter's enjoyment. Then, Kit took little Jacob on his back, and
+      giving his arm to his mother, and a kiss to the baby, they all trudged
+      merrily home together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap40"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 40
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>ull of that vague kind of penitence which holidays awaken next morning,
+      Kit turned out at sunrise, and, with his faith in last night's enjoyments
+      a little shaken by cool daylight and the return to every-day duties and
+      occupations, went to meet Barbara and her mother at the appointed place.
+      And being careful not to awaken any of the little household, who were yet
+      resting from their unusual fatigues, Kit left his money on the
+      chimney-piece, with an inscription in chalk calling his mother's attention
+      to the circumstance, and informing her that it came from her dutiful son;
+      and went his way, with a heart something heavier than his pockets, but
+      free from any very great oppression notwithstanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret? why cannot we push
+      them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put them at once
+      at that convenient distance whence they may be regarded either with a calm
+      indifference or a pleasant effort of recollection! why will they hang
+      about us, like the flavour of yesterday's wine, suggestive of headaches
+      and lassitude, and those good intentions for the future, which, under the
+      earth, form the everlasting pavement of a large estate, and, upon it,
+      usually endure until dinner-time or thereabouts!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's mother was
+      disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley's, and
+      thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? Kit
+      was not surprised to hear her say so&mdash;not he. He had already had a
+      misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been
+      doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that
+      night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would not
+      be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We are all
+      going to the play, or coming home from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, the Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength
+      and courage as the day gets on. By degrees, they began to recall
+      circumstances more and more pleasant in their nature, until, what between
+      talking, walking, and laughing, they reached Finchley in such good heart,
+      that Barbara's mother declared she never felt less tired or in better
+      spirits. And so said Kit. Barbara had been silent all the way, but she
+      said so too. Poor little Barbara! She was very quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were at home in such good time that Kit had rubbed down the pony and
+      made him as spruce as a race-horse, before Mr Garland came down to
+      breakfast; which punctual and industrious conduct the old lady, and the
+      old gentleman, and Mr Abel, highly extolled. At his usual hour (or rather
+      at his usual minute and second, for he was the soul of punctuality) Mr
+      Abel walked out, to be overtaken by the London coach, and Kit and the old
+      gentleman went to work in the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was not the least pleasant of Kit's employments. On a fine day they
+      were quite a family party; the old lady sitting hard by with her
+      work-basket on a little table; the old gentleman digging, or pruning, or
+      clipping about with a large pair of shears, or helping Kit in some way or
+      other with great assiduity; and Whisker looking on from his paddock in
+      placid contemplation of them all. To-day they were to trim the grape-vine,
+      so Kit mounted half-way up a short ladder, and began to snip and hammer
+      away, while the old gentleman, with a great interest in his proceedings,
+      handed up the nails and shreds of cloth as he wanted them. The old lady
+      and Whisker looked on as usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'and so you have made a new friend,
+      eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I beg your pardon, Sir?' returned Kit, looking down from the ladder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have made a new friend, I hear from Mr Abel,' said the old gentleman,
+      'at the office!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! Yes Sir, yes. He behaved very handsome, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm glad to hear it,' returned the old gentlemen with a smile. 'He is
+      disposed to behave more handsomely still, though, Christopher.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed, Sir! It's very kind in him, but I don't want him to, I'm sure,'
+      said Kit, hammering stoutly at an obdurate nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He is rather anxious,' pursued the old gentleman, 'to have you in his own
+      service&mdash;take care what you're doing, or you will fall down and hurt
+      yourself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To have me in his service, Sir?' cried Kit, who had stopped short in his
+      work and faced about on the ladder like some dexterous tumbler. 'Why, Sir,
+      I don't think he can be in earnest when he says that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! But he is indeed,' said Mr Garland. 'And he has told Mr Abel so.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I never heard of such a thing!' muttered Kit, looking ruefully at his
+      master and mistress. 'I wonder at him; that I do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see, Christopher,' said Mr Garland, 'this is a point of much
+      importance to you, and you should understand and consider it in that
+      light. This gentleman is able to give you more money than I&mdash;not, I
+      hope, to carry through the various relations of master and servant, more
+      kindness and confidence, but certainly, Christopher, to give you more
+      money.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well,' said Kit, 'after that, Sir&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Wait a moment,' interposed Mr Garland. 'That is not all. You were a very
+      faithful servant to your old employers, as I understand, and should this
+      gentleman recover them, as it is his purpose to attempt doing by every
+      means in his power, I have no doubt that you, being in his service, would
+      meet with your reward. Besides,' added the old gentleman with stronger
+      emphasis, 'besides having the pleasure of being again brought into
+      communication with those to whom you seem to be very strongly and
+      disinterestedly attached. You must think of all this, Christopher, and not
+      be rash or hasty in your choice.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit did suffer one twinge, one momentary pang, in keeping the resolution
+      he had already formed, when this last argument passed swiftly into his
+      thoughts, and conjured up the realization of all his hopes and fancies.
+      But it was gone in a minute, and he sturdily rejoined that the gentleman
+      must look out for somebody else, as he did think he might have done at
+      first.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0288m.jpg" alt="0288m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0288.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'He has no right to think that I'd be led away to go to him, sir,' said
+      Kit, turning round again after half a minute's hammering. 'Does he think
+      I'm a fool?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He may, perhaps, Christopher, if you refuse his offer,' said Mr Garland
+      gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then let him, sir,' retorted Kit; 'what do I care, sir, what he thinks?
+      why should I care for his thinking, sir, when I know that I should be a
+      fool, and worse than a fool, sir, to leave the kindest master and mistress
+      that ever was or can be, who took me out of the streets a very poor and
+      hungry lad indeed&mdash;poorer and hungrier perhaps than even you think
+      for, sir&mdash;to go to him or anybody? If Miss Nell was to come back,
+      ma'am,' added Kit, turning suddenly to his mistress, 'why that would be
+      another thing, and perhaps if she wanted me, I might ask you now and then
+      to let me work for her when all was done at home. But when she comes back,
+      I see now that she'll be rich as old master always said she would, and
+      being a rich young lady, what could she want of me? No, no,' added Kit,
+      shaking his head sorrowfully, 'she'll never want me any more, and bless
+      her, I hope she never may, though I should like to see her too!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Kit drove a nail into the wall, very hard&mdash;much harder than was
+      necessary&mdash;and having done so, faced about again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's the pony, sir,' said Kit&mdash;'Whisker, ma'am (and he knows so
+      well I'm talking about him that he begins to neigh directly, Sir)&mdash;would
+      he let anybody come near him but me, ma'am? Here's the garden, sir, and Mr
+      Abel, ma'am. Would Mr Abel part with me, Sir, or is there anybody that
+      could be fonder of the garden, ma'am? It would break mother's heart, Sir,
+      and even little Jacob would have sense enough to cry his eyes out, ma'am,
+      if he thought that Mr Abel could wish to part with me so soon, after
+      having told me, only the other day, that he hoped we might be together for
+      years to come&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no telling how long Kit might have stood upon the ladder,
+      addressing his master and mistress by turns, and generally turning towards
+      the wrong person, if Barbara had not at that moment come running up to say
+      that a messenger from the office had brought a note, which, with an
+      expression of some surprise at Kit's oratorical appearance, she put into
+      her master's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said the old gentleman after reading it, 'ask the messenger to walk
+      this way.' Barbara tripping off to do as she was bid, he turned to Kit and
+      said that they would not pursue the subject any further, and that Kit
+      could not be more unwilling to part with them, than they would be to part
+      with Kit; a sentiment which the old lady very generously echoed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At the same time, Christopher,' added Mr Garland, glancing at the note in
+      his hand, 'if the gentleman should want to borrow you now and then for an
+      hour or so, or even a day or so, at a time, we must consent to lend you,
+      and you must consent to be lent.&mdash;Oh! here is the young gentleman.
+      How do you do, Sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This salutation was addressed to Mr Chuckster, who, with his hat extremely
+      on one side, and his hair a long way beyond it, came swaggering up the
+      walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hope I see you well sir,' returned that gentleman. 'Hope I see <i>you </i>well,
+      ma'am. Charming box this, sir. Delicious country to be sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You want to take Kit back with you, I find?' observed Mr Garland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have got a chariot-cab waiting on purpose,' replied the clerk. 'A very
+      spanking grey in that cab, sir, if you're a judge of horse-flesh.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Declining to inspect the spanking grey, on the plea that he was but poorly
+      acquainted with such matters, and would but imperfectly appreciate his
+      beauties, Mr Garland invited Mr Chuckster to partake of a slight repast in
+      the way of lunch. That gentleman readily consenting, certain cold viands,
+      flanked with ale and wine, were speedily prepared for his refreshment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this repast, Mr Chuckster exerted his utmost abilities to enchant his
+      entertainers, and impress them with a conviction of the mental superiority
+      of those who dwelt in town; with which view he led the discourse to the
+      small scandal of the day, in which he was justly considered by his friends
+      to shine prodigiously. Thus, he was in a condition to relate the exact
+      circumstances of the difference between the Marquis of Mizzler and Lord
+      Bobby, which it appeared originated in a disputed bottle of champagne, and
+      not in a pigeon-pie, as erroneously reported in the newspapers; neither
+      had Lord Bobby said to the Marquis of Mizzler, 'Mizzler, one of us two
+      tells a lie, and I'm not the man,' as incorrectly stated by the same
+      authorities; but 'Mizzler, you know where I'm to be found, and damme, sir,
+      find me if you want me'&mdash;which, of course, entirely changed the
+      aspect of this interesting question, and placed it in a very different
+      light. He also acquainted them with the precise amount of the income
+      guaranteed by the Duke of Thigsberry to Violetta Stetta of the Italian
+      Opera, which it appeared was payable quarterly, and not half-yearly, as
+      the public had been given to understand, and which was <i>ex</i>clusive, and not
+      <i>in</i>clusive (as had been monstrously stated,) of jewellery, perfumery,
+      hair-powder for five footmen, and two daily changes of kid-gloves for a
+      page. Having entreated the old lady and gentleman to set their minds at
+      rest on these absorbing points, for they might rely on his statement being
+      the correct one, Mr Chuckster entertained them with theatrical chit-chat
+      and the court circular; and so wound up a brilliant and fascinating
+      conversation which he had maintained alone, and without any assistance
+      whatever, for upwards of three-quarters of an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And now that the nag has got his wind again,' said Mr Chuckster rising in
+      a graceful manner, 'I'm afraid I must cut my stick.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Mr nor Mrs Garland offered any opposition to his tearing himself
+      away (feeling, no doubt, that such a man could ill be spared from his
+      proper sphere of action), and therefore Mr Chuckster and Kit were shortly
+      afterwards upon their way to town; Kit being perched upon the box of the
+      cabriolet beside the driver, and Mr Chuckster seated in solitary state
+      inside, with one of his boots sticking out at each of the front windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they reached the Notary's house, Kit followed into the office, and
+      was desired by Mr Abel to sit down and wait, for the gentleman who wanted
+      him had gone out, and perhaps might not return for some time. This
+      anticipation was strictly verified, for Kit had had his dinner, and his
+      tea, and had read all the lighter matter in the Law-List, and the
+      Post-Office Directory, and had fallen asleep a great many times, before
+      the gentleman whom he had seen before, came in; which he did at last in a
+      very great hurry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was closeted with Mr Witherden for some little time, and Mr Abel had
+      been called in to assist at the conference, before Kit, wondering very
+      much what he was wanted for, was summoned to attend them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Christopher,' said the gentleman, turning to him directly he entered the
+      room, 'I have found your old master and young mistress.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, Sir! Have you, though?' returned Kit, his eyes sparkling with
+      delight. 'Where are they, Sir? How are they, Sir? Are they&mdash;are they
+      near here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A long way from here,' returned the gentleman, shaking his head. 'But I
+      am going away to-night to bring them back, and I want you to go with me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Me, Sir?' cried Kit, full of joy and surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The place,' said the strange gentleman, turning thoughtfully to the
+      Notary, 'indicated by this man of the dogs, is&mdash;how far from here&mdash;sixty
+      miles?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'From sixty to seventy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Humph! If we travel post all night, we shall reach there in good time
+      to-morrow morning. Now, the only question is, as they will not know me,
+      and the child, God bless her, would think that any stranger pursuing them
+      had a design upon her grandfather's liberty&mdash;can I do better than
+      take this lad, whom they both know and will readily remember, as an
+      assurance to them of my friendly intentions?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly not,' replied the Notary. 'Take Christopher by all means.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Kit, who had listened to this discourse
+      with a lengthening countenance, 'but if that's the reason, I'm afraid I
+      should do more harm than good&mdash;Miss Nell, Sir, she knows me, and
+      would trust in me, I am sure; but old master&mdash;I don't know why,
+      gentlemen; nobody does&mdash;would not bear me in his sight after he had
+      been ill, and Miss Nell herself told me that I must not go near him or let
+      him see me any more. I should spoil all that you were doing if I went, I'm
+      afraid. I'd give the world to go, but you had better not take me, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Another difficulty!' cried the impetuous gentleman. 'Was ever man so
+      beset as I? Is there nobody else that knew them, nobody else in whom they
+      had any confidence? Solitary as their lives were, is there no one person
+      who would serve my purpose?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>Is</i> there, Christopher?' said the Notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not one, Sir,' replied Kit.&mdash;'Yes, though&mdash;there's my mother.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did they know her?' said the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Know her, Sir! why, she was always coming backwards and forwards. They
+      were as kind to her as they were to me. Bless you, Sir, she expected
+      they'd come back to her house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then where the devil is the woman?' said the impatient gentleman,
+      catching up his hat. 'Why isn't she here? Why is that woman always out of
+      the way when she is most wanted?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a word, the single gentleman was bursting out of the office, bent upon
+      laying violent hands on Kit's mother, forcing her into a post-chaise, and
+      carrying her off, when this novel kind of abduction was with some
+      difficulty prevented by the joint efforts of Mr Abel and the Notary, who
+      restrained him by dint of their remonstrances, and persuaded him to sound
+      Kit upon the probability of her being able and willing to undertake such a
+      journey on so short a notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This occasioned some doubts on the part of Kit, and some violent
+      demonstrations on that of the single gentleman, and a great many soothing
+      speeches on that of the Notary and Mr Abel. The upshot of the business
+      was, that Kit, after weighing the matter in his mind and considering it
+      carefully, promised, on behalf of his mother, that she should be ready
+      within two hours from that time to undertake the expedition, and engaged
+      to produce her in that place, in all respects equipped and prepared for
+      the journey, before the specified period had expired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having given this pledge, which was rather a bold one, and not
+      particularly easy of redemption, Kit lost no time in sallying forth, and
+      taking measures for its immediate fulfilment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap41"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 41
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>it made his way through the crowded streets, dividing the stream of
+      people, dashing across the busy road-ways, diving into lanes and alleys,
+      and stopping or turning aside for nothing, until he came in front of the
+      Old Curiosity Shop, when he came to a stand; partly from habit and partly
+      from being out of breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a gloomy autumn evening, and he thought the old place had never
+      looked so dismal as in its dreary twilight. The windows broken, the rusty
+      sashes rattling in their frames, the deserted house a dull barrier
+      dividing the glaring lights and bustle of the street into two long lines,
+      and standing in the midst, cold, dark, and empty&mdash;presented a
+      cheerless spectacle which mingled harshly with the bright prospects the
+      boy had been building up for its late inmates, and came like a
+      disappointment or misfortune. Kit would have had a good fire roaring up
+      the empty chimneys, lights sparkling and shining through the windows,
+      people moving briskly to and fro, voices in cheerful conversation,
+      something in unison with the new hopes that were astir. He had not
+      expected that the house would wear any different aspect&mdash;had known
+      indeed that it could not&mdash;but coming upon it in the midst of eager
+      thoughts and expectations, it checked the current in its flow, and
+      darkened it with a mournful shadow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit, however, fortunately for himself, was not learned enough or
+      contemplative enough to be troubled with presages of evil afar off, and,
+      having no mental spectacles to assist his vision in this respect, saw
+      nothing but the dull house, which jarred uncomfortably upon his previous
+      thoughts. So, almost wishing that he had not passed it, though hardly
+      knowing why, he hurried on again, making up by his increased speed for the
+      few moments he had lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, if she should be out,' thought Kit, as he approached the poor
+      dwelling of his mother, 'and I not able to find her, this impatient
+      gentleman would be in a pretty taking. And sure enough there's no light,
+      and the door's fast. Now, God forgive me for saying so, but if this is
+      Little Bethel's doing, I wish Little Bethel was&mdash;was farther off,'
+      said Kit checking himself, and knocking at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second knock brought no reply from within the house; but caused a woman
+      over the way to look out and inquire who that was, awanting Mrs Nubbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Me,' said Kit. 'She's at&mdash;at Little Bethel, I suppose?'&mdash;getting
+      out the name of the obnoxious conventicle with some reluctance, and laying
+      a spiteful emphasis upon the words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The neighbour nodded assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then pray tell me where it is,' said Kit, 'for I have come on a pressing
+      matter, and must fetch her out, even if she was in the pulpit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not very easy to procure a direction to the fold in question, as
+      none of the neighbours were of the flock that resorted thither, and few
+      knew anything more of it than the name. At last, a gossip of Mrs
+      Nubbles's, who had accompanied her to chapel on one or two occasions when
+      a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her devotions, furnished the needful
+      information, which Kit had no sooner obtained than he started off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a straighter
+      road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who presided over its
+      congregation would have lost his favourite allusion to the crooked ways by
+      which it was approached, and which enabled him to liken it to Paradise
+      itself, in contradistinction to the parish church and the broad
+      thoroughfare leading thereunto. Kit found it, at last, after some trouble,
+      and pausing at the door to take breath that he might enter with becoming
+      decency, passed into the chapel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a particularly
+      little Bethel&mdash;a Bethel of the smallest dimensions&mdash;with a small
+      number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a small gentleman (by
+      trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was delivering in a by no
+      means small voice, a by no means small sermon, judging of its dimensions
+      by the condition of his audience, which, if their gross amount were but
+      small, comprised a still smaller number of hearers, as the majority were
+      slumbering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among these was Kit's mother, who, finding it matter of extreme difficulty
+      to keep her eyes open after the fatigues of last night, and feeling their
+      inclination to close strongly backed and seconded by the arguments of the
+      preacher, had yielded to the drowsiness that overpowered her, and fallen
+      asleep; though not so soundly but that she could, from time to time, utter
+      a slight and almost inaudible groan, as if in recognition of the orator's
+      doctrines. The baby in her arms was as fast asleep as she; and little
+      Jacob, whose youth prevented him from recognising in this prolonged
+      spiritual nourishment anything half as interesting as oysters, was
+      alternately very fast asleep and very wide awake, as his inclination to
+      slumber, or his terror of being personally alluded to in the discourse,
+      gained the mastery over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And now I'm here,' thought Kit, gliding into the nearest empty pew which
+      was opposite his mother's, and on the other side of the little aisle, 'how
+      am I ever to get at her, or persuade her to come out! I might as well be
+      twenty miles off. She'll never wake till it's all over, and there goes the
+      clock again! If he would but leave off for a minute, or if they'd only
+      sing!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was little encouragement to believe that either event would
+      happen for a couple of hours to come. The preacher went on telling them
+      what he meant to convince them of before he had done, and it was clear
+      that if he only kept to one-half of his promises and forgot the other, he
+      was good for that time at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the chapel,
+      and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front of the clerk's
+      desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed him&mdash;Quilp!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp was
+      there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his knees, and
+      his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with the accustomed grin
+      on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the ceiling. He certainly did
+      not glance at Kit or at his mother, and appeared utterly unconscious of
+      their presence; still Kit could not help feeling, directly, that the
+      attention of the sly little fiend was fastened upon them, and upon nothing
+      else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the Little
+      Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the forerunner of
+      some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue his wonder and to
+      take active measures for the withdrawal of his parent, as the evening was
+      now creeping on, and the matter grew serious. Therefore, the next time
+      little Jacob woke, Kit set himself to attract his wandering attention, and
+      this not being a very difficult task (one sneeze effected it), he signed
+      to him to rouse his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in a
+      forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over upon the
+      pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs remained inside;
+      and, while he made vehement gestures with his right hand, and held on with
+      his left, stared, or seemed to stare, straight into little Jacob's eyes,
+      threatening him by his strained look and attitude&mdash;so it appeared to
+      the child&mdash;that if he so much as moved a muscle, he, the preacher,
+      would be literally, and not figuratively, 'down upon him' that instant. In
+      this fearful state of things, distracted by the sudden appearance of Kit,
+      and fascinated by the eyes of the preacher, the miserable Jacob sat bolt
+      upright, wholly incapable of motion, strongly disposed to cry but afraid
+      to do so, and returning his pastor's gaze until his infant eyes seemed
+      starting from their sockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I must do it openly, I must,' thought Kit. With that he walked softly
+      out of his pew and into his mother's, and as Mr Swiveller would have
+      observed if he had been present, 'collared' the baby without speaking a
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hush, mother!' whispered Kit. 'Come along with me, I've got something to
+      tell you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where am I?' said Mrs Nubbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In this blessed Little Bethel,' returned her son, peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Blessed indeed!' cried Mrs Nubbles, catching at the word. 'Oh,
+      Christopher, how have I been edified this night!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes, I know,' said Kit hastily; 'but come along, mother, everybody's
+      looking at us. Don't make a noise&mdash;bring Jacob&mdash;that's right!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Stay, Satan, stay!' cried the preacher, as Kit was moving off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This gentleman says you're to stay, Christopher,' whispered his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Stay, Satan, stay!' roared the preacher again. 'Tempt not the woman that
+      doth incline her ear to thee, but harken to the voice of him that calleth.
+      He hath a lamb from the fold!' cried the preacher, raising his voice still
+      higher and pointing to the baby. 'He beareth off a lamb, a precious lamb!
+      He goeth about, like a wolf in the night season, and inveigleth the tender
+      lambs!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but considering this strong
+      language, and being somewhat excited by the circumstances in which he was
+      placed, he faced round to the pulpit with the baby in his arms, and
+      replied aloud, 'No, I don't. He's my brother.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's <i>my</i> brother!' cried the preacher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He isn't,' said Kit indignantly. 'How can you say such a thing? And don't
+      call me names if you please; what harm have I done? I shouldn't have come
+      to take 'em away, unless I was obliged, you may depend upon that. I wanted
+      to do it very quiet, but you wouldn't let me. Now, you have the goodness
+      to abuse Satan and them, as much as you like, Sir, and to let me alone if
+      you please.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, Kit marched out of the chapel, followed by his mother and
+      little Jacob, and found himself in the open air, with an indistinct
+      recollection of having seen the people wake up and look surprised, and of
+      Quilp having remained, throughout the interruption, in his old attitude,
+      without moving his eyes from the ceiling, or appearing to take the
+      smallest notice of anything that passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh Kit!' said his mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes, 'what have
+      you done! I never can go there again&mdash;never!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm glad of it, mother. What was there in the little bit of pleasure you
+      took last night that made it necessary for you to be low-spirited and
+      sorrowful tonight? That's the way you do. If you're happy or merry ever,
+      you come here to say, along with that chap, that you're sorry for it. More
+      shame for you, mother, I was going to say.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hush, dear!' said Mrs Nubbles; 'you don't mean what you say I know, but
+      you're talking sinfulness.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't mean it? But I do mean it!' retorted Kit. 'I don't believe, mother,
+      that harmless cheerfulness and good humour are thought greater sins in
+      Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I do believe that those chaps are just
+      about as right and sensible in putting down the one as in leaving off the
+      other&mdash;that's my belief. But I won't say anything more about it, if
+      you'll promise not to cry, that's all; and you take the baby that's a
+      lighter weight, and give me little Jacob; and as we go along (which we
+      must do pretty quick) I'll give you the news I bring, which will surprise
+      you a little, I can tell you. There&mdash;that's right. Now you look as if
+      you'd never seen Little Bethel in all your life, as I hope you never will
+      again; and here's the baby; and little Jacob, you get atop of my back and
+      catch hold of me tight round the neck, and whenever a Little Bethel parson
+      calls you a precious lamb or says your brother's one, you tell him it's
+      the truest things he's said for a twelvemonth, and that if he'd got a
+      little more of the lamb himself, and less of the mint-sauce&mdash;not
+      being quite so sharp and sour over it&mdash;I should like him all the
+      better. That's what you've got to say to him, Jacob.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talking on in this way, half in jest and half in earnest, and cheering up
+      his mother, the children, and himself, by the one simple process of
+      determining to be in a good humour, Kit led them briskly forward; and on
+      the road home, he related what had passed at the Notary's house, and the
+      purpose with which he had intruded on the solemnities of Little Bethel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother was not a little startled on learning what service was required
+      of her, and presently fell into a confusion of ideas, of which the most
+      prominent were that it was a great honour and dignity to ride in a
+      post-chaise, and that it was a moral impossibility to leave the children
+      behind. But this objection, and a great many others, founded on certain
+      articles of dress being at the wash, and certain other articles having no
+      existence in the wardrobe of Mrs Nubbles, were overcome by Kit, who
+      opposed to each and every of them, the pleasure of recovering Nell, and
+      the delight it would be to bring her back in triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's only ten minutes now, mother,' said Kit when they reached home.
+      'There's a bandbox. Throw in what you want, and we'll be off directly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which could,
+      by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out everything likely
+      to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was persuaded to come and stop
+      with the children, and how the children at first cried dismally, and then
+      laughed heartily on being promised all kinds of impossible and unheard-of
+      toys; how Kit's mother wouldn't leave off kissing them, and how Kit
+      couldn't make up his mind to be vexed with her for doing it; would take
+      more time and room than you and I can spare. So, passing over all such
+      matters, it is sufficient to say that within a few minutes after the two
+      hours had expired, Kit and his mother arrived at the Notary's door, where
+      a post-chaise was already waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'With four horses I declare!' said Kit, quite aghast at the preparations.
+      'Well you <i>are </i>going to do it, mother! Here she is, Sir. Here's my mother.
+      She's quite ready, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's well,' returned the gentleman. 'Now, don't be in a flutter, ma'am;
+      you'll be taken great care of. Where's the box with the new clothing and
+      necessaries for them?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here it is,' said the Notary. 'In with it, Christopher.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All right, Sir,' replied Kit. 'Quite ready now, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then come along,' said the single gentleman. And thereupon he gave his
+      arm to Kit's mother, handed her into the carriage as politely as you
+      please, and took his seat beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up went the steps, bang went the door, round whirled the wheels, and off
+      they rattled, with Kit's mother hanging out at one window waving a damp
+      pocket-handkerchief and screaming out a great many messages to little
+      Jacob and the baby, of which nobody heard a word.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0298m.jpg" alt="0298m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0298.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Kit stood in the middle of the road, and looked after them with tears in
+      his eyes&mdash;not brought there by the departure he witnessed, but by the
+      return to which he looked forward. 'They went away,' he thought, 'on foot
+      with nobody to speak to them or say a kind word at parting, and they'll
+      come back, drawn by four horses, with this rich gentleman for their
+      friend, and all their troubles over! She'll forget that she taught me to
+      write&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever Kit thought about after this, took some time to think of, for he
+      stood gazing up the lines of shining lamps, long after the chaise had
+      disappeared, and did not return into the house until the Notary and Mr
+      Abel, who had themselves lingered outside till the sound of the wheels was
+      no longer distinguishable, had several times wondered what could possibly
+      detain him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap42"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 42
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t behoves us to leave Kit for a while, thoughtful and expectant, and to
+      follow the fortunes of little Nell; resuming the thread of the narrative
+      at the point where it was left, some chapters back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one of those wanderings in the evening time, when, following the two
+      sisters at a humble distance, she felt, in her sympathy with them and her
+      recognition in their trials of something akin to her own loneliness of
+      spirit, a comfort and consolation which made such moments a time of deep
+      delight, though the softened pleasure they yielded was of that kind which
+      lives and dies in tears&mdash;in one of those wanderings at the quiet hour
+      of twilight, when sky, and earth, and air, and rippling water, and sound
+      of distant bells, claimed kindred with the emotions of the solitary child,
+      and inspired her with soothing thoughts, but not of a child's world or its
+      easy joys&mdash;in one of those rambles which had now become her only
+      pleasure or relief from care, light had faded into darkness and evening
+      deepened into night, and still the young creature lingered in the gloom;
+      feeling a companionship in Nature so serene and still, when noise of
+      tongues and glare of garish lights would have been solitude indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sisters had gone home, and she was alone. She raised her eyes to the
+      bright stars, looking down so mildly from the wide worlds of air, and,
+      gazing on them, found new stars burst upon her view, and more beyond, and
+      more beyond again, until the whole great expanse sparkled with shining
+      spheres, rising higher and higher in immeasurable space, eternal in their
+      numbers as in their changeless and incorruptible existence. She bent over
+      the calm river, and saw them shining in the same majestic order as when
+      the dove beheld them gleaming through the swollen waters, upon the
+      mountain tops down far below, and dead mankind, a million fathoms deep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child sat silently beneath a tree, hushed in her very breath by the
+      stillness of the night, and all its attendant wonders. The time and place
+      awoke reflection, and she thought with a quiet hope&mdash;less hope,
+      perhaps, than resignation&mdash;on the past, and present, and what was yet
+      before her. Between the old man and herself there had come a gradual
+      separation, harder to bear than any former sorrow. Every evening, and
+      often in the day-time too, he was absent, alone; and although she well
+      knew where he went, and why&mdash;too well from the constant drain upon
+      her scanty purse and from his haggard looks&mdash;he evaded all inquiry,
+      maintained a strict reserve, and even shunned her presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat meditating sorrowfully upon this change, and mingling it, as it
+      were, with everything about her, when the distant church-clock bell struck
+      nine. Rising at the sound, she retraced her steps, and turned thoughtfully
+      towards the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had gained a little wooden bridge, which, thrown across the stream,
+      led into a meadow in her way, when she came suddenly upon a ruddy light,
+      and looking forward more attentively, discerned that it proceeded from
+      what appeared to be an encampment of gipsies, who had made a fire in one
+      corner at no great distance from the path, and were sitting or lying round
+      it. As she was too poor to have any fear of them, she did not alter her
+      course (which, indeed, she could not have done without going a long way
+      round), but quickened her pace a little, and kept straight on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A movement of timid curiosity impelled her, when she approached the spot,
+      to glance towards the fire. There was a form between it and her, the
+      outline strongly developed against the light, which caused her to stop
+      abruptly. Then, as if she had reasoned with herself and were assured that
+      it could not be, or had satisfied herself that it was not that of the
+      person she had supposed, she went on again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at that instant the conversation, whatever it was, which had been
+      carrying on near this fire was resumed, and the tones of the voice that
+      spoke&mdash;she could not distinguish words&mdash;sounded as familiar to
+      her as her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned, and looked back. The person had been seated before, but was
+      now in a standing posture, and leaning forward on a stick on which he
+      rested both hands. The attitude was no less familiar to her than the tone
+      of voice had been. It was her grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her first impulse was to call to him; her next to wonder who his
+      associates could be, and for what purpose they were together. Some vague
+      apprehension succeeded, and, yielding to the strong inclination it
+      awakened, she drew nearer to the place; not advancing across the open
+      field, however, but creeping towards it by the hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this way she advanced within a few feet of the fire, and standing among
+      a few young trees, could both see and hear, without much danger of being
+      observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were no women or children, as she had seen in other gipsy camps they
+      had passed in their wayfaring, and but one gipsy&mdash;a tall athletic
+      man, who stood with his arms folded, leaning against a tree at a little
+      distance off, looking now at the fire, and now, under his black eyelashes,
+      at three other men who were there, with a watchful but half-concealed
+      interest in their conversation. Of these, her grandfather was one; the
+      others she recognised as the first card-players at the public-house on the
+      eventful night of the storm&mdash;the man whom they had called Isaac List,
+      and his gruff companion. One of the low, arched gipsy-tents, common to
+      that people, was pitched hard by, but it either was, or appeared to be,
+      empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, are you going?' said the stout man, looking up from the ground
+      where he was lying at his ease, into her grandfather's face. 'You were in
+      a mighty hurry a minute ago. Go, if you like. You're your own master, I
+      hope?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't vex him,' returned Isaac List, who was squatting like a frog on the
+      other side of the fire, and had so screwed himself up that he seemed to be
+      squinting all over; 'he didn't mean any offence.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0301m.jpg" alt="0301m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0301.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'You keep me poor, and plunder me, and make a sport and jest of me
+      besides,' said the old man, turning from one to the other. 'Ye'll drive me
+      mad among ye.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The utter irresolution and feebleness of the grey-haired child, contrasted
+      with the keen and cunning looks of those in whose hands he was, smote upon
+      the little listener's heart. But she constrained herself to attend to all
+      that passed, and to note each look and word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Confound you, what do you mean?' said the stout man rising a little, and
+      supporting himself on his elbow. 'Keep you poor! You'd keep us poor if you
+      could, wouldn't you? That's the way with you whining, puny, pitiful
+      players. When you lose, you're martyrs; but I don't find that when you
+      win, you look upon the other losers in that light. As to plunder!' cried
+      the fellow, raising his voice&mdash;'Damme, what do you mean by such
+      ungentlemanly language as plunder, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The speaker laid himself down again at full length, and gave one or two
+      short, angry kicks, as if in further expression of his unbounded
+      indignation. It was quite plain that he acted the bully, and his friend
+      the peacemaker, for some particular purpose; or rather, it would have been
+      to any one but the weak old man; for they exchanged glances quite openly,
+      both with each other and with the gipsy, who grinned his approval of the
+      jest until his white teeth shone again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man stood helplessly among them for a little time, and then said,
+      turning to his assailant:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You yourself were speaking of plunder just now, you know. Don't be so
+      violent with me. You were, were you not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not of plundering among present company! Honour among&mdash;among
+      gentlemen, Sir,' returned the other, who seemed to have been very near
+      giving an awkward termination to the sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't be hard upon him, Jowl,' said Isaac List. 'He's very sorry for
+      giving offence. There&mdash;go on with what you were saying&mdash;go on.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm a jolly old tender-hearted lamb, I am,' cried Mr Jowl, 'to be sitting
+      here at my time of life giving advice when I know it won't be taken, and
+      that I shall get nothing but abuse for my pains. But that's the way I've
+      gone through life. Experience has never put a chill upon my
+      warm-heartedness.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I tell you he's very sorry, don't I?' remonstrated Isaac List, 'and that
+      he wishes you'd go on.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Does he wish it?' said the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ay,' groaned the old man sitting down, and rocking himself to and fro.
+      'Go on, go on. It's in vain to fight with it; I can't do it; go on.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I go on then,' said Jowl, 'where I left off, when you got up so quick. If
+      you're persuaded that it's time for luck to turn, as it certainly is, and
+      find that you haven't means enough to try it (and that's where it is, for
+      you know, yourself, that you never have the funds to keep on long enough
+      at a sitting), help yourself to what seems put in your way on purpose.
+      Borrow it, I say, and, when you're able, pay it back again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly,' Isaac List struck in, 'if this good lady as keeps the
+      wax-works has money, and does keep it in a tin box when she goes to bed,
+      and doesn't lock her door for fear of fire, it seems a easy thing; quite a
+      Providence, I should call it&mdash;but then I've been religiously brought
+      up.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see, Isaac,' said his friend, growing more eager, and drawing himself
+      closer to the old man, while he signed to the gipsy not to come between
+      them; 'you see, Isaac, strangers are going in and out every hour of the
+      day; nothing would be more likely than for one of these strangers to get
+      under the good lady's bed, or lock himself in the cupboard; suspicion
+      would be very wide, and would fall a long way from the mark, no doubt. I'd
+      give him his revenge to the last farthing he brought, whatever the amount
+      was.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But could you?' urged Isaac List. 'Is your bank strong enough?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Strong enough!' answered the other, with assumed disdain. 'Here, you Sir,
+      give me that box out of the straw!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was addressed to the gipsy, who crawled into the low tent on all
+      fours, and after some rummaging and rustling returned with a cash-box,
+      which the man who had spoken opened with a key he wore about his person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you see this?' he said, gathering up the money in his hand and letting
+      it drop back into the box, between his fingers, like water. 'Do you hear
+      it? Do you know the sound of gold? There, put it back&mdash;and don't talk
+      about banks again, Isaac, till you've got one of your own.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isaac List, with great apparent humility, protested that he had never
+      doubted the credit of a gentleman so notorious for his honourable dealing
+      as Mr Jowl, and that he had hinted at the production of the box, not for
+      the satisfaction of his doubts, for he could have none, but with a view to
+      being regaled with a sight of so much wealth, which, though it might be
+      deemed by some but an unsubstantial and visionary pleasure, was to one in
+      his circumstances a source of extreme delight, only to be surpassed by its
+      safe depository in his own personal pockets. Although Mr List and Mr Jowl
+      addressed themselves to each other, it was remarkable that they both
+      looked narrowly at the old man, who, with his eyes fixed upon the fire,
+      sat brooding over it, yet listening eagerly&mdash;as it seemed from a
+      certain involuntary motion of the head, or twitching of the face from time
+      to time&mdash;to all they said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My advice,' said Jowl, lying down again with a careless air, 'is plain&mdash;I
+      have given it, in fact. I act as a friend. Why should I help a man to the
+      means perhaps of winning all I have, unless I considered him my friend?
+      It's foolish, I dare say, to be so thoughtful of the welfare of other
+      people, but that's my constitution, and I can't help it; so don't blame
+      me, Isaac List.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I blame you!' returned the person addressed; 'not for the world, Mr Jowl.
+      I wish I could afford to be as liberal as you; and, as you say, he might
+      pay it back if he won&mdash;and if he lost&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're not to take that into consideration at all,' said Jowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But suppose he did (and nothing's less likely, from all I know of
+      chances), why, it's better to lose other people's money than one's own, I
+      hope?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' cried Isaac List rapturously, 'the pleasures of winning! The delight
+      of picking up the money&mdash;the bright, shining yellow-boys&mdash;and
+      sweeping 'em into one's pocket! The deliciousness of having a triumph at
+      last, and thinking that one didn't stop short and turn back, but went
+      half-way to meet it! The&mdash;but you're not going, old gentleman?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll do it,' said the old man, who had risen and taken two or three
+      hurried steps away, and now returned as hurriedly. 'I'll have it, every
+      penny.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, that's brave,' cried Isaac, jumping up and slapping him on the
+      shoulder; 'and I respect you for having so much young blood left. Ha, ha,
+      ha! Joe Jowl's half sorry he advised you now. We've got the laugh against
+      him. Ha, ha, ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He gives me my revenge, mind,' said the old man, pointing to him eagerly
+      with his shrivelled hand: 'mind&mdash;he stakes coin against coin, down to
+      the last one in the box, be there many or few. Remember that!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm witness,' returned Isaac. 'I'll see fair between you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have passed my word,' said Jowl with feigned reluctance, 'and I'll keep
+      it. When does this match come off? I wish it was over.&mdash;To-night?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I must have the money first,' said the old man; 'and that I'll have
+      to-morrow&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why not to-night?' urged Jowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's late now, and I should be flushed and flurried,' said the old man.
+      'It must be softly done. No, to-morrow night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then to-morrow be it,' said Jowl. 'A drop of comfort here. Luck to the
+      best man! Fill!'
+</p>
+    <p>
+The gipsy produced three tin cups, and filled them to the
+      brim with brandy. The old man turned aside and muttered to himself before
+      he drank. Her own name struck upon the listener's ear, coupled with some
+      wish so fervent, that he seemed to breathe it in an agony of supplication.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'God be merciful to us!' cried the child within herself, 'and help us in
+      this trying hour! What shall I do to save him!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder of their conversation was carried on in a lower tone of
+      voice, and was sufficiently concise; relating merely to the execution of
+      the project, and the best precautions for diverting suspicion. The old man
+      then shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They watched his bowed and stooping figure as it retreated slowly, and
+      when he turned his head to look back, which he often did, waved their
+      hands, or shouted some brief encouragement. It was not until they had seen
+      him gradually diminish into a mere speck upon the distant road, that they
+      turned to each other, and ventured to laugh aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So,' said Jowl, warming his hands at the fire, 'it's done at last. He
+      wanted more persuading than I expected. It's three weeks ago, since we
+      first put this in his head. What'll he bring, do you think?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Whatever he brings, it's halved between us,' returned Isaac List.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other man nodded. 'We must make quick work of it,' he said, 'and then
+      cut his acquaintance, or we may be suspected. Sharp's the word.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      List and the gipsy acquiesced. When they had all three amused themselves a
+      little with their victim's infatuation, they dismissed the subject as one
+      which had been sufficiently discussed, and began to talk in a jargon which
+      the child did not understand. As their discourse appeared to relate to
+      matters in which they were warmly interested, however, she deemed it the
+      best time for escaping unobserved; and crept away with slow and cautious
+      steps, keeping in the shadow of the hedges, or forcing a path through them
+      or the dry ditches, until she could emerge upon the road at a point beyond
+      their range of vision. Then she fled homeward as quickly as she could,
+      torn and bleeding from the wounds of thorns and briars, but more lacerated
+      in mind, and threw herself upon her bed, distracted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first idea that flashed upon her mind was flight, instant flight;
+      dragging him from that place, and rather dying of want upon the roadside,
+      than ever exposing him again to such terrible temptations. Then, she
+      remembered that the crime was not to be committed until next night, and
+      there was the intermediate time for thinking, and resolving what to do.
+      Then, she was distracted with a horrible fear that he might be committing
+      it at that moment; with a dread of hearing shrieks and cries piercing the
+      silence of the night; with fearful thoughts of what he might be tempted
+      and led on to do, if he were detected in the act, and had but a woman to
+      struggle with. It was impossible to bear such torture. She stole to the
+      room where the money was, opened the door, and looked in. God be praised!
+      He was not there, and she was sleeping soundly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed. But
+      who could sleep&mdash;sleep! who could lie passively down, distracted by
+      such terrors? They came upon her more and more strongly yet. Half
+      undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old man's
+      bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and roused him from his sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's this!' he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes upon her
+      spectral face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have had a dreadful dream,' said the child, with an energy that nothing
+      but such terrors could have inspired. 'A dreadful, horrible dream. I have
+      had it once before. It is a dream of grey-haired men like you, in darkened
+      rooms by night, robbing sleepers of their gold. Up, up!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who prays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not to me,' said the child, 'not to me&mdash;to Heaven, to save us from
+      such deeds! This dream is too real. I cannot sleep, I cannot stay here, I
+      cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come. Up! We must
+      fly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her as if she were a spirit&mdash;she might have been for all
+      the look of earth she had&mdash;and trembled more and more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute,' said the child.
+      'Up! and away with me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To-night?' murmured the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, to-night,' replied the child. 'To-morrow night will be too late. The
+      dream will have come again. Nothing but flight can save us. Up!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat of
+      fear: and, bending before the child as if she had been an angel messenger
+      sent to lead him where she would, made ready to follow her. She took him
+      by the hand and led him on. As they passed the door of the room he had
+      proposed to rob, she shuddered and looked up into his face. What a white
+      face was that, and with what a look did he meet hers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand as if
+      she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the little stock
+      she had, and hung her basket on her arm. The old man took his wallet from
+      her hands and strapped it on his shoulders&mdash;his staff, too, she had
+      brought away&mdash;and then she led him forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their trembling
+      feet passed quickly. Up the steep hill too, crowned by the old grey
+      castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once looked behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as they drew nearer the ruined walls, the moon rose in all her gentle
+      glory, and, from their venerable age, garlanded with ivy, moss, and waving
+      grass, the child looked back upon the sleeping town, deep in the valley's
+      shade: and on the far-off river with its winding track of light: and on
+      the distant hills; and as she did so, she clasped the hand she held, less
+      firmly, and bursting into tears, fell upon the old man's neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap43"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 43
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>er momentary weakness past, the child again summoned the resolution which
+      had until now sustained her, and, endeavouring to keep steadily in her
+      view the one idea that they were flying from disgrace and crime, and that
+      her grandfather's preservation must depend solely on her firmness, unaided
+      by one word of advice or any helping hand, urged him onward and looked
+      back no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he, subdued and abashed, seemed to crouch before her, and to shrink
+      and cower down, as if in the presence of some superior creature, the child
+      herself was sensible of a new feeling within her, which elevated her
+      nature, and inspired her with an energy and confidence she had never
+      known. There was no divided responsibility now; the whole burden of their
+      two lives had fallen upon her, and henceforth she must think and act for
+      both. 'I have saved him,' she thought. 'In all dangers and distresses, I
+      will remember that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any other time, the recollection of having deserted the friend who had
+      shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of justification&mdash;the
+      thought that they were guilty, in appearance, of treachery and ingratitude&mdash;even
+      the having parted from the two sisters&mdash;would have filled her with
+      sorrow and regret. But now, all other considerations were lost in the new
+      uncertainties and anxieties of their wild and wandering life; and the very
+      desperation of their condition roused and stimulated her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate
+      face where thoughtful care already mingled with the winning grace and
+      loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spiritual head, the lips that
+      pressed each other with such high resolve and courage of the heart, the
+      slight figure firm in its bearing and yet so very weak, told their silent
+      tale; but told it only to the wind that rustled by, which, taking up its
+      burden, carried, perhaps to some mother's pillow, faint dreams of
+      childhood fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that knows no
+      waking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night crept on apace, the moon went down, the stars grew pale and dim,
+      and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Then, from behind a distant
+      hill, the noble sun rose up, driving the mists in phantom shapes before
+      it, and clearing the earth of their ghostly forms till darkness came
+      again. When it had climbed higher into the sky, and there was warmth in
+      its cheerful beams, they laid them down to sleep, upon a bank, hard by
+      some water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Nell retained her grasp upon the old man's arm, and long after he was
+      slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes. Fatigue stole over her
+      at last; her grasp relaxed, tightened, relaxed again, and they slept side
+      by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A confused sound of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her. A man of
+      very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them, and two of his
+      companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to
+      the bank while they were sleeping. The boat had neither oar nor sail, but
+      was towed by a couple of horses, who, with the rope to which they were
+      harnessed slack and dripping in the water, were resting on the path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Holloa!' said the man roughly. 'What's the matter here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We were only asleep, Sir,' said Nell. 'We have been walking all night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A pair of queer travellers to be walking all night,' observed the man who
+      had first accosted them. 'One of you is a trifle too old for that sort of
+      work, and the other a trifle too young. Where are you going?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell faltered, and pointed at hazard towards the West, upon which the man
+      inquired if she meant a certain town which he named. Nell, to avoid more
+      questioning, said 'Yes, that was the place.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where have you come from?' was the next question; and this being an
+      easier one to answer, Nell mentioned the name of the village in which
+      their friend the schoolmaster dwelt, as being less likely to be known to
+      the men or to provoke further inquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I thought somebody had been robbing and ill-using you, might be,' said
+      the man. 'That's all. Good day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning his salute and feeling greatly relieved by his departure, Nell
+      looked after him as he mounted one of the horses, and the boat went on. It
+      had not gone very far, when it stopped again, and she saw the men
+      beckoning to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did you call to me?' said Nell, running up to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You may go with us if you like,' replied one of those in the boat. 'We're
+      going to the same place.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child hesitated for a moment. Thinking, as she had thought with great
+      trepidation more than once before, that the men whom she had seen with her
+      grandfather might, perhaps, in their eagerness for the booty, follow them,
+      and regaining their influence over him, set hers at nought; and that if
+      they went with these men, all traces of them must surely be lost at that
+      spot; determined to accept the offer. The boat came close to the bank
+      again, and before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her
+      grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes shaded
+      by trees, and sometimes open to a wide extent of country, intersected by
+      running streams, and rich with wooded hills, cultivated land, and
+      sheltered farms. Now and then, a village with its modest spire, thatched
+      roofs, and gable-ends, would peep out from among the trees; and, more than
+      once, a distant town, with great church towers looming through its smoke,
+      and high factories or workshops rising above the mass of houses, would
+      come in view, and, by the length of time it lingered in the distance, show
+      them how slowly they travelled. Their way lay, for the most part, through
+      the low grounds, and open plains; and except these distant places, and
+      occasionally some men working in the fields, or lounging on the bridges
+      under which they passed, to see them creep along, nothing encroached on
+      their monotonous and secluded track.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell was rather disheartened, when they stopped at a kind of wharf late in
+      the afternoon, to learn from one of the men that they would not reach
+      their place of destination until next day, and that, if she had no
+      provision with her, she had better buy it there. She had but a few pence,
+      having already bargained with them for some bread, but even of these it
+      was necessary to be very careful, as they were on their way to an utterly
+      strange place, with no resource whatever. A small loaf and a morsel of
+      cheese, therefore, were all she could afford, and with these she took her
+      place in the boat again, and, after half an hour's delay during which the
+      men were drinking at the public-house, proceeded on the journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They brought some beer and spirits into the boat with them, and what with
+      drinking freely before, and again now, were soon in a fair way of being
+      quarrelsome and intoxicated. Avoiding the small cabin, therefore, which
+      was very dark and filthy, and to which they often invited both her and her
+      grandfather, Nell sat in the open air with the old man by her side:
+      listening to their boisterous hosts with a palpitating heart, and almost
+      wishing herself safe on shore again though she should have to walk all
+      night.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0310m.jpg" alt="0310m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0310.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      They were, in truth, very rugged, noisy fellows, and quite brutal among
+      themselves, though civil enough to their two passengers. Thus, when a
+      quarrel arose between the man who was steering and his friend in the
+      cabin, upon the question who had first suggested the propriety of offering
+      Nell some beer, and when the quarrel led to a scuffle in which they beat
+      each other fearfully, to her inexpressible terror, neither visited his
+      displeasure upon her, but each contented himself with venting it on his
+      adversary, on whom, in addition to blows, he bestowed a variety of
+      compliments, which, happily for the child, were conveyed in terms, to her
+      quite unintelligible. The difference was finally adjusted, by the man who
+      had come out of the cabin knocking the other into it head first, and
+      taking the helm into his own hands, without evincing the least
+      discomposure himself, or causing any in his friend, who, being of a
+      tolerably strong constitution and perfectly inured to such trifles, went
+      to sleep as he was, with his heels upwards, and in a couple of minutes or
+      so was snoring comfortably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold, being but
+      poorly clad, her anxious thoughts were far removed from her own suffering
+      or uneasiness, and busily engaged in endeavouring to devise some scheme
+      for their joint subsistence. The same spirit which had supported her on
+      the previous night, upheld and sustained her now. Her grandfather lay
+      sleeping safely at her side, and the crime to which his madness urged him,
+      was not committed. That was her comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How every circumstance of her short, eventful life, came thronging into
+      her mind, as they travelled on! Slight incidents, never thought of or
+      remembered until now; faces, seen once and ever since forgotten; words
+      scarcely heeded at the time; scenes, of a year ago and those of yesterday,
+      mixing up and linking themselves together; familiar places shaping
+      themselves out in the darkness from things which, when approached, were,
+      of all others, the most remote and most unlike them; sometimes, a strange
+      confusion in her mind relative to the occasion of her being there, and the
+      place to which she was going, and the people she was with; and imagination
+      suggesting remarks and questions which sounded so plainly in her ears,
+      that she would start, and turn, and be almost tempted to reply;&mdash;all
+      the fancies and contradictions common in watching and excitement and
+      restless change of place, beset the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She happened, while she was thus engaged, to encounter the face of the man
+      on deck, in whom the sentimental stage of drunkenness had now succeeded to
+      the boisterous, and who, taking from his mouth a short pipe, quilted over
+      with string for its longer preservation, requested that she would oblige
+      him with a song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You've got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong
+      memory,' said this gentleman; 'the voice and eye I've got evidence for,
+      and the memory's an opinion of my own. And I'm never wrong. Let me hear a
+      song this minute.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't think I know one, sir,' returned Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You know forty-seven songs,' said the man, with a gravity which admitted
+      of no altercation on the subject. 'Forty-seven's your number. Let me hear
+      one of 'em&mdash;the best. Give me a song this minute.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her friend, and
+      trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him some little ditty
+      which she had learned in happier times, and which was so agreeable to his
+      ear, that on its conclusion he in the same peremptory manner requested to
+      be favoured with another, to which he was so obliging as to roar a chorus
+      to no particular tune, and with no words at all, but which amply made up
+      in its amazing energy for its deficiency in other respects. The noise of
+      this vocal performance awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck
+      and shaking his late opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his
+      pride and joy and chief delight, and that he desired no better
+      entertainment. With a third call, more imperative than either of the two
+      former, Nell felt obliged to comply, and this time a chorus was maintained
+      not only by the two men together, but also by the third man on horseback,
+      who being by his position debarred from a nearer participation in the
+      revels of the night, roared when his companions roared, and rent the very
+      air. In this way, with little cessation, and singing the same songs again
+      and again, the tired and exhausted child kept them in good humour all that
+      night; and many a cottager, who was roused from his soundest sleep by the
+      discordant chorus as it floated away upon the wind, hid his head beneath
+      the bed-clothes and trembled at the sounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the morning dawned. It was no sooner light than it began to rain
+      heavily. As the child could not endure the intolerable vapours of the
+      cabin, they covered her, in return for her exertions, with some pieces of
+      sail-cloth and ends of tarpaulin, which sufficed to keep her tolerably dry
+      and to shelter her grandfather besides. As the day advanced the rain
+      increased. At noon it poured down more hopelessly and heavily than ever
+      without the faintest promise of abatement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had, for some time, been gradually approaching the place for which
+      they were bound. The water had become thicker and dirtier; other barges,
+      coming from it, passed them frequently; the paths of coal-ash and huts of
+      staring brick, marked the vicinity of some great manufacturing town; while
+      scattered streets and houses, and smoke from distant furnaces, indicated
+      that they were already in the outskirts. Now, the clustered roofs, and
+      piles of buildings, trembling with the working of engines, and dimly
+      resounding with their shrieks and throbbings; the tall chimneys vomiting
+      forth a black vapour, which hung in a dense ill-favoured cloud above the
+      housetops and filled the air with gloom; the clank of hammers beating upon
+      iron, the roar of busy streets and noisy crowds, gradually augmenting
+      until all the various sounds blended into one and none was distinguishable
+      for itself, announced the termination of their journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat floated into the wharf to which it belonged. The men were
+      occupied directly. The child and her grandfather, after waiting in vain to
+      thank them or ask them whither they should go, passed through a dirty lane
+      into a crowded street, and stood, amid its din and tumult, and in the
+      pouring rain, as strange, bewildered, and confused, as if they had lived a
+      thousand years before, and were raised from the dead and placed there by a
+      miracle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap44"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 44
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he throng of people hurried by, in two opposite streams, with no symptom
+      of cessation or exhaustion; intent upon their own affairs; and undisturbed
+      in their business speculations, by the roar of carts and waggons laden
+      with clashing wares, the slipping of horses' feet upon the wet and greasy
+      pavement, the rattling of the rain on windows and umbrella-tops, the
+      jostling of the more impatient passengers, and all the noise and tumult of
+      a crowded street in the high tide of its occupation: while the two poor
+      strangers, stunned and bewildered by the hurry they beheld but had no part
+      in, looked mournfully on; feeling, amidst the crowd, a solitude which has
+      no parallel but in the thirst of the shipwrecked mariner, who, tost to and
+      fro upon the billows of a mighty ocean, his red eyes blinded by looking on
+      the water which hems him in on every side, has not one drop to cool his
+      burning tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and watched
+      the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a ray of
+      encouragement or hope. Some frowned, some smiled, some muttered to
+      themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating the conversation
+      in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the cunning look of
+      bargaining and plotting, some were anxious and eager, some slow and dull;
+      in some countenances, were written gain; in others, loss. It was like
+      being in the confidence of all these people to stand quietly there,
+      looking into their faces as they flitted past. In busy places, where each
+      man has an object of his own, and feels assured that every other man has
+      his, his character and purpose are written broadly in his face. In the
+      public walks and lounges of a town, people go to see and to be seen, and
+      there the same expression, with little variety, is repeated a hundred
+      times. The working-day faces come nearer to the truth, and let it out more
+      plainly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Falling into that kind of abstraction which such a solitude awakens, the
+      child continued to gaze upon the passing crowd with a wondering interest,
+      amounting almost to a temporary forgetfulness of her own condition. But
+      cold, wet, hunger, want of rest, and lack of any place in which to lay her
+      aching head, soon brought her thoughts back to the point whence they had
+      strayed. No one passed who seemed to notice them, or to whom she durst
+      appeal. After some time, they left their place of refuge from the weather,
+      and mingled with the concourse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with fewer people
+      about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own breasts, and
+      the same indifference from all around. The lights in the streets and shops
+      made them feel yet more desolate, for with their help, night and darkness
+      seemed to come on faster. Shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body,
+      and sick to death at heart, the child needed her utmost firmness and
+      resolution even to creep along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why had they ever come to this noisy town, when there were peaceful
+      country places, in which, at least, they might have hungered and thirsted,
+      with less suffering than in its squalid strife! They were but an atom,
+      here, in a mountain heap of misery, the very sight of which increased
+      their hopelessness and suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;to-morrow
+      or next day at the farthest&mdash;and in the meantime let us think, dear,
+      that it was a good thing we 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&mdash;very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind
+      don't blow in here&mdash;What's that!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Speak again,' it said; 'do I know the voice?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' replied the child timidly; 'we are strangers, and having no money
+      for a night's lodging, were going to rest here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Our misfortunes,' the grandfather answered, 'are the cause.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know it well, God help me,' he replied. 'What can I do!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the dark sky; the
+      dull reflection of some distant fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;nothing
+      better.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their looks, he took
+      Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, cast 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0317m.jpg" alt="0317m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0317.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I feared you were ill,' she said. 'The other men are all in motion, and
+      you are so very quiet.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;that's my friend.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The fire?' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It has been alive as long as I have,' the man made answer. 'We talk and
+      think together all night long.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise, but he had turned his
+      eyes in their former direction, and was musing as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's like a book to me,' he said&mdash;'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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help remarking
+      with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Had you no mother?' asked the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Were you brought up here, then?' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;the same
+      fire. It has never gone out.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are fond of it?' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of course I am. He died before it. I saw him fall down&mdash;just there,
+      where those ashes are burning now&mdash;and wondered, I remember, why it
+      didn't help him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you been here ever since?' asked the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her friend parted his breakfast&mdash;a scanty mess of coffee and some
+      coarse bread&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And far from here?' said Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;a
+      strange black road, and one that would frighten you by night.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Rough people&mdash;paths never made for little feet like yours&mdash;a
+      dismal blighted way&mdash;is there no turning back, my child?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, before they had reached the corner of the lane, the man came running
+      after them, and, pressing her hand, left something in it&mdash;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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus they separated; the child to lead her sacred charge 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap45"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 45
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>n 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With thoughts like this, and with some vague design of travelling to a
+      great distance among streams and mountains, where only very poor and
+      simple people lived, and where they might maintain themselves by very
+      humble helping work in farms, free from such terrors as that from which
+      they fled&mdash;the child, with no resource but the poor man's gift, and
+      no encouragement but that which flowed from her own heart, and its sense
+      of the truth and right of what she did, nerved herself to this last
+      journey and boldly pursued her task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We shall be very slow to-day, dear,' she said, as they toiled painfully
+      through the streets; 'my feet are sore, and I have pains in all my limbs
+      from the wet of yesterday. I saw that he looked at us and thought of that,
+      when he said how long we should be upon the road.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It was a dreary way he told us of,' returned her grandfather, piteously.
+      'Is there no other road? Will you not let me go some other way than this?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Places lie beyond these,' said the child, firmly, 'where we may live in
+      peace, and be tempted to do no harm. We will take the road that promises
+      to have that end, and we would not turn out of it, if it were a hundred
+      times worse than our fears lead us to expect. We would not, dear, would
+      we?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' replied the old man, wavering in his voice, no less than in his
+      manner. 'No. Let us go on. I am ready. I am quite ready, Nell.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child walked with more difficulty than she had led her companion to
+      expect, for the pains that racked her joints were of no common severity,
+      and every exertion increased them. But they wrung from her no complaint,
+      or look of suffering; and, though the two travellers proceeded very
+      slowly, they did proceed. Clearing the town in course of time, they began
+      to feel that they were fairly on their way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long suburb of red brick houses&mdash;some with patches of
+      garden-ground, where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the shrinking
+      leaves, and coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling vegetation
+      sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace, making them by
+      its presence seem yet more blighting and unwholesome than in the town
+      itself&mdash;a long, flat, straggling suburb passed, they came, by slow
+      degrees, upon a cheerless region, where not a blade of grass was seen to
+      grow, where not a bud put forth its promise in the spring, where nothing
+      green could live but on the surface of the stagnant pools, which here and
+      there lay idly sweltering by the black road-side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Advancing more and more into the shadow of this mournful place, its dark
+      depressing influence stole upon their spirits, and filled them with a
+      dismal gloom. On every side, and far as the eye could see into the heavy
+      distance, tall chimneys, crowding on each other, and presenting that
+      endless repetition of the same dull, ugly form, which is the horror of
+      oppressive dreams, poured out their plague of smoke, obscured the light,
+      and made foul the melancholy air. On mounds of ashes by the wayside,
+      sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange
+      engines spun and writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron
+      chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in
+      torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their agonies.
+      Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to the earth, propped
+      up by fragments of others that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless,
+      blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited. Men, women, children, wan in their
+      looks and ragged in attire, tended the engines, fed their tributary fire,
+      begged upon the road, or scowled half-naked from the doorless houses. Then
+      came more of the wrathful monsters, whose like they almost seemed to be in
+      their wildness and their untamed air, screeching and turning round and
+      round again; and still, before, behind, and to the right and left, was the
+      same interminable perspective of brick towers, never ceasing in their
+      black vomit, blasting all things living or inanimate, shutting out the
+      face of day, and closing in on all these horrors with a dense dark cloud.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0323m.jpg" alt="0323m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0323.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      But night-time in this dreadful spot!&mdash;night, when the smoke was
+      changed to fire; when every chimney spirited up its flame; and places,
+      that had been dark vaults all day, now shone red-hot, with figures moving
+      to and fro within their blazing jaws, and calling to one another with
+      hoarse cries&mdash;night, when the noise of every strange machine was
+      aggravated by the darkness; when the people near them looked wilder and
+      more savage; when bands of unemployed labourers paraded the roads, or
+      clustered by torch-light round their leaders, who told them, in stern
+      language, of their wrongs, and urged them on to frightful cries and
+      threats; when maddened men, armed with sword and firebrand, spurning the
+      tears and prayers of women who would restrain them, rushed forth on
+      errands of terror and destruction, to work no ruin half so surely as their
+      own&mdash;night, when carts came rumbling by, filled with rude coffins
+      (for contagious disease and death had been busy with the living crops);
+      when orphans cried, and distracted women shrieked and followed in their
+      wake&mdash;night, when some called for bread, and some for drink to drown
+      their cares, and some with tears, and some with staggering feet, and some
+      with bloodshot eyes, went brooding home&mdash;night, which, unlike the
+      night that Heaven sends on earth, brought with it no peace, nor quiet, nor
+      signs of blessed sleep&mdash;who shall tell the terrors of the night to
+      the young wandering child!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet she lay down, with nothing between her and the sky; and, with no
+      fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer for the poor
+      old man. So very weak and spent, she felt, so very calm and unresisting,
+      that she had no thought of any wants of her own, but prayed that God would
+      raise up some friend for him. She tried to recall the way they had come,
+      and to look in the direction where the fire by which they had slept last
+      night was burning. She had forgotten to ask the name of the poor man,
+      their friend, and when she had remembered him in her prayers, it seemed
+      ungrateful not to turn one look towards the spot where he was watching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A penny loaf was all they had had that day. It was very little, but even
+      hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that crept over her
+      senses. She lay down, very gently, and, with a quiet smile upon her face,
+      fell into a slumber. It was not like sleep&mdash;and yet it must have
+      been, or why those pleasant dreams of the little scholar all night long!
+      Morning came. Much weaker, diminished powers even of sight and hearing,
+      and yet the child made no complaint&mdash;perhaps would have made none,
+      even if she had not had that inducement to be silent, travelling by her
+      side. She felt a hopelessness of their ever being extricated together from
+      that forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very ill, perhaps
+      dying; but no fear or anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A loathing of food that she was not conscious of until they expended their
+      last penny in the purchase of another loaf, prevented her partaking even
+      of this poor repast. Her grandfather ate greedily, which she was glad to
+      see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their way lay through the same scenes as yesterday, with no variety or
+      improvement. There was the same thick air, difficult to breathe; the same
+      blighted ground, the same hopeless prospect, the same misery and distress.
+      Objects appeared more dim, the noise less, the path more rugged and
+      uneven, for sometimes she stumbled, and became roused, as it were, in the
+      effort to prevent herself from falling. Poor child! the cause was in her
+      tottering feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the afternoon, her grandfather complained bitterly of hunger. She
+      approached one of the wretched hovels by the way-side, and knocked with
+      her hand upon the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What would you have here?' said a gaunt man, opening it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Charity. A morsel of bread.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you see that?' returned the man hoarsely, pointing to a kind of bundle
+      on the ground. 'That's a dead child. I and five hundred other men were
+      thrown out of work, three months ago. That is my third dead child, and
+      last. Do you think I have charity to bestow, or a morsel of bread to
+      spare?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child recoiled from the door, and it closed upon her. Impelled by
+      strong necessity, she knocked at another: a neighbouring one, which,
+      yielding to the slight pressure of her hand, flew open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed that a couple of poor families lived in this hovel, for two
+      women, each among children of her own, occupied different portions of the
+      room. In the centre, stood a grave gentleman in black who appeared to have
+      just entered, and who held by the arm a boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here, woman,' he said, 'here's your deaf and dumb son. You may thank me
+      for restoring him to you. He was brought before me, this morning, charged
+      with theft; and with any other boy it would have gone hard, I assure you.
+      But, as I had compassion on his infirmities, and thought he might have
+      learnt no better, I have managed to bring him back to you. Take more care
+      of him for the future.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And won't you give me back <i>my</i> son!' said the other woman, hastily rising
+      and confronting him. 'Won't you give me back <i>my</i> son, Sir, who was
+      transported for the same offence!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Was he deaf and dumb, woman?' asked the gentleman sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Was he not, Sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You know he was not.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He was,' cried the woman. 'He was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all that was
+      good and right, from his cradle. Her boy may have learnt no better! where
+      did mine learn better? where could he? who was there to teach him better,
+      or where was it to be learnt?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Peace, woman,' said the gentleman, 'your boy was in possession of all his
+      senses.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He was,' cried the mother; 'and he was the more easy to be led astray
+      because he had them. If you save this boy because he may not know right
+      from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never taught the difference?
+      You gentlemen have as good a right to punish her boy, that God has kept in
+      ignorance of sound and speech, as you have to punish mine, that you kept
+      in ignorance yourselves. How many of the girls and boys&mdash;ah, men and
+      women too&mdash;that are brought before you and you don't pity, are deaf
+      and dumb in their minds, and go wrong in that state, and are punished in
+      that state, body and soul, while you gentlemen are quarrelling among
+      yourselves whether they ought to learn this or that?&mdash;Be a just man,
+      Sir, and give me back my son.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are desperate,' said the gentleman, taking out his snuff-box, 'and I
+      am sorry for you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I <i>am</i> desperate,' returned the woman, 'and you have made me so. Give me
+      back my son, to work for these helpless children. Be a just man, Sir, and,
+      as you have had mercy upon this boy, give me back my son!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child had seen and heard enough to know that this was not a place at
+      which to ask for alms. She led the old man softly from the door, and they
+      pursued their journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With less and less of hope or strength, as they went on, but with an
+      undiminished resolution not to betray by any word or sigh her sinking
+      state, so long as she had energy to move, the child, throughout the
+      remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to proceed: not even
+      stopping to rest as frequently as usual, to compensate in some measure for
+      the tardy pace at which she was obliged to walk. Evening was drawing on,
+      but had not closed in, when&mdash;still travelling among the same dismal
+      objects&mdash;they came to a busy town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were insupportable. After
+      humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being repulsed, they
+      agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and try if
+      the inmates of any lone house beyond, would have more pity on their
+      exhausted state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the child
+      felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers would bear
+      no more. There appeared before them, at this juncture, going in the same
+      direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who, with a portmanteau
+      strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as he walked, and read
+      from a book which he held in his other hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for he
+      walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. At length, he stopped,
+      to look more attentively at some passage in his book. Animated with a ray
+      of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and, going close to the
+      stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps, began, in a
+      few faint words, to implore his help.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a wild
+      shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap46"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 46
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was the poor schoolmaster. No other than the poor schoolmaster.
+      Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she had
+      been on recognising him, he stood, for a moment, silent and confounded by
+      this unexpected apparition, without even the presence of mind to raise her
+      from the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, quickly recovering his self-possession, he threw down his stick and
+      book, and dropping on one knee beside her, endeavoured, by such simple
+      means as occurred to him, to restore her to herself; while her
+      grandfather, standing idly by, wrung his hands, and implored her with many
+      endearing expressions to speak to him, were it only a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is quite exhausted,' said the schoolmaster, glancing upward into his
+      face. 'You have taxed her powers too far, friend.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is perishing of want,' rejoined the old man. 'I never thought how
+      weak and ill she was, till now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate, the
+      schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man gather
+      up her little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at his utmost
+      speed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had been
+      directing his steps when so unexpectedly overtaken. Towards this place he
+      hurried with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the kitchen, and
+      calling upon the company there assembled to make way for God's sake,
+      deposited it on a chair before the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance, did as
+      people usually do under such circumstances. Everybody called for his or
+      her favourite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more air, at
+      the same time carefully excluding what air there was, by closing round the
+      object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody else didn't do what it
+      never appeared to occur to them might be done by themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlady, however, who possessed more readiness and activity than any
+      of them, and who had withal a quicker perception of the merits of the
+      case, soon came running in, with a little hot brandy and water, followed
+      by her servant-girl, carrying vinegar, hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such
+      other restoratives; which, being duly administered, recovered the child so
+      far as to enable her to thank them in a faint voice, and to extend her
+      hand to the poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, hard by.
+      Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir a
+      finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed; and, having
+      covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in flannel,
+      they despatched a messenger for the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals
+      dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all speed,
+      and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his watch, and
+      felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt her pulse
+      again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied wine-glass as if in
+      profound abstraction.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0328m.jpg" alt="0328m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0328.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'I should give her,' said the doctor at length, 'a tea-spoonful, every now
+      and then, of hot brandy and water.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!' said the delighted landlady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I should also,' observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath on the
+      stairs, 'I should also,' said the doctor, in the voice of an oracle, 'put
+      her feet in hot water, and wrap them up in flannel. I should likewise,'
+      said the doctor with increased solemnity, 'give her something light for
+      supper&mdash;the wing of a roasted fowl now&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire this
+      instant!' cried the landlady. And so indeed it was, for the schoolmaster
+      had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on so well that the
+      doctor might have smelt it if he had tried; perhaps he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You may then,' said the doctor, rising gravely, 'give her a glass of hot
+      mulled port wine, if she likes wine&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And a toast, Sir?' suggested the landlady.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Ay,' said the doctor, in the
+      tone of a man who makes a dignified concession. 'And a toast&mdash;of
+      bread. But be very particular to make it of bread, if you please, ma'am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With which parting injunction, slowly and portentously delivered, the
+      doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom
+      which tallied so closely with their own. Everybody said he was a very
+      shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's constitutions were;
+      which there appears some reason to suppose he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep,
+      from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready. As she
+      evinced extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her grandfather was
+      below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at the thought of their
+      being apart, he took his supper with her. Finding her still very restless
+      on this head, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to which he
+      presently retired. The key of this chamber happened by good fortune to be
+      on that side of the door which was in Nell's room; she turned it on him
+      when the landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the kitchen fire,
+      which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the fortunate
+      chance which had brought him so opportunely to the child's assistance, and
+      parrying, as well as in his simple way he could, the inquisitive
+      cross-examination of the landlady, who had a great curiosity to be made
+      acquainted with every particular of Nell's life and history. The poor
+      schoolmaster was so open-hearted, and so little versed in the most
+      ordinary cunning or deceit, that she could not have failed to succeed in
+      the first five minutes, but that he happened to be unacquainted with what
+      she wished to know; and so he told her. The landlady, by no means
+      satisfied with this assurance, which she considered an ingenious evasion
+      of the question, rejoined that he had his reasons of course. Heaven forbid
+      that she should wish to pry into the affairs of her customers, which
+      indeed were no business of hers, who had so many of her own. She had
+      merely asked a civil question, and to be sure she knew it would meet with
+      a civil answer. She was quite satisfied&mdash;quite. She had rather
+      perhaps that he would have said at once that he didn't choose to be
+      communicative, because that would have been plain and intelligible.
+      However, she had no right to be offended of course. He was the best judge,
+      and had a perfect right to say what he pleased; nobody could dispute that
+      for a moment. Oh dear, no!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I assure you, my good lady,' said the mild schoolmaster, 'that I have
+      told you the plain truth. As I hope to be saved, I have told you the
+      truth.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why then, I do believe you are in earnest,' rejoined the landlady, with
+      ready good-humour, 'and I'm very sorry I have teazed you. But curiosity
+      you know is the curse of our sex, and that's the fact.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+The landlord
+      scratched his head, as if he thought the curse sometimes involved the
+      other sex likewise; but he was prevented from making any remark to that
+      effect, if he had it in contemplation to do so, by the schoolmaster's
+      rejoinder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You should question me for half-a-dozen hours at a sitting, and welcome,
+      and I would answer you patiently for the kindness of heart you have shown
+      to-night, if I could,' he said. 'As it is, please to take care of her in
+      the morning, and let me know early how she is; and to understand that I am
+      paymaster for the three.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, parting with them on most friendly terms (not the less cordial perhaps
+      for this last direction), the schoolmaster went to his bed, and the host
+      and hostess to theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The report in the morning was, that the child was better, but was
+      extremely weak, and would at least require a day's rest, and careful
+      nursing, before she could proceed upon her journey. The schoolmaster
+      received this communication with perfect cheerfulness, observing that he
+      had a day to spare&mdash;two days for that matter&mdash;and could very
+      well afford to wait. As the patient was to sit up in the evening, he
+      appointed to visit her in her room at a certain hour, and rambling out
+      with his book, did not return until the hour arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell could not help weeping when they were left alone; whereat, and at
+      sight of her pale face and wasted figure, the simple schoolmaster shed a
+      few tears himself, at the same time showing in very energetic language how
+      foolish it was to do so, and how very easily it could be avoided, if one
+      tried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It makes me unhappy even in the midst of all this kindness' said the
+      child, 'to think that we should be a burden upon you. How can I ever thank
+      you? If I had not met you so far from home, I must have died, and he would
+      have been left alone.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We'll not talk about dying,' said the schoolmaster; 'and as to burdens, I
+      have made my fortune since you slept at my cottage.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed!' cried the child joyfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes,' returned her friend. 'I have been appointed clerk and
+      schoolmaster to a village a long way from here&mdash;and a long way from
+      the old one as you may suppose&mdash;at five-and-thirty pounds a year.
+      Five-and-thirty pounds!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am very glad,' said the child, 'so very, very glad.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am on my way there now,' resumed the schoolmaster. 'They allowed me the
+      stage-coach-hire&mdash;outside stage-coach-hire all the way. Bless you,
+      they grudge me nothing. But as the time at which I am expected there, left
+      me ample leisure, I determined to walk instead. How glad I am, to think I
+      did so!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How glad should we be!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster, moving restlessly in his chair,
+      'certainly, that's very true. But you&mdash;where are you going, where are
+      you coming from, what have you been doing since you left me, what had you
+      been doing before? Now, tell me&mdash;do tell me. I know very little of
+      the world, and perhaps you are better fitted to advise me in its affairs
+      than I am qualified to give advice to you; but I am very sincere, and I
+      have a reason (you have not forgotten it) for loving you. I have felt
+      since that time as if my love for him who died, had been transferred to
+      you who stood beside his bed. If this,' he added, looking upwards, 'is the
+      beautiful creation that springs from ashes, let its peace prosper with me,
+      as I deal tenderly and compassionately by this young child!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the affectionate
+      earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which was stamped upon his
+      every word and look, gave the child a confidence in him, which the utmost
+      arts of treachery and dissimulation could never have awakened in her
+      breast. She told him all&mdash;that they had no friend or relative&mdash;that
+      she had fled with the old man, to save him from a madhouse and all the
+      miseries he dreaded&mdash;that she was flying now, to save him from
+      himself&mdash;and that she sought an asylum in some remote and primitive
+      place, where the temptation before which he fell would never enter, and
+      her late sorrows and distresses could have no place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment. 'This child!'&mdash;he
+      thought&mdash;'Has this child heroically persevered under all doubts and
+      dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and sustained by
+      strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude alone! And yet the
+      world is full of such heroism. Have I yet to learn that the hardest and
+      best-borne trials are those which are never chronicled in any earthly
+      record, and are suffered every day! And should I be surprised to hear the
+      story of this child!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What more he thought or said, matters not. It was concluded that Nell and
+      her grandfather should accompany him to the village whither he was bound,
+      and that he should endeavour to find them some humble occupation by which
+      they could subsist. 'We shall be sure to succeed,' said the schoolmaster,
+      heartily. 'The cause is too good a one to fail.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a
+      stage-waggon, which travelled for some distance on the same road as they
+      must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and the driver for a
+      small gratuity would give Nell a place inside. A bargain was soon struck
+      when the waggon came; and in due time it rolled away; with the child
+      comfortably bestowed among the softer packages, her grandfather and the
+      schoolmaster walking on beside the driver, and the landlady and all the
+      good folks of the inn screaming out their good wishes and farewells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a soothing, luxurious, drowsy way of travelling, to lie inside that
+      slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the horses' bells,
+      the occasional smacking of the carter's whip, the smooth rolling of the
+      great broad wheels, the rattle of the harness, the cheery good-nights of
+      passing travellers jogging past on little short-stepped horses&mdash;all
+      made pleasantly indistinct by the thick awning, which seemed made for lazy
+      listening under, till one fell asleep! The very going to sleep, still with
+      an indistinct idea, as the head jogged to and fro upon the pillow, of
+      moving onward with no trouble or fatigue, and hearing all these sounds
+      like dreamy music, lulling to the senses&mdash;and the slow waking up, and
+      finding one's self staring out through the breezy curtain half-opened in
+      the front, far up into the cold bright sky with its countless stars, and
+      downward at the driver's lantern dancing on like its namesake Jack of the
+      swamps and marshes, and sideways at the dark grim trees, and forward at
+      the long bare road rising up, up, up, until it stopped abruptly at a sharp
+      high ridge as if there were no more road, and all beyond was sky&mdash;and
+      the stopping at the inn to bait, and being helped out, and going into a
+      room with fire and candles, and winking very much, and being agreeably
+      reminded that the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort's sake to
+      think it colder than it was!&mdash;What a delicious journey was that
+      journey in the waggon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the going on again&mdash;so fresh at first, and shortly afterwards so
+      sleepy. The waking from a sound nap as the mail came dashing past like a
+      highway comet, with gleaming lamps and rattling hoofs, and visions of a
+      guard behind, standing up to keep his feet warm, and of a gentleman in a
+      fur cap opening his eyes and looking wild and stupefied&mdash;the stopping
+      at the turnpike where the man was gone to bed, and knocking at the door
+      until he answered with a smothered shout from under the bed-clothes in the
+      little room above, where the faint light was burning, and presently came
+      down, night-capped and shivering, to throw the gate wide open, and wish
+      all waggons off the road except by day. The cold sharp interval between
+      night and morning&mdash;the distant streak of light widening and
+      spreading, and turning from grey to white, and from white to yellow, and
+      from yellow to burning red&mdash;the presence of day, with all its
+      cheerfulness and life&mdash;men and horses at the plough&mdash;birds in
+      the trees and hedges, and boys in solitary fields, frightening them away
+      with rattles. The coming to a town&mdash;people busy in the markets; light
+      carts and chaises round the tavern yard; tradesmen standing at their
+      doors; men running horses up and down the street for sale; pigs plunging
+      and grunting in the dirty distance, getting off with long strings at their
+      legs, running into clean chemists' shops and being dislodged with brooms
+      by 'prentices; the night coach changing horses&mdash;the passengers
+      cheerless, cold, ugly, and discontented, with three months' growth of hair
+      in one night&mdash;the coachman fresh as from a band-box, and exquisitely
+      beautiful by contrast:&mdash;so much bustle, so many things in motion,
+      such a variety of incidents&mdash;when was there a journey with so many
+      delights as that journey in the waggon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes walking for a mile or two while her grandfather rode inside, and
+      sometimes even prevailing upon the schoolmaster to take her place and lie
+      down to rest, Nell travelled on very happily until they came to a large
+      town, where the waggon stopped, and where they spent a night. They passed
+      a large church; and in the streets were a number of old houses, built of a
+      kind of earth or plaster, crossed and re-crossed in a great many
+      directions with black beams, which gave them a remarkable and very ancient
+      look. The doors, too, were arched and low, some with oaken portals and
+      quaint benches, where the former inhabitants had sat on summer evenings.
+      The windows were latticed in little diamond panes, that seemed to wink and
+      blink upon the passengers as if they were dim of sight. They had long
+      since got clear of the smoke and furnaces, except in one or two solitary
+      instances, where a factory planted among fields withered the space about
+      it, like a burning mountain. When they had passed through this town, they
+      entered again upon the country, and began to draw near their place of
+      destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon the
+      road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity, but that the
+      schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles of his village, had
+      a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new clerk, and was unwilling to make
+      his entry in dusty shoes, and travel-disordered dress. It was a fine,
+      clear, autumn morning, when they came upon the scene of his promotion, and
+      stopped to contemplate its beauties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'See&mdash;here's the church!' cried the delighted schoolmaster in a low
+      voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the schoolhouse, I'll be
+      sworn. Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this beautiful place!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They admired everything&mdash;the old grey porch, the mullioned windows,
+      the venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard, the ancient tower,
+      the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs of cottage, barn, and
+      homestead, peeping from among the trees; the stream that rippled by the
+      distant water-mill; the blue Welsh mountains far away. It was for such a
+      spot the child had wearied in the dense, dark, miserable haunts of labour.
+      Upon her bed of ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through which they
+      had forced their way, visions of such scenes&mdash;beautiful indeed, but
+      not more beautiful than this sweet reality&mdash;had been always present
+      to her mind. They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy distance, as the
+      prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter; but, as they receded,
+      she had loved and panted for them more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,' said the schoolmaster, at
+      length breaking the silence into which they had fallen in their gladness.
+      'I have a letter to present, and inquiries to make, you know. Where shall
+      I take you? To the little inn yonder?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let us wait here,' rejoined Nell. 'The gate is open. We will sit in the
+      church porch till you come back.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A good place too,' said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards it,
+      disencumbering himself of his portmanteau, and placing it on the stone
+      seat. 'Be sure that I come back with good news, and am not long gone!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, the happy schoolmaster put on a bran-new pair of gloves which he had
+      carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and hurried off,
+      full of ardour and excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage hid him
+      from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old churchyard&mdash;so
+      solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress upon the fallen leaves,
+      which strewed the path and made her footsteps noiseless, seemed an
+      invasion of its silence. It was a very aged, ghostly place; the church had
+      been built many hundreds of years ago, and had once had a convent or
+      monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and
+      fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing; while other portions of
+      the old building, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled
+      with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as if they too claimed
+      a burying-place and sought to mix their ashes with the dust of men. Hard
+      by these gravestones of dead years, and forming a part of the ruin which
+      some pains had been taken to render habitable in modern times, were two
+      small dwellings with sunken windows and oaken doors, fast hastening to
+      decay, empty and desolate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon these tenements, the attention of the child became exclusively
+      riveted. She knew not why. The church, the ruin, the antiquated graves,
+      had equal claims at least upon a stranger's thoughts, but from the moment
+      when her eyes first rested on these two dwellings, she could turn to
+      nothing else. Even when she had made the circuit of the enclosure, and,
+      returning to the porch, sat pensively waiting for their friend, she took
+      her station where she could still look upon them, and felt as if
+      fascinated towards that spot.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0335m.jpg" alt="0335m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0335.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap47"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 47
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>it's mother and the single gentleman&mdash;upon whose track it is
+      expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be
+      chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its characters in
+      situations of uncertainty and doubt&mdash;Kit's mother and the single
+      gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four whose departure
+      from the Notary's door we have already witnessed, soon left the town
+      behind them, and struck fire from the flints of the broad highway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good woman, being not a little embarrassed by the novelty of her
+      situation, and certain material apprehensions that perhaps by this time
+      little Jacob, or the baby, or both, had fallen into the fire, or tumbled
+      down stairs, or had been squeezed behind doors, or had scalded their
+      windpipes in endeavouring to allay their thirst at the spouts of
+      tea-kettles, preserved an uneasy silence; and meeting from the window the
+      eyes of turnpike-men, omnibus-drivers, and others, felt in the new dignity
+      of her position like a mourner at a funeral, who, not being greatly
+      afflicted by the loss of the departed, recognizes his every-day
+      acquaintance from the window of the mourning coach, but is constrained to
+      preserve a decent solemnity, and the appearance of being indifferent to
+      all external objects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To have been indifferent to the companionship of the single gentleman
+      would have been tantamount to being gifted with nerves of steel. Never did
+      chaise inclose, or horses draw, such a restless gentleman as he. He never
+      sat in the same position for two minutes together, but was perpetually
+      tossing his arms and legs about, pulling up the sashes and letting them
+      violently down, or thrusting his head out of one window to draw it in
+      again and thrust it out of another. He carried in his pocket, too, a
+      fire-box of mysterious and unknown construction; and as sure as ever Kit's
+      mother closed her eyes, so surely&mdash;whisk, rattle, fizz&mdash;there
+      was the single gentleman consulting his watch by a flame of fire, and
+      letting the sparks fall down among the straw as if there were no such
+      thing as a possibility of himself and Kit's mother being roasted alive
+      before the boys could stop their horses. Whenever they halted to change,
+      there he was&mdash;out of the carriage without letting down the steps,
+      bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling out his watch
+      by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before he put it up again, and
+      in short committing so many extravagances that Kit's mother was quite
+      afraid of him. Then, when the horses were to, in he came like a Harlequin,
+      and before they had gone a mile, out came the watch and the fire-box
+      together, and Kit's mother as wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of
+      sleep for that stage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you comfortable?' the single gentleman would say after one of these
+      exploits, turning sharply round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quite, Sir, thank you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you sure? An't you cold?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is a little chilly, Sir,' Kit's mother would reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I knew it!' cried the single gentleman, letting down one of the front
+      glasses. 'She wants some brandy and water! Of course she does. How could I
+      forget it? Hallo! Stop at the next inn, and call out for a glass of hot
+      brandy and water.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in vain for Kit's mother to protest that she stood in need of
+      nothing of the kind. The single gentleman was inexorable; and whenever he
+      had exhausted all other modes and fashions of restlessness, it invariably
+      occurred to him that Kit's mother wanted brandy and water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this way they travelled on until near midnight, when they stopped to
+      supper, for which meal the single gentleman ordered everything eatable
+      that the house contained; and because Kit's mother didn't eat everything
+      at once, and eat it all, he took it into his head that she must be ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're faint,' said the single gentleman, who did nothing himself but
+      walk about the room. 'I see what's the matter with you, ma'am. You're
+      faint.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you, sir, I'm not indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know you are. I'm sure of it. I drag this poor woman from the bosom of
+      her family at a minute's notice, and she goes on getting fainter and
+      fainter before my eyes. I'm a pretty fellow! How many children have you
+      got, ma'am?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Two, sir, besides Kit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Boys, ma'am?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are they christened?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only half baptised as yet, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm godfather to both of 'em. Remember that, if you please, ma'am. You
+      had better have some mulled wine.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I couldn't touch a drop indeed, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You must,' said the single gentleman. 'I see you want it. I ought to have
+      thought of it before.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately flying to the bell, and calling for mulled wine as impetuously
+      as if it had been wanted for instant use in the recovery of some person
+      apparently drowned, the single gentleman made Kit's mother swallow a
+      bumper of it at such a high temperature that the tears ran down her face,
+      and then hustled her off to the chaise again, where&mdash;not impossibly
+      from the effects of this agreeable sedative&mdash;she soon became
+      insensible to his restlessness, and fell fast asleep. Nor were the happy
+      effects of this prescription of a transitory nature, as, notwithstanding
+      that the distance was greater, and the journey longer, than the single
+      gentleman had anticipated, she did not awake until it was broad day, and
+      they were clattering over the pavement of a town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is the place!' cried her companion, letting down all the glasses.
+      'Drive to the wax-work!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy on the wheeler touched his hat, and setting spurs to his horse, to
+      the end that they might go in brilliantly, all four broke into a smart
+      canter, and dashed through the streets with a noise that brought the good
+      folks wondering to their doors and windows, and drowned the sober voices
+      of the town-clocks as they chimed out half-past eight. They drove up to a
+      door round which a crowd of persons were collected, and there stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's this?' said the single gentleman thrusting out his head. 'Is
+      anything the matter here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A wedding Sir, a wedding!' cried several voices. 'Hurrah!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The single gentleman, rather bewildered by finding himself the centre of
+      this noisy throng, alighted with the assistance of one of the postilions,
+      and handed out Kit's mother, at sight of whom the populace cried out,
+      'Here's another wedding!' and roared and leaped for joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The world has gone mad, I think,' said the single gentleman, pressing
+      through the concourse with his supposed bride. 'Stand back here, will you,
+      and let me knock.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd. A score of dirty
+      hands were raised directly to knock for him, and seldom has a knocker of
+      equal powers been made to produce more deafening sounds than this
+      particular engine on the occasion in question. Having rendered these
+      voluntary services, the throng modestly retired a little, preferring that
+      the single gentleman should bear their consequences alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, sir, what do you want!' said a man with a large white bow at his
+      button-hole, opening the door, and confronting him with a very stoical
+      aspect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who has been married here, my friend?' said the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You! and to whom in the devil's name?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What right have you to ask?' returned the bridegroom, eyeing him from top
+      to toe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What right!' cried the single gentleman, drawing the arm of Kit's mother
+      more tightly through his own, for that good woman evidently had it in
+      contemplation to run away. 'A right you little dream of. Mind, good
+      people, if this fellow has been marrying a minor&mdash;tut, tut, that
+      can't be. Where is the child you have here, my good fellow. You call her
+      Nell. Where is she?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he propounded this question, which Kit's mother echoed, somebody in a
+      room near at hand, uttered a great shriek, and a stout lady in a white
+      dress came running to the door, and supported herself upon the
+      bridegroom's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where is she!' cried this lady. 'What news have you brought me? What has
+      become of her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The single gentleman started back, and gazed upon the face of the late Mrs
+      Jarley (that morning wedded to the philosophic George, to the eternal
+      wrath and despair of Mr Slum the poet), with looks of conflicting
+      apprehension, disappointment, and incredulity. At length he stammered out,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I ask <i>you </i>where she is? What do you mean?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh sir!' cried the bride, 'If you have come here to do her any good, why
+      weren't you here a week ago?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is not&mdash;not dead?' said the person to whom she addressed
+      herself, turning very pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, not so bad as that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I thank God!' cried the single gentleman feebly. 'Let me come in.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They drew back to admit him, and when he had entered, closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see in me, good people,' he said, turning to the newly-married
+      couple, 'one to whom life itself is not dearer than the two persons whom I
+      seek. They would not know me. My features are strange to them, but if they
+      or either of them are here, take this good woman with you, and let them
+      see her first, for her they both know. If you deny them from any mistaken
+      regard or fear for them, judge of my intentions by their recognition of
+      this person as their old humble friend.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I always said it!' cried the bride, 'I knew she was not a common child!
+      Alas, sir! we have no power to help you, for all that we could do, has
+      been tried in vain.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that, they related to him, without disguise or concealment, all that
+      they knew of Nell and her grandfather, from their first meeting with them,
+      down to the time of their sudden disappearance; adding (which was quite
+      true) that they had made every possible effort to trace them, but without
+      success; having been at first in great alarm for their safety, as well as
+      on account of the suspicions to which they themselves might one day be
+      exposed in consequence of their abrupt departure. They dwelt upon the old
+      man's imbecility of mind, upon the uneasiness the child had always
+      testified when he was absent, upon the company he had been supposed to
+      keep, and upon the increased depression which had gradually crept over her
+      and changed her both in health and spirits. Whether she had missed the old
+      man in the night, and knowing or conjecturing whither he had bent his
+      steps, had gone in pursuit, or whether they had left the house together,
+      they had no means of determining. Certain they considered it, that there
+      was but slender prospect left of hearing of them again, and that whether
+      their flight originated with the old man, or with the child, there was now
+      no hope of their return. To all this, the single gentleman listened with
+      the air of a man quite borne down by grief and disappointment. He shed
+      tears when they spoke of the grandfather, and appeared in deep affliction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not to protract this portion of our narrative, and to make short work of a
+      long story, let it be briefly written that before the interview came to a
+      close, the single gentleman deemed he had sufficient evidence of having
+      been told the truth, and that he endeavoured to force upon the bride and
+      bridegroom an acknowledgment of their kindness to the unfriended child,
+      which, however, they steadily declined accepting. In the end, the happy
+      couple jolted away in the caravan to spend their honeymoon in a country
+      excursion; and the single gentleman and Kit's mother stood ruefully before
+      their carriage-door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where shall we drive you, sir?' said the post-boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You may drive me,' said the single gentleman, 'to the&mdash;' He was not
+      going to add 'inn,' but he added it for the sake of Kit's mother; and to
+      the inn they went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rumours had already got abroad that the little girl who used to show the
+      wax-work, was the child of great people who had been stolen from her
+      parents in infancy, and had only just been traced. Opinion was divided
+      whether she was the daughter of a prince, a duke, an earl, a viscount, or
+      a baron, but all agreed upon the main fact, and that the single gentleman
+      was her father; and all bent forward to catch a glimpse, though it were
+      only of the tip of his noble nose, as he rode away, desponding, in his
+      four-horse chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would he have given to know, and what sorrow would have been saved if
+      he had only known, that at that moment both child and grandfather were
+      seated in the old church porch, patiently awaiting the schoolmaster's
+      return!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap48"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 48
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>opular rumour concerning the single gentleman and his errand, travelling
+      from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the marvellous as it was
+      bandied about&mdash;for your popular rumour, unlike the rolling stone of
+      the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its wanderings up and
+      down&mdash;occasioned his dismounting at the inn-door to be looked upon as
+      an exciting and attractive spectacle, which could scarcely be enough
+      admired; and drew together a large concourse of idlers, who having
+      recently been, as it were, thrown out of employment by the closing of the
+      wax-work and the completion of the nuptial ceremonies, considered his
+      arrival as little else than a special providence, and hailed it with
+      demonstrations of the liveliest joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not at all participating in the general sensation, but wearing the
+      depressed and wearied look of one who sought to meditate on his
+      disappointment in silence and privacy, the single gentleman alighted, and
+      handed out Kit's mother with a gloomy politeness which impressed the
+      lookers-on extremely. That done, he gave her his arm and escorted her into
+      the house, while several active waiters ran on before as a skirmishing
+      party, to clear the way and to show the room which was ready for their
+      reception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Any room will do,' said the single gentleman. 'Let it be near at hand,
+      that's all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Close here, sir, if you please to walk this way.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0342m.jpg" alt="0342m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0342.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Would the gentleman like this room?' said a voice, as a little
+      out-of-the-way door at the foot of the well staircase flew briskly open
+      and a head popped out. 'He's quite welcome to it. He's as welcome as
+      flowers in May, or coals at Christmas. Would you like this room, sir?
+      Honour me by walking in. Do me the favour, pray.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Goodness gracious me!' cried Kit's mother, falling back in extreme
+      surprise, 'only think of this!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had some reason to be astonished, for the person who proffered the
+      gracious invitation was no other than Daniel Quilp. The little door out of
+      which he had thrust his head was close to the inn larder; and there he
+      stood, bowing with grotesque politeness; as much at his ease as if the
+      door were that of his own house; blighting all the legs of mutton and cold
+      roast fowls by his close companionship, and looking like the evil genius
+      of the cellars come from underground upon some work of mischief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Would you do me the honour?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I prefer being alone,' replied the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Quilp. And with that, he darted in again with one jerk and
+      clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch clock when the hour
+      strikes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why it was only last night, sir,' whispered Kit's mother, 'that I left
+      him in Little Bethel.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed!' said her fellow-passenger. 'When did that person come here,
+      waiter?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come down by the night-coach, this morning, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Humph! And when is he going?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Can't say, sir, really. When the chambermaid asked him just now if he
+      should want a bed, sir, he first made faces at her, and then wanted to
+      kiss her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Beg him to walk this way,' said the single gentleman. 'I should be glad
+      to exchange a word with him, tell him. Beg him to come at once, do you
+      hear?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man stared on receiving these instructions, for the single gentleman
+      had not only displayed as much astonishment as Kit's mother at sight of
+      the dwarf, but, standing in no fear of him, had been at less pains to
+      conceal his dislike and repugnance. He departed on his errand, however,
+      and immediately returned, ushering in its object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Your servant, sir,' said the dwarf, 'I encountered your messenger
+      half-way. I thought you'd allow me to pay my compliments to you. I hope
+      you're well. I hope you're very well.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short pause, while the dwarf, with half-shut eyes and puckered
+      face, stood waiting for an answer. Receiving none, he turned towards his
+      more familiar acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Christopher's mother!' he cried. 'Such a dear lady, such a worthy woman,
+      so blest in her honest son! How is Christopher's mother? Have change of
+      air and scene improved her? Her little family too, and Christopher? Do
+      they thrive? Do they flourish? Are they growing into worthy citizens, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding question, Mr
+      Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into the panting look
+      which was customary with him, and which, whether it were assumed or
+      natural, had equally the effect of banishing all expression from his face,
+      and rendering it, as far as it afforded any index to his mood or meaning,
+      a perfect blank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Quilp,' said the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited the
+      closest attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We two have met before&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Surely,' cried Quilp, nodding his head. 'Oh surely, sir. Such an honour
+      and pleasure&mdash;it's both, Christopher's mother, it's both&mdash;is not
+      to be forgotten so soon. By no means!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the house to
+      which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some of the
+      neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for rest or
+      refreshment?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous measure!'
+      said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his friend Mr Sampson
+      Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I found,' said the single gentleman, 'you most unaccountably, in
+      possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another man, and
+      that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon his property had
+      been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden beggary, and driven from
+      house and home.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,' rejoined Quilp, 'we had our
+      warrant. Don't say driven either. He went of his own accord&mdash;vanished
+      in the night, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No matter,' said the single gentleman angrily. 'He was gone.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, he was gone,' said Quilp, with the same exasperating composure. 'No
+      doubt he was gone. The only question was, where. And it's a question
+      still.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, what am I to think,' said the single gentleman, sternly regarding
+      him, 'of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any information then&mdash;nay,
+      obviously holding back, and sheltering yourself with all kinds of cunning,
+      trickery, and evasion&mdash;are dogging my footsteps now?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I dogging!' cried Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, are you not?' returned his questioner, fretted into a state of the
+      utmost irritation. 'Were you not a few hours since, sixty miles off, and
+      in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say her prayers?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She was there too, I think?' said Quilp, still perfectly unmoved. 'I
+      might say, if I was inclined to be rude, how do I know but you are dogging
+      <i>my</i> footsteps. Yes, I was at chapel. What then? I've read in books that
+      pilgrims were used to go to chapel before they went on journeys, to put up
+      petitions for their safe return. Wise men! journeys are very perilous&mdash;especially
+      outside the coach. Wheels come off, horses take fright, coachmen drive too
+      fast, coaches overturn. I always go to chapel before I start on journeys.
+      It's the last thing I do on such occasions, indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That Quilp lied most heartily in this speech, it needed no very great
+      penetration to discover, although for anything that he suffered to appear
+      in his face, voice, or manner, he might have been clinging to the truth
+      with the quiet constancy of a martyr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In the name of all that's calculated to drive one crazy, man,' said the
+      unfortunate single gentleman, 'have you not, for some reason of your own,
+      taken upon yourself my errand? don't you know with what object I have come
+      here, and if you do know, can you throw no light upon it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You think I'm a conjuror, sir,' replied Quilp, shrugging up his
+      shoulders. 'If I was, I should tell my own fortune&mdash;and make it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,' returned the other, throwing
+      himself impatiently upon a sofa. 'Pray leave us, if you please.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Willingly,' returned Quilp. 'Most willingly. Christopher's mother, my
+      good soul, farewell. A pleasant journey&mdash;back, sir. Ahem!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features altogether
+      indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of every monstrous
+      grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the dwarf slowly retreated
+      and closed the door behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oho!' he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself down in
+      a chair with his arms akimbo. 'Oho! Are you there, my friend? In-deed!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself for the
+      restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by twisting it into all
+      imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp, rocking himself to and fro in
+      his chair and nursing his left leg at the same time, fell into certain
+      meditations, of which it may be necessary to relate the substance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing to
+      that spot, which were briefly these. Dropping in at Mr Sampson Brass's
+      office on the previous evening, in the absence of that gentleman and his
+      learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller, who chanced at the
+      moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and water on the dust of the
+      law, and to be moistening his clay, as the phrase goes, rather copiously.
+      But as clay in the abstract, when too much moistened, becomes of a weak
+      and uncertain consistency, breaking down in unexpected places, retaining
+      impressions but faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of
+      character, so Mr Swiveller's clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity
+      of moisture, was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the
+      various ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinctive
+      character, and running into each other. It is not uncommon for human clay
+      in this condition to value itself above all things upon its great prudence
+      and sagacity; and Mr Swiveller, especially prizing himself upon these
+      qualities, took occasion to remark that he had made strange discoveries in
+      connection with the single gentleman who lodged above, which he had
+      determined to keep within his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor
+      cajolery should ever induce him to reveal. Of this determination Mr Quilp
+      expressed his high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to
+      goad Mr Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single
+      gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this was the
+      secret which was never to be disclosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that
+      the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who had
+      waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries that this
+      surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that
+      the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit was the recovery of
+      his old client and the child. Burning with curiosity to know what
+      proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce upon Kit's mother as the
+      person least able to resist his arts, and consequently the most likely to
+      be entrapped into such revelations as he sought; so taking an abrupt leave
+      of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her house. The good woman being from home,
+      he made inquiries of a neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and
+      being directed to the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay
+      her, at the conclusion of the service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with his
+      eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over the joke
+      of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared. Watchful as a lynx,
+      one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business. Absorbed in
+      appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound abstraction, he noted
+      every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he withdrew with his family,
+      shot out after him. In fine, he traced them to the notary's house; learnt
+      the destination of the carriage from one of the postilions; and knowing
+      that a fast night-coach started for the same place, at the very hour which
+      was on the point of striking, from a street hard by, darted round to the
+      coach-office without more ado, and took his seat upon the roof. After
+      passing and repassing the carriage on the road, and being passed and
+      repassed by it sundry times in the course of the night, according as their
+      stoppages were longer or shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they
+      reached the town almost together. Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled
+      with the crowd, learnt the single gentleman's errand, and its failure, and
+      having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried off,
+      reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed, and shut
+      himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all these
+      occurrences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are there, are you, my friend?' he repeated, greedily biting his
+      nails. 'I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit's the confidential agent,
+      is he? I shall have to dispose of him, I fear. If we had come up with them
+      this morning,' he continued, after a thoughtful pause, 'I was ready to
+      prove a pretty good claim. I could have made my profit. But for these
+      canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get this fiery
+      gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend&mdash;our mutual
+      friend, ha! ha!&mdash;and chubby, rosy Nell. At the worst, it's a golden
+      opportunity, not to be lost. Let us find them first, and I'll find means
+      of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while there are
+      prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or kinsman safely.
+      I hate your virtuous people!' said the dwarf, throwing off a bumper of
+      brandy, and smacking his lips, 'ah! I hate 'em every one!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real
+      sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come
+      to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client:&mdash;the
+      old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him and elude his
+      vigilance&mdash;the child, because she was the object of Mrs Quilp's
+      commiseration and constant self-reproach&mdash;the single gentleman,
+      because of his unconcealed aversion to himself&mdash;Kit and his mother,
+      most mortally, for the reasons shown. Above and beyond that general
+      feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from his
+      ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances, Daniel
+      Quilp hated them every one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with more
+      brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure alehouse,
+      under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible inquiries that
+      might lead to the discovery of the old man and his grandchild. But all was
+      in vain. Not the slightest trace or clue could be obtained. They had left
+      the town by night; no one had seen them go; no one had met them on the
+      road; the driver of no coach, cart, or waggon, had seen any travellers
+      answering their description; nobody had fallen in with them, or heard of
+      them. Convinced at last that for the present all such attempts were
+      hopeless, he appointed two or three scouts, with promises of large rewards
+      in case of their forwarding him any intelligence, and returned to London
+      by next day's coach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place upon
+      the roof, that Kit's mother was alone inside; from which circumstance he
+      derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness of spirit, inasmuch
+      as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify her with many
+      extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side of the coach at
+      the risk of his life, and staring in with his great goggle eyes, which
+      seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being upside down; dodging
+      her in this way from one window to another; getting nimbly down whenever
+      they changed horses and thrusting his head in at the window with a dismal
+      squint: which ingenious tortures had such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that
+      she was quite unable for the time to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did
+      in his own person represent and embody that Evil Power, who was so
+      vigorously attacked at Little Bethel, and who, by reason of her
+      backslidings in respect of Astley's and oysters, was now frolicsome and
+      rampant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother's intended return, was
+      waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise when he
+      saw, leering over the coachman's shoulder like some familiar demon,
+      invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How are you, Christopher?' croaked the dwarf from the coach-top. 'All
+      right, Christopher. Mother's inside.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, how did he come here, mother?' whispered Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know how he came or why, my dear,' rejoined Mrs Nubbles,
+      dismounting with her son's assistance, 'but he has been a terrifying of me
+      out of my seven senses all this blessed day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He has?' cried Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You wouldn't believe it, that you wouldn't,' replied his mother, 'but
+      don't say a word to him, for I really don't believe he's human. Hush!
+      Don't turn round as if I was talking of him, but he's a squinting at me
+      now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of his mother's injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look. Mr
+      Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial
+      contemplation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, he's the artfullest creetur!' cried Mrs Nubbles. 'But come away.
+      Don't speak to him for the world.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes I will, mother. What nonsense. I say, sir&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You let my mother alone, will you?' said Kit. 'How dare you tease a poor
+      lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she hadn't
+      got enough to make her so, without you. An't you ashamed of yourself, you
+      little monster?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Monster!' said Quilp inwardly, with a smile. 'Ugliest dwarf that could be
+      seen anywhere for a penny&mdash;monster&mdash;ah!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You show her any of your impudence again,' resumed Kit, shouldering the
+      bandbox, 'and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won't bear with you any more.
+      You have no right to do it; I'm sure we never interfered with you. This
+      isn't the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her again, you'll
+      oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on account of your
+      size) to beat you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring
+      his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him,
+      retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached again,
+      again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in a
+      phantasmagoria. Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an immediate
+      assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures, snapped his
+      fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as fast as she could,
+      and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob and the baby, looking
+      anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap49"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 49
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>it's mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so
+      often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp's thoughts than any intention
+      of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with which they had
+      parted. He went his way, whistling from time to time some fragments of a
+      tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed, jogged pleasantly
+      towards home; entertaining himself as he went with visions of the fears
+      and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no intelligence of him for
+      three whole days and two nights, and having had no previous notice of his
+      absence, was doubtless by that time in a state of distraction, and
+      constantly fainting away with anxiety and grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf's humour, and so
+      exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until the
+      tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found himself in a
+      bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which greatly
+      terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on before him
+      expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made him remarkably
+      cheerful and light-hearted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when, gazing
+      up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried more
+      light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing nearer, and listening
+      attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest conversation, among
+      which he could distinguish, not only those of his wife and mother-in-law,
+      but the tongues of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha!' cried the jealous dwarf, 'What's this! Do they entertain visitors
+      while I'm away!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his pockets for
+      his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no resource but to knock at
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A light in the passage,' said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole. 'A very
+      soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you
+      unawares. Soho!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very low and gentle rap received no answer from within. But after a
+      second application to the knocker, no louder than the first, the door was
+      softly opened by the boy from the wharf, whom Quilp instantly gagged with
+      one hand, and dragged into the street with the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll throttle me, master,' whispered the boy. 'Let go, will you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who's up stairs, you dog?' retorted Quilp in the same tone. 'Tell me. And
+      don't speak above your breath, or I'll choke you in good earnest.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled giggle,
+      expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him by the
+      throat and might have carried his threat into execution, or at least have
+      made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy's nimbly
+      extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself behind the
+      nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to catch him by the
+      hair of the head, his master was obliged to come to a parley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Will you answer me?' said Quilp. 'What's going on, above?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You won't let one speak,' replied the boy. 'They&mdash;ha, ha, ha!&mdash;they
+      think you're&mdash;you're dead. Ha ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dead!' cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. 'No. Do they? Do
+      they really, you dog?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They think you're&mdash;you're drowned,' replied the boy, who in his
+      malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. 'You was last seen
+      on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over. Ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and of
+      disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to Quilp
+      than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have inspired him
+      with. He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant, and they both
+      stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping and wagging their heads at
+      each other, on either side of the post, like an unmatchable pair of
+      Chinese idols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not a word,' said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. 'Not a sound,
+      not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb. Drowned,
+      eh, Mrs Quilp! Drowned!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his
+      way up stairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstasy of
+      summersets on the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr Quilp slipped in, and
+      planted himself behind the door of communication between that chamber and
+      the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more airy, and having
+      a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed himself for
+      purposes of espial, and had indeed enlarged with his pocket-knife),
+      enabled him not only to hear, but to see distinctly, what was passing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass seated at
+      the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum&mdash;his
+      own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica&mdash;convenient to his
+      hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things
+      fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible to
+      their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of punch
+      reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon,
+      and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of sentimental
+      regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy. At the same
+      table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; no longer sipping
+      other people's punch feloniously with teaspoons, but taking deep draughts
+      from a jorum of her own; while her daughter&mdash;not exactly with ashes
+      on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but preserving a very decent and
+      becoming appearance of sorrow nevertheless&mdash;was reclining in an easy
+      chair, and soothing her grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib
+      liquid. There were also present, a couple of water-side men, bearing
+      between them certain machines called drags; even these fellows were
+      accommodated with a stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great
+      relish, and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look,
+      their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided
+      appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I could poison that dear old lady's rum and water,' murmured Quilp,
+      'I'd die happy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the
+      ceiling with a sigh, 'Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now!
+      Who knows but he may be surveying of us from&mdash;from somewheres or
+      another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh Lor!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed; looking
+      at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I can almost fancy,' said the lawyer shaking his head, 'that I see his
+      eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we look
+      upon his like again? Never, never!' One minute we are here'&mdash;holding
+      his tumbler before his eyes&mdash;'the next we are there'&mdash;gulping
+      down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a little below the
+      chest&mdash;'in the silent tomb. To think that I should be drinking his
+      very rum! It seems like a dream.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr Brass
+      pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the purpose of
+      being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The search has been quite unsuccessful then?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quite, master. But I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he'll come
+      ashore somewhere about Grinidge to-morrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the
+      Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to receive him
+      whenever he arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then we have nothing for it but resignation,' said Mr Brass; 'nothing but
+      resignation and expectation. It would be a comfort to have his body; it
+      would be a dreary comfort.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, beyond a doubt,' assented Mrs Jiniwin hastily; 'if we once had that,
+      we should be quite sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'With regard to the descriptive advertisement,' said Sampson Brass, taking
+      up his pen. 'It is a melancholy pleasure to recall his traits. Respecting
+      his legs now&mdash;?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Crooked, certainly,' said Mrs Jiniwin. 'Do you think they <i>were </i>crooked?'
+      said Brass, in an insinuating tone. 'I think I see them now coming up the
+      street very wide apart, in nankeen' pantaloons a little shrunk and without
+      straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we say crooked?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I think they were a little so,' observed Mrs Quilp with a sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Legs crooked,' said Brass, writing as he spoke. 'Large head, short body,
+      legs crooked&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very crooked,' suggested Mrs Jiniwin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We'll not say very crooked, ma'am,' said Brass piously. 'Let us not bear
+      hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone, ma'am, to where his
+      legs will never come in question.&mdash;We will content ourselves with
+      crooked, Mrs Jiniwin.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I thought you wanted the truth,' said the old lady. 'That's all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bless your eyes, how I love you,' muttered Quilp. 'There she goes again.
+      Nothing but punch!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is an occupation,' said the lawyer, laying down his pen and emptying
+      his glass, 'which seems to bring him before my eyes like the Ghost of
+      Hamlet's father, in the very clothes that he wore on work-a-days. His
+      coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his trousers, his hat, his
+      wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before me like
+      visions of my youth. His linen!' said Mr Brass smiling fondly at the wall,
+      'his linen which was always of a particular colour, for such was his whim
+      and fancy&mdash;how plain I see his linen now!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You had better go on, sir,' said Mrs Jiniwin impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'True, ma'am, true,' cried Mr Brass. 'Our faculties must not freeze with
+      grief. I'll trouble you for a little more of that, ma'am. A question now
+      arises, with relation to his nose.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Flat,' said Mrs Jiniwin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aquiline!' cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the feature
+      with his fist. 'Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you call this flat?
+      Do you? Eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh capital, capital!' shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit.
+      'Excellent! How very good he is! He's a most remarkable man&mdash;so
+      extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by surprise!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the dubious and
+      frightened look into which the lawyer gradually subsided, nor to the
+      shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to the latter's running from
+      the room, nor to the former's fainting away. Keeping his eye fixed on
+      Sampson Brass, he walked up to the table, and beginning with his glass,
+      drank off the contents, and went regularly round until he had emptied the
+      other two, when he seized the case-bottle, and hugging it under his arm,
+      surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not yet, Sampson,' said Quilp. 'Not just yet!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh very good indeed!' cried Brass, recovering his spirits a little. 'Ha
+      ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! There's not another man alive who could carry
+      it off like that. A most difficult position to carry off. But he has such
+      a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good night,' said the dwarf, nodding expressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good night, sir, good night,' cried the lawyer, retreating backwards
+      towards the door. 'This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful. Ha
+      ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed, remarkably so!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waiting until Mr Brass's ejaculations died away in the distance (for he
+      continued to pour them out, all the way down stairs), Quilp advanced
+      towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?' said the dwarf,
+      holding the door open with great politeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And yesterday too, master.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dear me, you've had a deal of trouble. Pray consider everything yours
+      that you find upon the&mdash;upon the body. Good night!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to argue
+      the point just then, and shuffled out of the room. The speedy clearance
+      effected, Quilp locked the doors; and still embracing the case-bottle with
+      shrugged-up shoulders and folded arms, stood looking at his insensible
+      wife like a dismounted nightmare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap50"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 50
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>atrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties concerned in
+      the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least her full half
+      share. Those of Mr and Mrs Quilp, however, were an exception to the
+      general rule; the remarks which they occasioned being limited to a long
+      soliloquy on the part of the gentleman, with perhaps a few deprecatory
+      observations from the lady, not extending beyond a trembling monosyllable
+      uttered at long intervals, and in a very submissive and humble tone. On
+      the present occasion, Mrs Quilp did not for a long time venture even on
+      this gentle defence, but when she had recovered from her fainting-fit, sat
+      in a tearful silence, meekly listening to the reproaches of her lord and
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of these Mr Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and
+      rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that even his
+      wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his proficiency in these
+      respects, was well-nigh beside herself with alarm. But the Jamaica rum,
+      and the joy of having occasioned a heavy disappointment, by degrees cooled
+      Mr Quilp's wrath; which from being at savage heat, dropped slowly to the
+      bantering or chuckling point, at which it steadily remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?' said Quilp. 'You thought
+      you were a widow, eh? Ha, ha, ha, you jade.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed, Quilp,' returned his wife. 'I'm very sorry&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who doubts it!' cried the dwarf. 'You very sorry! to be sure you are. Who
+      doubts that you're <i>very </i>sorry!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,' said
+      his wife, 'but sorry that I should have been led into such a belief. I am
+      glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her lord than
+      might have been expected, and did evince a degree of interest in his
+      safety which, all things considered, was rather unaccountable. Upon Quilp,
+      however, this circumstance made no impression, farther than as it moved
+      him to snap his fingers close to his wife's eyes, with divers grins of
+      triumph and derision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or letting me
+      hear of you or know anything about you?' asked the poor little woman,
+      sobbing. 'How could you be so cruel, Quilp?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How could I be so cruel! cruel!' cried the dwarf. 'Because I was in the
+      humour. I'm in the humour now. I shall be cruel when I like. I'm going
+      away again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not again!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, again. I'm going away now. I'm off directly. I mean to go and live
+      wherever the fancy seizes me&mdash;at the wharf&mdash;at the
+      counting-house&mdash;and be a jolly bachelor. You were a widow in
+      anticipation. Damme,' screamed the dwarf, 'I'll be a bachelor in earnest.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You can't be serious, Quilp,' sobbed his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I tell you,' said the dwarf, exulting in his project, 'that I'll be a
+      bachelor, a devil-may-care bachelor; and I'll have my bachelor's hall at
+      the counting-house, and at such times come near it if you dare. And mind
+      too that I don't pounce in upon you at unseasonable hours again, for I'll
+      be a spy upon you, and come and go like a mole or a weazel. Tom Scott&mdash;where's
+      Tom Scott?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here I am, master,' cried the voice of the boy, as Quilp threw up the
+      window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Wait there, you dog,' returned the dwarf, 'to carry a bachelor's
+      portmanteau. Pack it up, Mrs Quilp. Knock up the dear old lady to help;
+      knock her up. Halloa there! Halloa!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these exclamations, Mr Quilp caught up the poker, and hurrying to the
+      door of the good lady's sleeping-closet, beat upon it therewith until she
+      awoke in inexpressible terror, thinking that her amiable son-in-law surely
+      intended to murder her in justification of the legs she had slandered.
+      Impressed with this idea, she was no sooner fairly awake than she screamed
+      violently, and would have quickly precipitated herself out of the window
+      and through a neighbouring skylight, if her daughter had not hastened in
+      to undeceive her, and implore her assistance. Somewhat reassured by her
+      account of the service she was required to render, Mrs Jiniwin made her
+      appearance in a flannel dressing-gown; and both mother and daughter,
+      trembling with terror and cold&mdash;for the night was now far advanced&mdash;obeyed
+      Mr Quilp's directions in submissive silence. Prolonging his preparations
+      as much as possible, for their greater comfort, that eccentric gentleman
+      superintended the packing of his wardrobe, and having added to it with his
+      own hands, a plate, knife and fork, spoon, teacup and saucer, and other
+      small household matters of that nature, strapped up the portmanteau, took
+      it on his shoulders, and actually marched off without another word, and
+      with the case-bottle (which he had never once put down) still tightly
+      clasped under his arm. Consigning his heavier burden to the care of Tom
+      Scott when he reached the street, taking a dram from the bottle for his
+      own encouragement, and giving the boy a rap on the head with it as a small
+      taste for himself, Quilp very deliberately led the way to the wharf, and
+      reached it at between three and four o'clock in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Snug!' said Quilp, when he had groped his way to the wooden
+      counting-house, and opened the door with a key he carried about with him.
+      'Beautifully snug! Call me at eight, you dog.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With no more formal leave-taking or explanation, he clutched the
+      portmanteau, shut the door on his attendant, and climbing on the desk, and
+      rolling himself up as round as a hedgehog, in an old boat-cloak, fell fast
+      asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being roused in the morning at the appointed time, and roused with
+      difficulty, after his late fatigues, Quilp instructed Tom Scott to make a
+      fire in the yard of sundry pieces of old timber, and to prepare some
+      coffee for breakfast; for the better furnishing of which repast he
+      entrusted him with certain small moneys, to be expended in the purchase of
+      hot rolls, butter, sugar, Yarmouth bloaters, and other articles of
+      housekeeping; so that in a few minutes a savoury meal was smoking on the
+      board. With this substantial comfort, the dwarf regaled himself to his
+      heart's content; and being highly satisfied with this free and gipsy mode
+      of life (which he had often meditated, as offering, whenever he chose to
+      avail himself of it, an agreeable freedom from the restraints of
+      matrimony, and a choice means of keeping Mrs Quilp and her mother in a
+      state of incessant agitation and suspense), bestirred himself to improve
+      his retreat, and render it more commodious and comfortable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this view, he issued forth to a place hard by, where sea-stores were
+      sold, purchased a second-hand hammock, and had it slung in seamanlike
+      fashion from the ceiling of the counting-house. He also caused to be
+      erected, in the same mouldy cabin, an old ship's stove with a rusty funnel
+      to carry the smoke through the roof; and these arrangements completed,
+      surveyed them with ineffable delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I've got a country-house like Robinson Crusoe,' said the dwarf, ogling
+      the accommodations; 'a solitary, sequestered, desolate-island sort of
+      spot, where I can be quite alone when I have business on hand, and be
+      secure from all spies and listeners. Nobody near me here, but rats, and
+      they are fine stealthy secret fellows. I shall be as merry as a grig among
+      these gentry. I'll look out for one like Christopher, and poison him&mdash;ha,
+      ha, ha! Business though&mdash;business&mdash;we must be mindful of
+      business in the midst of pleasure, and the time has flown this morning, I
+      declare.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enjoining Tom Scott to await his return, and not to stand upon his head,
+      or throw a summerset, or so much as walk upon his hands meanwhile, on pain
+      of lingering torments, the dwarf threw himself into a boat, and crossing
+      to the other side of the river, and then speeding away on foot, reached Mr
+      Swiveller's usual house of entertainment in Bevis Marks, just as that
+      gentleman sat down alone to dinner in its dusky parlour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dick,' said the dwarf, thrusting his head in at the door, 'my pet, my
+      pupil, the apple of my eye, hey, hey!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh you're there, are you?' returned Mr Swiveller; 'how are you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How's Dick?' retorted Quilp. 'How's the cream of clerkship, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, rather sour, sir,' replied Mr Swiveller. 'Beginning to border upon
+      cheesiness, in fact.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, advancing. 'Has Sally proved unkind.
+      "Of all the girls that are so smart, there's none like&mdash;" eh, Dick!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly not,' replied Mr Swiveller, eating his dinner with great
+      gravity, 'none like her. She's the sphynx of private life, is Sally B.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're out of spirits,' said Quilp, drawing up a chair. 'What's the
+      matter?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The law don't agree with me,' returned Dick. 'It isn't moist enough, and
+      there's too much confinement. I have been thinking of running away.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bah!' said the dwarf. 'Where would you run to, Dick?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know' returned Mr Swiveller. 'Towards Highgate, I suppose.
+      Perhaps the bells might strike up "Turn again Swiveller, Lord Mayor of
+      London." Whittington's name was Dick. I wish cats were scarcer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp looked at his companion with his eyes screwed up into a comical
+      expression of curiosity, and patiently awaited his further explanation;
+      upon which, however, Mr Swiveller appeared in no hurry to enter, as he ate
+      a very long dinner in profound silence, finally pushed away his plate,
+      threw himself back into his chair, folded his arms, and stared ruefully at
+      the fire, in which some ends of cigars were smoking on their own account,
+      and sending up a fragrant odour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Perhaps you'd like a bit of cake'&mdash;said Dick, at last turning to the
+      dwarf. 'You're quite welcome to it. You ought to be, for it's of your
+      making.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What do you mean?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very greasy
+      parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of plum-cake
+      extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with a paste of white
+      sugar an inch and a half deep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What should you say this was?' demanded Mr Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It looks like bride-cake,' replied the dwarf, grinning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And whose should you say it was?' inquired Mr Swiveller, rubbing the
+      pastry against his nose with a dreadful calmness. 'Whose?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Dick, 'the same. You needn't mention her name. There's no such
+      name now. Her name is Cheggs now, Sophy Cheggs. Yet loved I as man never
+      loved that hadn't wooden legs, and my heart, my heart is breaking for the
+      love of Sophy Cheggs.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the distressing
+      circumstances of his own case, Mr Swiveller folded up the parcel again,
+      beat it very flat between the palms of his hands, thrust it into his
+      breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded his arms upon the whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, I hope you're satisfied, sir,' said Dick; 'and I hope Fred's
+      satisfied. You went partners in the mischief, and I hope you like it. This
+      is the triumph I was to have, is it? It's like the old country-dance of
+      that name, where there are two gentlemen to one lady, and one has her, and
+      the other hasn't, but comes limping up behind to make out the figure. But
+      it's Destiny, and mine's a crusher.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Disguising his secret joy in Mr Swiveller's defeat, Daniel Quilp adopted
+      the surest means of soothing him, by ringing the bell, and ordering in a
+      supply of rosy wine (that is to say, of its usual representative), which
+      he put about with great alacrity, calling upon Mr Swiveller to pledge him
+      in various toasts derisive of Cheggs, and eulogistic of the happiness of
+      single men. Such was their impression on Mr Swiveller, coupled with the
+      reflection that no man could oppose his destiny, that in a very short
+      space of time his spirits rose surprisingly, and he was enabled to give
+      the dwarf an account of the receipt of the cake, which, it appeared, had
+      been brought to Bevis Marks by the two surviving Miss Wackleses in person,
+      and delivered at the office door with much giggling and joyfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha!' said Quilp. 'It will be our turn to giggle soon. And that reminds me&mdash;you
+      spoke of young Trent&mdash;where is he?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller explained that his respectable friend had recently accepted a
+      responsible situation in a locomotive gaming-house, and was at that time
+      absent on a professional tour among the adventurous spirits of Great
+      Britain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's unfortunate,' said the dwarf, 'for I came, in fact, to ask you
+      about him. A thought has occurred to me, Dick; your friend over the way&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Which friend?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In the first floor.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Your friend in the first floor, Dick, may know him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, he don't,' said Mr Swiveller, shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't! No, because he has never seen him,' rejoined Quilp; 'but if we
+      were to bring them together, who knows, Dick, but Fred, properly
+      introduced, would serve his turn almost as well as little Nell or her
+      grandfather&mdash;who knows but it might make the young fellow's fortune,
+      and, through him, yours, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, the fact is, you see,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that they <i>have </i>been
+      brought together.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have been!' cried the dwarf, looking suspiciously at his companion.
+      'Through whose means?'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Through mine,' said Dick, slightly confused.
+      'Didn't I mention it to you the last time you called over yonder?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You know you didn't,' returned the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I believe you're right,' said Dick. 'No. I didn't, I recollect. Oh yes, I
+      brought 'em together that very day. It was Fred's suggestion.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what came of it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, instead of my friend's bursting into tears when he knew who Fred
+      was, embracing him kindly, and telling him that he was his grandfather, or
+      his grandmother in disguise (which we fully expected), he flew into a
+      tremendous passion; called him all manner of names; said it was in a great
+      measure his fault that little Nell and the old gentleman had ever been
+      brought to poverty; didn't hint at our taking anything to drink; and&mdash;and
+      in short rather turned us out of the room than otherwise.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's strange,' said the dwarf, musing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So we remarked to each other at the time,' returned Dick coolly, 'but
+      quite true.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp was plainly staggered by this intelligence, over which he brooded
+      for some time in moody silence, often raising his eyes to Mr Swiveller's
+      face, and sharply scanning its expression. As he could read in it,
+      however, no additional information or anything to lead him to believe he
+      had spoken falsely; and as Mr Swiveller, left to his own meditations,
+      sighed deeply, and was evidently growing maudlin on the subject of Mrs
+      Cheggs; the dwarf soon broke up the conference and took his departure,
+      leaving the bereaved one to his melancholy ruminations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have been brought together, eh?' said the dwarf as he walked the streets
+      alone. 'My friend has stolen a march upon me. It led him to nothing, and
+      therefore is no great matter, save in the intention. I'm glad he has lost
+      his mistress. Ha ha! The blockhead mustn't leave the law at present. I'm
+      sure of him where he is, whenever I want him for my own purposes, and,
+      besides, he's a good unconscious spy on Brass, and tells, in his cups, all
+      that he sees and hears. You're useful to me, Dick, and cost nothing but a
+      little treating now and then. I am not sure that it may not be worth
+      while, before long, to take credit with the stranger, Dick, by discovering
+      your designs upon the child; but for the present we'll remain the best
+      friends in the world, with your good leave.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pursuing these thoughts, and gasping as he went along, after his own
+      peculiar fashion, Mr Quilp once more crossed the Thames, and shut himself
+      up in his Bachelor's Hall, which, by reason of its newly-erected chimney
+      depositing the smoke inside the room and carrying none of it off, was not
+      quite so agreeable as more fastidious people might have desired. Such
+      inconveniences, however, instead of disgusting the dwarf with his new
+      abode, rather suited his humour; so, after dining luxuriously from the
+      public-house, he lighted his pipe, and smoked against the chimney until
+      nothing of him was visible through the mist but a pair of red and highly
+      inflamed eyes, with sometimes a dim vision of his head and face, as, in a
+      violent fit of coughing, he slightly stirred the smoke and scattered the
+      heavy wreaths by which they were obscured. In the midst of this
+      atmosphere, which must infallibly have smothered any other man, Mr Quilp
+      passed the evening with great cheerfulness; solacing himself all the time
+      with the pipe and the case-bottle; and occasionally entertaining himself
+      with a melodious howl, intended for a song, but bearing not the faintest
+      resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental,
+      ever invented by man. Thus he amused himself until nearly midnight, when
+      he turned into his hammock with the utmost satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first sound that met his ears in the morning&mdash;as he half opened
+      his eyes, and, finding himself so unusually near the ceiling, entertained
+      a drowsy idea that he must have been transformed into a fly or blue-bottle
+      in the course of the night,&mdash;was that of a stifled sobbing and
+      weeping in the room. Peeping cautiously over the side of his hammock, he
+      descried Mrs Quilp, to whom, after contemplating her for some time in
+      silence, he communicated a violent start by suddenly yelling out&mdash;'Halloa!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, Quilp!' cried his poor little wife, looking up. 'How you frightened
+      me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I meant to, you jade,' returned the dwarf. 'What do you want here? I'm
+      dead, an't I?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, please come home, do come home,' said Mrs Quilp, sobbing; 'we'll
+      never do so any more, Quilp, and after all it was only a mistake that grew
+      out of our anxiety.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Out of your anxiety,' grinned the dwarf. 'Yes, I know that&mdash;out of
+      your anxiety for my death. I shall come home when I please, I tell you. I
+      shall come home when I please, and go when I please. I'll be a Will o' the
+      Wisp, now here, now there, dancing about you always, starting up when you
+      least expect me, and keeping you in a constant state of restlessness and
+      irritation. Will you begone?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs Quilp durst only make a gesture of entreaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I tell you no,' cried the dwarf. 'No. If you dare to come here again
+      unless you're sent for, I'll keep watch-dogs in the yard that'll growl and
+      bite&mdash;I'll have man-traps, cunningly altered and improved for
+      catching women&mdash;I'll have spring guns, that shall explode when you
+      tread upon the wires, and blow you into little pieces. Will you begone?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do forgive me. Do come back,' said his wife, earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No-o-o-o-o!' roared Quilp. 'Not till my own good time, and then I'll
+      return again as often as I choose, and be accountable to nobody for my
+      goings or comings. You see the door there. Will you go?'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0363m.jpg" alt="0363m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0363.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp delivered this last command in such a very energetic voice, and
+      moreover accompanied it with such a sudden gesture, indicative of an
+      intention to spring out of his hammock, and, night-capped as he was, bear
+      his wife home again through the public streets, that she sped away like an
+      arrow. Her worthy lord stretched his neck and eyes until she had crossed
+      the yard, and then, not at all sorry to have had this opportunity of
+      carrying his point, and asserting the sanctity of his castle, fell into an
+      immoderate fit of laughter, and laid himself down to sleep again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap51"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 51
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he bland and open-hearted proprietor of Bachelor's Hall slept on amidst
+      the congenial accompaniments of rain, mud, dirt, damp, fog, and rats,
+      until late in the day; when, summoning his valet Tom Scott to assist him
+      to rise, and to prepare breakfast, he quitted his couch, and made his
+      toilet. This duty performed, and his repast ended, he again betook himself
+      to Bevis Marks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This visit was not intended for Mr Swiveller, but for his friend and
+      employer Mr Sampson Brass. Both gentlemen however were from home, nor was
+      the life and light of law, Miss Sally, at her post either. The fact of
+      their joint desertion of the office was made known to all comers by a
+      scrap of paper in the hand-writing of Mr Swiveller, which was attached to
+      the bell-handle, and which, giving the reader no clue to the time of day
+      when it was first posted, furnished him with the rather vague and
+      unsatisfactory information that that gentleman would 'return in an hour.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's a servant, I suppose,' said the dwarf, knocking at the
+      house-door. 'She'll do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a sufficiently long interval, the door was opened, and a small voice
+      immediately accosted him with, 'Oh please will you leave a card or
+      message?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Eh?' said the dwarf, looking down, (it was something quite new to him)
+      upon the small servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this, the child, conducting her conversation as upon the occasion of
+      her first interview with Mr Swiveller, again replied, 'Oh please will you
+      leave a card or message?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll write a note,' said the dwarf, pushing past her into the office;
+      'and mind your master has it directly he comes home.' So Mr Quilp climbed
+      up to the top of a tall stool to write the note, and the small servant,
+      carefully tutored for such emergencies, looked on with her eyes wide open,
+      ready, if he so much as abstracted a wafer, to rush into the street and
+      give the alarm to the police.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mr Quilp folded his note (which was soon written: being a very short
+      one) he encountered the gaze of the small servant. He looked at her, long
+      and earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How are you?' said the dwarf, moistening a wafer with horrible grimaces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no audible
+      reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she was inwardly
+      repeating the same form of expression concerning the note or message.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do they use you ill here? is your mistress a Tartar?' said Quilp with a
+      chuckle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look of
+      infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very tight and
+      round, and nodded violently. Whether there was anything in the peculiar
+      slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or anything in the
+      expression of her features at the moment which attracted his attention for
+      some other reason; or whether it merely occurred to him as a pleasant whim
+      to stare the small servant out of countenance; certain it is, that he
+      planted his elbows square and firmly on the desk, and squeezing up his
+      cheeks with his hands, looked at her fixedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where do you come from?' he said after a long pause, stroking his chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's your name?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nonsense!' retorted Quilp. 'What does your mistress call you when she
+      wants you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A little devil,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further questioning,
+      'But please will you leave a card or message?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more inquiries.
+      Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew his eyes from the
+      small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully than before, and then,
+      bending over the note as if to direct it with scrupulous and hair-breadth
+      nicety, looked at her, covertly but very narrowly, from under his bushy
+      eyebrows. The result of this secret survey was, that he shaded his face
+      with his hands, and laughed slyly and noiselessly, until every vein in it
+      was swollen almost to bursting. Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal
+      his mirth and its effects, he tossed the letter to the child, and hastily
+      withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and held his
+      sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the dusty area
+      railings as if to catch another glimpse of the child, until he was quite
+      tired out. At last, he travelled back to the Wilderness, which was within
+      rifle-shot of his bachelor retreat, and ordered tea in the wooden
+      summer-house that afternoon for three persons; an invitation to Miss Sally
+      Brass and her brother to partake of that entertainment at that place,
+      having been the object both of his journey and his note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not precisely the kind of weather in which people usually take tea
+      in summer-houses, far less in summer-houses in an advanced state of decay,
+      and overlooking the slimy banks of a great river at low water.
+      Nevertheless, it was in this choice retreat that Mr Quilp ordered a cold
+      collation to be prepared, and it was beneath its cracked and leaky roof
+      that he, in due course of time, received Mr Sampson and his sister Sally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're fond of the beauties of nature,' said Quilp with a grin. 'Is this
+      charming, Brass? Is it unusual, unsophisticated, primitive?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's delightful indeed, sir,' replied the lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Cool?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'N-not particularly so, I think, sir,' rejoined Brass, with his teeth
+      chattering in his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Perhaps a little damp and ague-ish?' said Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Just damp enough to be cheerful, sir,' rejoined Brass. 'Nothing more,
+      sir, nothing more.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And Sally?' said the delighted dwarf. 'Does she like it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She'll like it better,' returned that strong-minded lady, 'when she has
+      tea; so let us have it, and don't bother.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sweet Sally!' cried Quilp, extending his arms as if about to embrace her.
+      'Gentle, charming, overwhelming Sally.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's a very remarkable man indeed!' soliloquised Mr Brass. 'He's quite a
+      Troubadour, you know; quite a Troubadour!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These complimentary expressions were uttered in a somewhat absent and
+      distracted manner; for the unfortunate lawyer, besides having a bad cold
+      in his head, had got wet in coming, and would have willingly borne some
+      pecuniary sacrifice if he could have shifted his present raw quarters to a
+      warm room, and dried himself at a fire. Quilp, however&mdash;who, beyond
+      the gratification of his demon whims, owed Sampson some acknowledgment of
+      the part he had played in the mourning scene of which he had been a hidden
+      witness, marked these symptoms of uneasiness with a delight past all
+      expression, and derived from them a secret joy which the costliest banquet
+      could never have afforded him.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0367m.jpg" alt="0367m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0367.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      It is worthy of remark, too, as illustrating a little feature in the
+      character of Miss Sally Brass, that, although on her own account she would
+      have borne the discomforts of the Wilderness with a very ill grace, and
+      would probably, indeed, have walked off before the tea appeared, she no
+      sooner beheld the latent uneasiness and misery of her brother than she
+      developed a grim satisfaction, and began to enjoy herself after her own
+      manner. Though the wet came stealing through the roof and trickling down
+      upon their heads, Miss Brass uttered no complaint, but presided over the
+      tea equipage with imperturbable composure. While Mr Quilp, in his
+      uproarious hospitality, seated himself upon an empty beer-barrel, vaunted
+      the place as the most beautiful and comfortable in the three kingdoms, and
+      elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that jovial
+      spot; and Mr Brass, with the rain plashing down into his tea-cup, made a
+      dismal attempt to pluck up his spirits and appear at his ease; and Tom
+      Scott, who was in waiting at the door under an old umbrella, exulted in
+      his agonies, and bade fair to split his sides with laughing; while all
+      this was passing, Miss Sally Brass, unmindful of the wet which dripped
+      down upon her own feminine person and fair apparel, sat placidly behind
+      the tea-board, erect and grizzly, contemplating the unhappiness of her
+      brother with a mind at ease, and content, in her amiable disregard of
+      self, to sit there all night, witnessing the torments which his avaricious
+      and grovelling nature compelled him to endure and forbade him to resent.
+      And this, it must be observed, or the illustration would be incomplete,
+      although in a business point of view she had the strongest sympathy with
+      Mr Sampson, and would have been beyond measure indignant if he had
+      thwarted their client in any one respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the height of his boisterous merriment, Mr Quilp, having on some
+      pretence dismissed his attendant sprite for the moment, resumed his usual
+      manner all at once, dismounted from his cask, and laid his hand upon the
+      lawyer's sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A word,' said the dwarf, 'before we go farther. Sally, hark'ee for a
+      minute.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sally drew closer, as if accustomed to business conferences with
+      their host which were the better for not having air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Business,' said the dwarf, glancing from brother to sister. 'Very private
+      business. Lay your heads together when you're by yourselves.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly, sir,' returned Brass, taking out his pocket-book and pencil.
+      'I'll take down the heads if you please, sir. Remarkable documents,' added
+      the lawyer, raising his eyes to the ceiling, 'most remarkable documents.
+      He states his points so clearly that it's a treat to have 'em! I don't
+      know any act of parliament that's equal to him in clearness.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shall deprive you of a treat,' said Quilp. 'Put up your book. We don't
+      want any documents. So. There's a lad named Kit&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Kit!' said Mr Sampson.&mdash;'Kit! Ha! I've heard the name before, but I
+      don't exactly call to mind&mdash;I don't exactly&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a rhinoceros,'
+      returned his obliging client with an impatient gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's extremely pleasant!' cried the obsequious Sampson. 'His acquaintance
+      with Natural History too is surprising. Quite a Buffoon, quite!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other; and it
+      has been argued with show of reason that he would have said Buffon, but
+      made use of a superfluous vowel. Be this as it may, Quilp gave him no time
+      for correction, as he performed that office himself by more than tapping
+      him on the head with the handle of his umbrella.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't let's have any wrangling,' said Miss Sally, staying his hand. 'I've
+      showed you that I know him, and that's enough.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She's always foremost!' said the dwarf, patting her on the back and
+      looking contemptuously at Sampson. 'I don't like Kit, Sally.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nor I,' rejoined Miss Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nor I,' said Sampson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, that's right!' cried Quilp. 'Half our work is done already. This Kit
+      is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters; a prowling
+      prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, white-livered, sneaking spy; a
+      crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a barking yelping dog
+      to all besides.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Fearfully eloquent!' cried Brass with a sneeze. 'Quite appalling!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come to the point,' said Miss Sally, 'and don't talk so much.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Right again!' exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at Sampson,
+      'always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog to all
+      besides, and most of all, to me. In short, I owe him a grudge.' 'That's
+      enough, sir,' said Sampson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, it's not enough, sir,' sneered Quilp; 'will you hear me out? Besides
+      that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at this minute, and
+      stands between me and an end which might otherwise prove a golden one to
+      us all. Apart from that, I repeat that he crosses my humour, and I hate
+      him. Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest. Devise your own means
+      of putting him out of my way, and execute them. Shall it be done?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It shall, sir,' said Sampson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then give me your hand,' retorted Quilp. 'Sally, girl, yours. I rely as
+      much, or more, on you than him. Tom Scott comes back. Lantern, pipes, more
+      grog, and a jolly night of it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the slightest
+      reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting. The trio were well
+      accustomed to act together, and were linked to each other by ties of
+      mutual interest and advantage, and nothing more was needed. Resuming his
+      boisterous manner with the same ease with which he had thrown it off,
+      Quilp was in an instant the same uproarious, reckless little savage he had
+      been a few seconds before. It was ten o'clock at night before the amiable
+      Sally supported her beloved and loving brother from the Wilderness, by
+      which time he needed the utmost support her tender frame could render; his
+      walk being from some unknown reason anything but steady, and his legs
+      constantly doubling up in unexpected places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the fatigues
+      of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping to his dainty
+      house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock. Leaving him to visions, in
+      which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in the old church porch were
+      not without their share, be it our task to rejoin them as they sat and
+      watched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap52"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 52
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter a long time, the schoolmaster appeared at the wicket-gate of the
+      churchyard, and hurried towards them, Tingling in his hand, as he came
+      along, a bundle of rusty keys. He was quite breathless with pleasure and
+      haste when he reached the porch, and at first could only point towards the
+      old building which the child had been contemplating so earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see those two old houses,' he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, surely,' replied Nell. 'I have been looking at them nearly all the
+      time you have been away.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And you would have looked at them more curiously yet, if you could have
+      guessed what I have to tell you,' said her friend. 'One of those houses is
+      mine.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without saying any more, or giving the child time to reply, the
+      schoolmaster took her hand, and, his honest face quite radiant with
+      exultation, led her to the place of which he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stopped before its low arched door. After trying several of the keys
+      in vain, the schoolmaster found one to fit the huge lock, which turned
+      back, creaking, and admitted them into the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber once nobly
+      ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its beautiful
+      groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of its ancient
+      splendour. Foliage carved in the stone, and emulating the mastery of
+      Nature's hand, yet remained to tell how many times the leaves outside had
+      come and gone, while it lived on unchanged. The broken figures supporting
+      the burden of the chimney-piece, though mutilated, were still
+      distinguishable for what they had been&mdash;far different from the dust
+      without&mdash;and showed sadly by the empty hearth, like creatures who had
+      outlived their kind, and mourned their own too slow decay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In some old time&mdash;for even change was old in that old place&mdash;a
+      wooden partition had been constructed in one part of the chamber to form a
+      sleeping-closet, into which the light was admitted at the same period by a
+      rude window, or rather niche, cut in the solid wall. This screen, together
+      with two seats in the broad chimney, had at some forgotten date been part
+      of the church or convent; for the oak, hastily appropriated to its present
+      purpose, had been little altered from its former shape, and presented to
+      the eye a pile of fragments of rich carving from old monkish stalls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An open door leading to a small room or cell, dim with the light that came
+      through leaves of ivy, completed the interior of this portion of the ruin.
+      It was not quite destitute of furniture. A few strange chairs, whose arms
+      and legs looked as though they had dwindled away with age; a table, the
+      very spectre of its race: a great old chest that had once held records in
+      the church, with other quaintly-fashioned domestic necessaries, and store
+      of fire-wood for the winter, were scattered around, and gave evident
+      tokens of its occupation as a dwelling-place at no very distant time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked around her, with that solemn feeling with which we
+      contemplate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in the
+      great ocean of eternity. The old man had followed them, but they were all
+      three hushed for a space, and drew their breath softly, as if they feared
+      to break the silence even by so slight a sound.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0373m.jpg" alt="0373m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0373.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'It is a very beautiful place!' said the child, in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I almost feared you thought otherwise,' returned the schoolmaster. 'You
+      shivered when we first came in, as if you felt it cold or gloomy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It was not that,' said Nell, glancing round with a slight shudder.
+      'Indeed I cannot tell you what it was, but when I saw the outside, from
+      the church porch, the same feeling came over me. It is its being so old
+      and grey perhaps.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A peaceful place to live in, don't you think so?' said her friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes,' rejoined the child, clasping her hands earnestly. 'A quiet,
+      happy place&mdash;a place to live and learn to die in!' She would have
+      said more, but that the energy of her thoughts caused her voice to falter,
+      and come in trembling whispers from her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A place to live, and learn to live, and gather health of mind and body
+      in,' said the schoolmaster; 'for this old house is yours.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ours!' cried the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ay,' returned the schoolmaster gaily, 'for many a merry year to come, I
+      hope. I shall be a close neighbour&mdash;only next door&mdash;but this
+      house is yours.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having now disburdened himself of his great surprise, the schoolmaster sat
+      down, and drawing Nell to his side, told her how he had learnt that
+      ancient tenement had been occupied for a very long time by an old person,
+      nearly a hundred years of age, who kept the keys of the church, opened and
+      closed it for the services, and showed it to strangers; how she had died
+      not many weeks ago, and nobody had yet been found to fill the office; how,
+      learning all this in an interview with the sexton, who was confined to his
+      bed by rheumatism, he had been bold to make mention of his
+      fellow-traveller, which had been so favourably received by that high
+      authority, that he had taken courage, acting on his advice, to propound
+      the matter to the clergyman. In a word, the result of his exertions was,
+      that Nell and her grandfather were to be carried before the last-named
+      gentleman next day; and, his approval of their conduct and appearance
+      reserved as a matter of form, that they were already appointed to the
+      vacant post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's a small allowance of money,' said the schoolmaster. 'It is not
+      much, but still enough to live upon in this retired spot. By clubbing our
+      funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Heaven bless and prosper you!' sobbed the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Amen, my dear,' returned her friend cheerfully; 'and all of us, as it
+      will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble to this tranquil
+      life. But we must look at <i>my</i> house now. Come!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They repaired to the other tenement; tried the rusty keys as before; at
+      length found the right one; and opened the worm-eaten door. It led into a
+      chamber, vaulted and old, like that from which they had come, but not so
+      spacious, and having only one other little room attached. It was not
+      difficult to divine that the other house was of right the schoolmaster's,
+      and that he had chosen for himself the least commodious, in his care and
+      regard for them. Like the adjoining habitation, it held such old articles
+      of furniture as were absolutely necessary, and had its stack of fire-wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To make these dwellings as habitable and full of comfort as they could,
+      was now their pleasant care. In a short time, each had its cheerful fire
+      glowing and crackling on the hearth, and reddening the pale old wall with
+      a hale and healthy blush. Nell, busily plying her needle, repaired the
+      tattered window-hangings, drew together the rents that time had worn in
+      the threadbare scraps of carpet, and made them whole and decent. The
+      schoolmaster swept and smoothed the ground before the door, trimmed the
+      long grass, trained the ivy and creeping plants which hung their drooping
+      heads in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer walls a cheery air of
+      home. The old man, sometimes by his side and sometimes with the child,
+      lent his aid to both, went here and there on little patient services, and
+      was happy. Neighbours, too, as they came from work, proffered their help;
+      or sent their children with such small presents or loans as the strangers
+      needed most. It was a busy day; and night came on, and found them
+      wondering that there was yet so much to do, and that it should be dark so
+      soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They took their supper together, in the house which may be henceforth
+      called the child's; and, when they had finished their meal, drew round the
+      fire, and almost in whispers&mdash;their hearts were too quiet and glad
+      for loud expression&mdash;discussed their future plans. Before they
+      separated, the schoolmaster read some prayers aloud; and then, full of
+      gratitude and happiness, they parted for the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that silent hour, when her grandfather was sleeping peacefully in his
+      bed, and every sound was hushed, the child lingered before the dying
+      embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had been a dream And
+      she only now awoke. The glare of the sinking flame, reflected in the oaken
+      panels whose carved tops were dimly seen in the dusky roof&mdash;the aged
+      walls, where strange shadows came and went with every flickering of the
+      fire&mdash;the solemn presence, within, of that decay which falls on
+      senseless things the most enduring in their nature: and, without, and
+      round about on every side, of Death&mdash;filled her with deep and
+      thoughtful feelings, but with none of terror or alarm. A change had been
+      gradually stealing over her, in the time of her loneliness and sorrow.
+      With failing strength and heightening resolution, there had sprung up a
+      purified and altered mind; there had grown in her bosom blessed thoughts
+      and hopes, which are the portion of few but the weak and drooping. There
+      were none to see the frail, perishable figure, as it glided from the fire
+      and leaned pensively at the open casement; none but the stars, to look
+      into the upturned face and read its history. The old church bell rang out
+      the hour with a mournful sound, as if it had grown sad from so much
+      communing with the dead and unheeded warning to the living; the fallen
+      leaves rustled; the grass stirred upon the graves; all else was still and
+      sleeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of those dreamless sleepers lay close within the shadow of the church&mdash;touching
+      the wall, as if they clung to it for comfort and protection. Others had
+      chosen to lie beneath the changing shade of trees; others by the path,
+      that footsteps might come near them; others, among the graves of little
+      children. Some had desired to rest beneath the very ground they had
+      trodden in their daily walks; some, where the setting sun might shine upon
+      their beds; some, where its light would fall upon them when it rose.
+      Perhaps not one of the imprisoned souls had been able quite to separate
+      itself in living thought from its old companion. If any had, it had still
+      felt for it a love like that which captives have been known to bear
+      towards the cell in which they have been long confined, and, even at
+      parting, hung upon its narrow bounds affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long before the child closed the window, and approached her bed.
+      Again something of the same sensation as before&mdash;an involuntary chill&mdash;a
+      momentary feeling akin to fear&mdash;but vanishing directly, and leaving
+      no alarm behind. Again, too, dreams of the little scholar; of the roof
+      opening, and a column of bright faces, rising far away into the sky, as
+      she had seen in some old scriptural picture once, and looking down on her,
+      asleep. It was a sweet and happy dream. The quiet spot, outside, seemed to
+      remain the same, saving that there was music in the air, and a sound of
+      angels' wings. After a time the sisters came there, hand in hand, and
+      stood among the graves. And then the dream grew dim, and faded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of yesterday's
+      labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the restoration of its
+      energies, cheerfulness, and hope. They worked gaily in ordering and
+      arranging their houses until noon, and then went to visit the clergyman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a simple-hearted old gentleman, of a shrinking, subdued spirit,
+      accustomed to retirement, and very little acquainted with the world, which
+      he had left many years before to come and settle in that place. His wife
+      had died in the house in which he still lived, and he had long since lost
+      sight of any earthly cares or hopes beyond it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He received them very kindly, and at once showed an interest in Nell;
+      asking her name, and age, her birthplace, the circumstances which had led
+      her there, and so forth. The schoolmaster had already told her story. They
+      had no other friends or home to leave, he said, and had come to share his
+      fortunes. He loved the child as though she were his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, well,' said the clergyman. 'Let it be as you desire. She is very
+      young.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Old in adversity and trial, sir,' replied the schoolmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'God help her. Let her rest, and forget them,' said the old gentleman.
+      'But an old church is a dull and gloomy place for one so young as you, my
+      child.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh no, sir,' returned Nell. 'I have no such thoughts, indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I would rather see her dancing on the green at nights,' said the old
+      gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, and smiling sadly, 'than have
+      her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches. You must look to this,
+      and see that her heart does not grow heavy among these solemn ruins. Your
+      request is granted, friend.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After more kind words, they withdrew, and repaired to the child's house;
+      where they were yet in conversation on their happy fortune, when another
+      friend appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a little old gentleman, who lived in the parsonage-house, and had
+      resided there (so they learnt soon afterwards) ever since the death of the
+      clergyman's wife, which had happened fifteen years before. He had been his
+      college friend and always his close companion; in the first shock of his
+      grief he had come to console and comfort him; and from that time they had
+      never parted company. The little old gentleman was the active spirit of
+      the place, the adjuster of all differences, the promoter of all
+      merry-makings, the dispenser of his friend's bounty, and of no small
+      charity of his own besides; the universal mediator, comforter, and friend.
+      None of the simple villagers had cared to ask his name, or, when they knew
+      it, to store it in their memory. Perhaps from some vague rumour of his
+      college honours which had been whispered abroad on his first arrival,
+      perhaps because he was an unmarried, unencumbered gentleman, he had been
+      called the bachelor. The name pleased him, or suited him as well as any
+      other, and the Bachelor he had ever since remained. And the bachelor it
+      was, it may be added, who with his own hands had laid in the stock of fuel
+      which the wanderers had found in their new habitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bachelor, then&mdash;to call him by his usual appellation&mdash;lifted
+      the latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the door, and
+      stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?' he said, greeting Nell's kind
+      friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you. I should have been
+      in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across the country to
+      carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter in service some miles
+      off, and have but just now returned. This is our young church-keeper? You
+      are not the less welcome, friend, for her sake, or for this old man's; nor
+      the worse teacher for having learnt humanity.' 'She has been ill, sir,
+      very lately,' said the schoolmaster, in answer to the look with which
+      their visitor regarded Nell when he had kissed her cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes. I know she has,' he rejoined. 'There have been suffering and
+      heartache here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed there have, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again at the
+      child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You will be happier here,' he said; 'we will try, at least, to make you
+      so. You have made great improvements here already. Are they the work of
+      your hands?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We may make some others&mdash;not better in themselves, but with better
+      means perhaps,' said the bachelor. 'Let us see now, let us see.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nell accompanied him into the other little rooms, and over both the
+      houses, in which he found various small comforts wanting, which he engaged
+      to supply from a certain collection of odds and ends he had at home, and
+      which must have been a very miscellaneous and extensive one, as it
+      comprehended the most opposite articles imaginable. They all came,
+      however, and came without loss of time; for the little old gentleman,
+      disappearing for some five or ten minutes, presently returned, laden with
+      old shelves, rugs, blankets, and other household gear, and followed by a
+      boy bearing a similar load. These being cast on the floor in a promiscuous
+      heap, yielded a quantity of occupation in arranging, erecting, and putting
+      away; the superintendence of which task evidently afforded the old
+      gentleman extreme delight, and engaged him for some time with great
+      briskness and activity. When nothing more was left to be done, he charged
+      the boy to run off and bring his schoolmates to be marshalled before their
+      new master, and solemnly reviewed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As good a set of fellows, Marton, as you'd wish to see,' he said, turning
+      to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; 'but I don't let 'em know I
+      think so. That wouldn't do, at all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins, great
+      and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house door, fell
+      into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their hats and caps,
+      squeezing them into the smallest possible dimensions, and making all
+      manner of bows and scrapes, which the little old gentleman contemplated
+      with excessive satisfaction, and expressed his approval of by a great many
+      nods and smiles. Indeed, his approbation of the boys was by no means so
+      scrupulously disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch
+      as it broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which
+      were perfectly audible to them every one.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'This first boy, schoolmaster,'
+      said the bachelor, 'is John Owen; a lad of good parts, sir, and frank,
+      honest temper; but too thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far.
+      That boy, my good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his
+      parents of their chief comfort&mdash;and between ourselves, when you come
+      to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the
+      finger-post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry, you'll never
+      forget it. It's beautiful!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of the
+      speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, look at that lad, sir,' said the bachelor. 'You see that fellow?
+      Richard Evans his name is, sir. An amazing boy to learn, blessed with a
+      good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover with a good voice and
+      ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the best among us. Yet, sir, that
+      boy will come to a bad end; he'll never die in his bed; he's always
+      falling asleep in sermon-time&mdash;and to tell you the truth, Mr Marton,
+      I always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain that it was
+      natural to my constitution and I couldn't help it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor
+      turned to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But if we talk of examples to be shunned,' said he, 'if we come to boys
+      that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here's the
+      one, and I hope you won't spare him. This is the lad, sir; this one with
+      the blue eyes and light hair. This is a swimmer, sir, this fellow&mdash;a
+      diver, Lord save us! This is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for plunging into
+      eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man's
+      dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while
+      his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of
+      his guide and friend. I sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir,' added
+      the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, 'directly I heard of it; but never
+      mention it on any account, for he hasn't the least idea that it came from
+      me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and from
+      him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for their
+      wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting emphasis on such
+      of their propensities as were dearest to his heart and were unquestionably
+      referrable to his own precept and example. Thoroughly persuaded, in the
+      end, that he had made them miserable by his severity, he dismissed them
+      with a small present, and an admonition to walk quietly home, without any
+      leapings, scufflings, or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he
+      informed the schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think
+      he could have obeyed when he was a boy, had his life depended on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor's disposition as so many
+      assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the schoolmaster
+      parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits, and deemed himself
+      one of the happiest men on earth. The windows of the two old houses were
+      ruddy again, that night, with the reflection of the cheerful fires that
+      burnt within; and the bachelor and his friend, pausing to look upon them
+      as they returned from their evening walk, spoke softly together of the
+      beautiful child, and looked round upon the churchyard with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap53"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 53
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>ell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her
+      household tasks, and put everything in order for the good schoolmaster
+      (though sorely against his will, for he would have spared her the pains),
+      took down, from its nail by the fireside, a little bundle of keys with
+      which the bachelor had formally invested her on the previous day, and went
+      out alone to visit the old church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the fresh
+      scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense. The
+      neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful sound; the
+      dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by Good Spirits over
+      the dead. Some young children sported among the tombs, and hid from each
+      other, with laughing faces. They had an infant with them, and had laid it
+      down asleep upon a child's grave, in a little bed of leaves. It was a new
+      grave&mdash;the resting-place, perhaps, of some little creature, who, meek
+      and patient in its illness, had often sat and watched them, and now
+      seemed, to their minds, scarcely changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was. The child answered
+      that that was not its name; it was a garden&mdash;his brother's. It was
+      greener, he said, than all the other gardens, and the birds loved it
+      better because he had been used to feed them. When he had done speaking,
+      he looked at her with a smile, and kneeling down and nestling for a moment
+      with his cheek against the turf, bounded merrily away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through the
+      wicket gate, and so into the village. The old sexton, leaning on a crutch,
+      was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her good morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are better?' said the child, stopping to speak with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ay surely,' returned the old man. 'I'm thankful to say, much better.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>You </i>will be quite well soon.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'With Heaven's leave, and a little patience. But come in, come in!' The
+      old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step, which he
+      achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way into his little
+      cottage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is but one room you see. There is another up above, but the stair has
+      got harder to climb o' late years, and I never use it. I'm thinking of
+      taking to it again, next summer, though.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him&mdash;one of his trade
+      too&mdash;could talk of time so easily. He saw her eyes wandering to the
+      tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I warrant now,' he said, 'that you think all those are used in making
+      graves.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And well you might. I am a gardener. I dig the ground, and plant things
+      that are to live and grow. My works don't all moulder away, and rot in the
+      earth. You see that spade in the centre?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The very old one&mdash;so notched and worn? Yes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's the sexton's spade, and it's a well-used one, as you see. We're
+      healthy people here, but it has done a power of work. If it could speak
+      now, that spade, it would tell you of many an unexpected job that it and I
+      have done together; but I forget 'em, for my memory's a poor one.&mdash;That's
+      nothing new,' he added hastily. 'It always was.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,' said the
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes. And tall trees. But they are not so separate from the sexton's
+      labours as you think.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not in my mind, and recollection&mdash;such as it is,' said the old man.
+      'Indeed they often help it. For say that I planted such a tree for such a
+      man. There it stands, to remind me that he died. When I look at its broad
+      shadow, and remember what it was in his time, it helps me to the age of my
+      other work, and I can tell you pretty nearly when I made his grave.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But it may remind you of one who is still alive,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of twenty that are dead, in connexion with that one who lives, then,'
+      rejoined the old man; 'wife, husband, parents, brothers, sisters,
+      children, friends&mdash;a score at least. So it happens that the sexton's
+      spade gets worn and battered. I shall need a new one&mdash;next summer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked quickly towards him, thinking that he jested with his age
+      and infirmity: but the unconscious sexton was quite in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' he said, after a brief silence. 'People never learn. They never
+      learn. It's only we who turn up the ground, where nothing grows and
+      everything decays, who think of such things as these&mdash;who think of
+      them properly, I mean. You have been into the church?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am going there now,' the child replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's an old well there,' said the sexton, 'right underneath the
+      belfry; a deep, dark, echoing well. Forty year ago, you had only to let
+      down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of the windlass,
+      and you heard it splashing in the cold dull water. By little and little
+      the water fell away, so that in ten year after that, a second knot was
+      made, and you must unwind so much rope, or the bucket swung tight and
+      empty at the end. In ten years' time, the water fell again, and a third
+      knot was made. In ten years more, the well dried up; and now, if you lower
+      the bucket till your arms are tired, and let out nearly all the cord,
+      you'll hear it, of a sudden, clanking and rattling on the ground below;
+      with a sound of being so deep and so far down, that your heart leaps into
+      your mouth, and you start away as if you were falling in.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A dreadful place to come on in the dark!' exclaimed the child, who had
+      followed the old man's looks and words until she seemed to stand upon its
+      brink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What is it but a grave!' said the sexton. 'What else! And which of our
+      old folks, knowing all this, thought, as the spring subsided, of their own
+      failing strength, and lessening life? Not one!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you very old yourself?' asked the child, involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I shall be seventy-nine&mdash;next summer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You still work when you are well?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Work! To be sure. You shall see my gardens hereabout. Look at the window
+      there. I made, and have kept, that plot of ground entirely with my own
+      hands. By this time next year I shall hardly see the sky, the boughs will
+      have grown so thick. I have my winter work at night besides.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and produced
+      some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made of old wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to them,'
+      he said, 'like to buy these keepsakes from our church and ruins.
+      Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here and there;
+      sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long preserved. See
+      here&mdash;this is a little chest of the last kind, clasped at the edges
+      with fragments of brass plates that had writing on 'em once, though it
+      would be hard to read it now. I haven't many by me at this time of year,
+      but these shelves will be full&mdash;next summer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards departed;
+      thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old man, drawing from
+      his pursuits, and everything around him, one stern moral, never
+      contemplated its application to himself; and, while he dwelt upon the
+      uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and deed to deem himself
+      immortal. But her musings did not stop here, for she was wise enough to
+      think that by a good and merciful adjustment this must be human nature,
+      and that the old sexton, with his plans for next summer, was but a type of
+      all mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Full of these meditations, she reached the church. It was easy to find the
+      key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on a scrap of
+      yellow parchment. Its very turning in the lock awoke a hollow sound, and
+      when she entered with a faltering step, the echoes that it raised in
+      closing, made her start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly,
+      because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through which
+      she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep impression of
+      finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the very light,
+      coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and the air, redolent
+      of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its
+      grosser particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, and clustered
+      pillars, like the breath of ages gone! Here was the broken pavement, worn,
+      so long ago, by pious feet, that Time, stealing on the pilgrims' steps,
+      had trodden out their track, and left but crumbling stones. Here were the
+      rotten beam, the sinking arch, the sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly
+      trench of earth, the stately tomb on which no epitaph remained&mdash;all&mdash;marble,
+      stone, iron, wood, and dust&mdash;one common monument of ruin. The best
+      work and the worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the
+      least imposing&mdash;both of Heaven's work and Man's&mdash;all found one
+      common level here, and told one common tale.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0384m.jpg" alt="0384m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0384.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were
+      effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded hands&mdash;cross-legged,
+      those who had fought in the Holy Wars&mdash;girded with their swords, and
+      cased in armour as they had lived. Some of these knights had their own
+      weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and
+      dangling from rusty hooks. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet
+      retained their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect. Thus
+      violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and
+      bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the
+      desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child sat down, in this old, silent place, among the stark figures on
+      the tombs&mdash;they made it more quiet there, than elsewhere, to her
+      fancy&mdash;and gazing round with a feeling of awe, tempered with a calm
+      delight, felt that now she was happy, and at rest. She took a Bible from
+      the shelf, and read; then, laying it down, thought of the summer days and
+      the bright springtime that would come&mdash;of the rays of sun that would
+      fall in aslant, upon the sleeping forms&mdash;of the leaves that would
+      flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the pavement&mdash;of
+      the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors&mdash;of
+      the sweet air, that would steal in, and gently wave the tattered banners
+      overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of death! Die who would, it
+      would still remain the same; these sights and sounds would still go on, as
+      happily as ever. It would be no pain to sleep amidst them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She left the chapel&mdash;very slowly and often turning back to gaze again&mdash;and
+      coming to a low door, which plainly led into the tower, opened it, and
+      climbed the winding stair in darkness; save where she looked down, through
+      narrow loopholes, on the place she had left, or caught a glimmering vision
+      of the dusty bells. At length she gained the end of the ascent and stood
+      upon the turret top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields
+      and woods, stretching away on every side, and meeting the bright blue sky;
+      the cattle grazing in the pasturage; the smoke, that, coming from among
+      the trees, seemed to rise upward from the green earth; the children yet at
+      their gambols down below&mdash;all, everything, so beautiful and happy! It
+      was like passing from death to life; it was drawing nearer Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The children were gone, when she emerged into the porch, and locked the
+      door. As she passed the school-house she could hear the busy hum of
+      voices. Her friend had begun his labours only on that day. The noise grew
+      louder, and, looking back, she saw the boys come trooping out and disperse
+      themselves with merry shouts and play. 'It's a good thing,' thought the
+      child, 'I am very glad they pass the church.' And then she stopped, to
+      fancy how the noise would sound inside, and how gently it would seem to
+      die away upon the ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again that day, yes, twice again, she stole back to the old chapel, and in
+      her former seat read from the same book, or indulged the same quiet train
+      of thought. Even when it had grown dusk, and the shadows of coming night
+      made it more solemn still, the child remained, like one rooted to the
+      spot, and had no fear or thought of stirring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They found her there, at last, and took her home. She looked pale but very
+      happy, until they separated for the night; and then, as the poor
+      schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he felt a tear
+      upon his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap54"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 54
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he bachelor, among his various occupations, found in the old church a
+      constant source of interest and amusement. Taking that pride in it which
+      men conceive for the wonders of their own little world, he had made its
+      history his study; and many a summer day within its walls, and many a
+      winter's night beside the parsonage fire, had found the bachelor still
+      poring over, and adding to, his goodly store of tale and legend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was not one of those rough spirits who would strip fair Truth of
+      every little shadowy vestment in which time and teeming fancies love to
+      array her&mdash;and some of which become her pleasantly enough, serving,
+      like the waters of her well, to add new graces to the charms they half
+      conceal and half suggest, and to awaken interest and pursuit rather than
+      languor and indifference&mdash;as, unlike this stern and obdurate class,
+      he loved to see the goddess crowned with those garlands of wild flowers
+      which tradition wreathes for her gentle wearing, and which are often
+      freshest in their homeliest shapes&mdash;he trod with a light step and
+      bore with a light hand upon the dust of centuries, unwilling to demolish
+      any of the airy shrines that had been raised above it, if any good feeling
+      or affection of the human heart were hiding thereabouts. Thus, in the case
+      of an ancient coffin of rough stone, supposed, for many generations, to
+      contain the bones of a certain baron, who, after ravaging, with cut, and
+      thrust, and plunder, in foreign lands, came back with a penitent and
+      sorrowing heart to die at home, but which had been lately shown by learned
+      antiquaries to be no such thing, as the baron in question (so they
+      contended) had died hard in battle, gnashing his teeth and cursing with
+      his latest breath&mdash;the bachelor stoutly maintained that the old tale
+      was the true one; that the baron, repenting him of the evil, had done
+      great charities and meekly given up the ghost; and that, if ever baron
+      went to heaven, that baron was then at peace. In like manner, when the
+      aforesaid antiquaries did argue and contend that a certain secret vault
+      was not the tomb of a grey-haired lady who had been hanged and drawn and
+      quartered by glorious Queen Bess for succouring a wretched priest who
+      fainted of thirst and hunger at her door, the bachelor did solemnly
+      maintain, against all comers, that the church was hallowed by the said
+      poor lady's ashes; that her remains had been collected in the night from
+      four of the city's gates, and thither in secret brought, and there
+      deposited; and the bachelor did further (being highly excited at such
+      times) deny the glory of Queen Bess, and assert the immeasurably greater
+      glory of the meanest woman in her realm, who had a merciful and tender
+      heart. As to the assertion that the flat stone near the door was not the
+      grave of the miser who had disowned his only child and left a sum of money
+      to the church to buy a peal of bells, the bachelor did readily admit the
+      same, and that the place had given birth to no such man. In a word, he
+      would have had every stone, and plate of brass, the monument only of deeds
+      whose memory should survive. All others he was willing to forget. They
+      might be buried in consecrated ground, but he would have had them buried
+      deep, and never brought to light again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was from the lips of such a tutor, that the child learnt her easy task.
+      Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent building and the
+      peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood&mdash;majestic age
+      surrounded by perpetual youth&mdash;it seemed to her, when she heard these
+      things, sacred to all goodness and virtue. It was another world, where sin
+      and sorrow never came; a tranquil place of rest, where nothing evil
+      entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every tomb and
+      flat grave-stone some history of its own, he took her down into the old
+      crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it had been lighted up in
+      the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps depending from the roof, and
+      swinging censers exhaling scented odours, and habits glittering with gold
+      and silver, and pictures, and precious stuffs, and jewels all flashing and
+      glistening through the low arches, the chaunt of aged voices had been many
+      a time heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt
+      and prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads. Thence, he took her
+      above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old walls, small
+      galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along&mdash;dimly seen in
+      their dark dresses so far off&mdash;or to pause like gloomy shadows,
+      listening to the prayers. He showed her too, how the warriors, whose
+      figures rested on the tombs, had worn those rotting scraps of armour up
+      above&mdash;how this had been a helmet, and that a shield, and that a
+      gauntlet&mdash;and how they had wielded the great two-handed swords, and
+      beaten men down, with yonder iron mace. All that he told the child she
+      treasured in her mind; and sometimes, when she awoke at night from dreams
+      of those old times, and rising from her bed looked out at the dark church,
+      she almost hoped to see the windows lighted up, and hear the organ's
+      swell, and sound of voices, on the rushing wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old sexton soon got better, and was about again. From him the child
+      learnt many other things, though of a different kind. He was not able to
+      work, but one day there was a grave to be made, and he came to overlook
+      the man who dug it. He was in a talkative mood; and the child, at first
+      standing by his side, and afterwards sitting on the grass at his feet,
+      with her thoughtful face raised towards his, began to converse with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the man who did the sexton's duty was a little older than he, though
+      much more active. But he was deaf; and when the sexton (who peradventure,
+      on a pinch, might have walked a mile with great difficulty in half-a-dozen
+      hours) exchanged a remark with him about his work, the child could not
+      help noticing that he did so with an impatient kind of pity for his
+      infirmity, as if he were himself the strongest and heartiest man alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm sorry to see there is this to do,' said the child when she
+      approached. 'I heard of no one having died.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She lived in another hamlet, my dear,' returned the sexton. 'Three mile
+      away.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Was she young?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ye-yes' said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think. David, was
+      she more than sixty-four?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question. The sexton, as
+      he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was too infirm to
+      rise without assistance, called his attention by throwing a little mould
+      upon his red nightcap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's the matter now?' said David, looking up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How old was Becky Morgan?' asked the sexton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Becky Morgan?' repeated David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half irritable
+      tone, which the old man couldn't hear, 'you're getting very deaf, Davy,
+      very deaf to be sure!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a piece of
+      slate he had by him for the purpose&mdash;and scraping off, in the
+      process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans&mdash;set
+      himself to consider the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let me think' quoth he. 'I saw last night what they had put upon the
+      coffin&mdash;was it seventy-nine?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no,' said the sexton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah yes, it was though,' returned the old man with a sigh. 'For I remember
+      thinking she was very near our age. Yes, it was seventy-nine.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you sure you didn't mistake a figure, Davy?' asked the sexton, with
+      signs of some emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What?' said the old man. 'Say that again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's very deaf. He's very deaf indeed,' cried the sexton petulantly; 'are
+      you sure you're right about the figures?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh quite,' replied the old man. 'Why not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's exceedingly deaf,' muttered the sexton to himself. 'I think he's
+      getting foolish.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child rather wondered what had led him to this belief, as, to say the
+      truth, the old man seemed quite as sharp as he, and was infinitely more
+      robust. As the sexton said nothing more just then, however, she forgot it
+      for the time, and spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You were telling me,' she said, 'about your gardening. Do you ever plant
+      things here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In the churchyard?' returned the sexton, 'Not I.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,' the child rejoined;
+      'there are some over there, you see. I thought they were of your rearing,
+      though indeed they grow but poorly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They grow as Heaven wills,' said the old man; 'and it kindly ordains that
+      they shall never flourish here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I do not understand you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, this it is,' said the sexton. 'They mark the graves of those who had
+      very tender, loving friends.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I was sure they did!' the child exclaimed. 'I am very glad to know they
+      do!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye,' returned the old man, 'but stay. Look at them. See how they hang
+      their heads, and droop, and wither. Do you guess the reason?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' the child replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Because the memory of those who lie below, passes away so soon. At first
+      they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come less
+      frequently; from once a day, to once a week; from once a week to once a
+      month; then, at long and uncertain intervals; then, not at all. Such
+      tokens seldom flourish long. I have known the briefest summer flowers
+      outlive them.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I grieve to hear it,' said the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,'
+      returned the old man, shaking his head, 'but I say otherwise. "It's a
+      pretty custom you have in this part of the country," they say to me
+      sometimes, "to plant the graves, but it's melancholy to see these things
+      all withering or dead." I crave their pardon and tell them that, as I take
+      it, 'tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And so it is. It's
+      nature.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the
+      stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves,'
+      said the child in an earnest voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Perhaps so,' replied the old man doubtfully. 'It may be.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,' thought the child within
+      herself, 'I'll make this place my garden. It will be no harm at least to
+      work here day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of it, I am sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton, who
+      turned towards old David, and called him by his name. It was plain that
+      Becky Morgan's age still troubled him; though why, the child could
+      scarcely understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man's
+      attention. Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put his hand
+      to his dull ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did you call?' he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have been thinking, Davy,' replied the sexton, 'that she,' he pointed
+      to the grave, 'must have been a deal older than you or me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Seventy-nine,' answered the old man with a shake of the head, 'I tell you
+      that I saw it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Saw it?' replied the sexton; 'aye, but, Davy, women don't always tell the
+      truth about their age.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's true indeed,' said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle in his
+      eye. 'She might have been older.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm sure she must have been. Why, only think how old she looked. You and
+      I seemed but boys to her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She did look old,' rejoined David. 'You're right. She did look old.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and say if
+      she could be but seventy-nine at last&mdash;only our age,' said the
+      sexton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Five year older at the very least!' cried the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Five!' retorted the sexton. 'Ten. Good eighty-nine. I call to mind the
+      time her daughter died. She was eighty-nine if she was a day, and tries to
+      pass upon us now, for ten year younger. Oh! human vanity!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other old man was not behindhand with some moral reflections on this
+      fruitful theme, and both adduced a mass of evidence, of such weight as to
+      render it doubtful&mdash;not whether the deceased was of the age
+      suggested, but whether she had not almost reached the patriarchal term of
+      a hundred. When they had settled this question to their mutual
+      satisfaction, the sexton, with his friend's assistance, rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's chilly, sitting here, and I must be careful&mdash;till the summer,'
+      he said, as he prepared to limp away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What?' asked old David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's very deaf, poor fellow!' cried the sexton. 'Good-bye!'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Ah!' said
+      old David, looking after him. 'He's failing very fast. He ages every day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so they parted; each persuaded that the other had less life in him
+      than himself; and both greatly consoled and comforted by the little
+      fiction they had agreed upon, respecting Becky Morgan, whose decease was
+      no longer a precedent of uncomfortable application, and would be no
+      business of theirs for half a score of years to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child remained, for some minutes, watching the deaf old man as he
+      threw out the earth with his shovel, and, often stopping to cough and
+      fetch his breath, still muttered to himself, with a kind of sober chuckle,
+      that the sexton was wearing fast. At length she turned away, and walking
+      thoughtfully through the churchyard, came unexpectedly upon the
+      schoolmaster, who was sitting on a green grave in the sun, reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nell here?' he said cheerfully, as he closed his book. 'It does me good
+      to see you in the air and light. I feared you were again in the church,
+      where you so often are.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Feared!' replied the child, sitting down beside him. 'Is it not a good
+      place?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster. 'But you must be gay sometimes&mdash;nay,
+      don't shake your head and smile so sadly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not sadly, if you knew my heart. Do not look at me as if you thought me
+      sorrowful. There is not a happier creature on earth, than I am now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Full of grateful tenderness, the child took his hand, and folded it
+      between her own. 'It's God's will!' she said, when they had been silent
+      for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'All this,' she rejoined; 'all this about us. But which of us is sad now?
+      You see that I am smiling.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And so am I,' said the schoolmaster; 'smiling to think how often we shall
+      laugh in this same place. Were you not talking yonder?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,'the child rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of something that has made you sorrowful?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What was it?' said the schoolmaster, tenderly. 'Come. Tell me what it
+      was.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I rather grieve&mdash;I <i>do</i> rather grieve to think,' said the child,
+      bursting into tears, 'that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And do you think,' said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had
+      thrown around, 'that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower
+      or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there
+      are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may be best
+      remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world, at this
+      instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves&mdash;neglected
+      as they look to us&mdash;are the chief instruments.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tell me no more,' said the child quickly. 'Tell me no more. I feel, I
+      know it. How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There is nothing,' cried her friend, 'no, nothing innocent or good, that
+      dies, and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a
+      prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better
+      thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through them, in
+      the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or
+      drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the Host of
+      Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here.
+      Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to
+      their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity,
+      mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty
+      graves!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said the child, 'it is the truth; I know it is. Who should feel its
+      force so much as I, in whom your little scholar lives again! Dear, dear,
+      good friend, if you knew the comfort you have given me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor schoolmaster made her no answer, but bent over her in silence;
+      for his heart was full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were yet seated in the same place, when the grandfather approached.
+      Before they had spoken many words together, the church clock struck the
+      hour of school, and their friend withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A good man,' said the grandfather, looking after him; 'a kind man. Surely
+      he will never harm us, Nell. We are safe here, at last, eh? We will never
+      go away from here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child shook her head and smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She needs rest,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'too pale&mdash;too
+      pale. She is not like what she was.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When?' asked the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha!' said the old man, 'to be sure&mdash;when? How many weeks ago? Could
+      I count them on my fingers? Let them rest though; they're better gone.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+      'Much better, dear,' replied the child. 'We will forget them; or, if we
+      ever call them to mind, it shall be only as some uneasy dream that has
+      passed away.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hush!' said the old man, motioning hastily to her with his hand and
+      looking over his shoulder; 'no more talk of the dream, and all the
+      miseries it brought. There are no dreams here. 'Tis a quiet place, and
+      they keep away. Let us never think about them, lest they should pursue us
+      again. Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks&mdash;wet, cold, and famine&mdash;and
+      horrors before them all, that were even worse&mdash;we must forget such
+      things if we would be tranquil here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank Heaven!' inwardly exclaimed the child, 'for this most happy
+      change!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I will be patient,' said the old man, 'humble, very thankful, and
+      obedient, if you will let me stay. But do not hide from me; do not steal
+      away alone; let me keep beside you. Indeed, I will be very true and
+      faithful, Nell.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I steal away alone! why that,' replied the child, with assumed gaiety,
+      'would be a pleasant jest indeed. See here, dear grandfather, we'll make
+      this place our garden&mdash;why not! It is a very good one&mdash;and
+      to-morrow we'll begin, and work together, side by side.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is a brave thought!' cried her grandfather. 'Mind, darling&mdash;we
+      begin to-morrow!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who so delighted as the old man, when they next day began their labour!
+      Who so unconscious of all associations connected with the spot, as he!
+      They plucked the long grass and nettles from the tombs, thinned the poor
+      shrubs and roots, made the turf smooth, and cleared it of the leaves and
+      weeds. They were yet in the ardour of their work, when the child, raising
+      her head from the ground over which she bent, observed that the bachelor
+      was sitting on the stile close by, watching them in silence.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0394m.jpg" alt="0394m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0394.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'A kind office,' said the little gentleman, nodding to Nell as she
+      curtseyed to him. 'Have you done all that, this morning?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is very little, sir,' returned the child, with downcast eyes, 'to what
+      we mean to do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good work, good work,' said the bachelor. 'But do you only labour at the
+      graves of children, and young people?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We shall come to the others in good time, sir,' replied Nell, turning her
+      head aside, and speaking softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a slight incident, and might have been design or accident, or the
+      child's unconscious sympathy with youth. But it seemed to strike upon her
+      grandfather, though he had not noticed it before. He looked in a hurried
+      manner at the graves, then anxiously at the child, then pressed her to his
+      side, and bade her stop to rest. Something he had long forgotten, appeared
+      to struggle faintly in his mind. It did not pass away, as weightier things
+      had done; but came uppermost again, and yet again, and many times that
+      day, and often afterwards. Once, while they were yet at work, the child,
+      seeing that he often turned and looked uneasily at her, as though he were
+      trying to resolve some painful doubts or collect some scattered thoughts,
+      urged him to tell the reason. But he said it was nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;and,
+      laying her head upon his arm, patted her fair cheek with his hand, and
+      muttered that she grew stronger every day, and would be a woman, soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap55"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 55
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>rom that time, there sprung up in the old man's mind, a solicitude about
+      the child which never slept or left him. There are chords in the human
+      heart&mdash;strange, varying strings&mdash;which are only struck by
+      accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most
+      passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch.
+      In the most insensible or childish minds, there is some train of
+      reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which will
+      reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the
+      discoverer has the plainest end in view. From that time, the old man
+      never, for a moment, forgot the weakness and devotion of the child; from
+      the time of that slight incident, he who had seen her toiling by his side
+      through so much difficulty and suffering, and had scarcely thought of her
+      otherwise than as the partner of miseries which he felt severely in his
+      own person, and deplored for his own sake at least as much as hers, awoke
+      to a sense of what he owed her, and what those miseries had made her.
+      Never, no, never once, in one unguarded moment from that time to the end,
+      did any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort, any selfish
+      consideration or regard distract his thoughts from the gentle object of
+      his love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire and lean
+      upon his arm&mdash;he would sit opposite to her in the chimney-corner,
+      content to watch, and look, until she raised her head and smiled upon him
+      as of old&mdash;he would discharge by stealth, those household duties
+      which tasked her powers too heavily&mdash;he would rise, in the cold dark
+      nights, to listen to her breathing in her sleep, and sometimes crouch for
+      hours by her bedside only to touch her hand. He who knows all, can only
+      know what hopes, and fears, and thoughts of deep affection, were in that
+      one disordered brain, and what a change had fallen on the poor old man.
+      Sometimes&mdash;weeks had crept on, then&mdash;the child, exhausted,
+      though with little fatigue, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside
+      the fire. At such times, the schoolmaster would bring in books, and read
+      to her aloud; and seldom an evening passed, but the bachelor came in, and
+      took his turn of reading. The old man sat and listened&mdash;with little
+      understanding for the words, but with his eyes fixed upon the child&mdash;and
+      if she smiled or brightened with the story, he would say it was a good
+      one, and conceive a fondness for the very book. When, in their evening
+      talk, the bachelor told some tale that pleased her (as his tales were sure
+      to do), the old man would painfully try to store it in his mind; nay, when
+      the bachelor left them, he would sometimes slip out after him, and humbly
+      beg that he would tell him such a part again, that he might learn to win a
+      smile from Nell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these were rare occasions, happily; for the child yearned to be out of
+      doors, and walking in her solemn garden. Parties, too, would come to see
+      the church; and those who came, speaking to others of the child, sent
+      more; so even at that season of the year they had visitors almost daily.
+      The old man would follow them at a little distance through the building,
+      listening to the voice he loved so well; and when the strangers left, and
+      parted from Nell, he would mingle with them to catch up fragments of their
+      conversation; or he would stand for the same purpose, with his grey head
+      uncovered, at the gate as they passed through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They always praised the child, her sense and beauty, and he was proud to
+      hear them! But what was that, so often added, which wrung his heart, and
+      made him sob and weep alone, in some dull corner! Alas! even careless
+      strangers&mdash;they who had no feeling for her, but the interest of the
+      moment&mdash;they who would go away and forget next week that such a being
+      lived&mdash;even they saw it&mdash;even they pitied her&mdash;even they
+      bade him good day compassionately, and whispered as they passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people of the village, too, of whom there was not one but grew to have
+      a fondness for poor Nell; even among them, there was the same feeling; a
+      tenderness towards her&mdash;a compassionate regard for her, increasing
+      every day. The very schoolboys, light-hearted and thoughtless as they
+      were, even they cared for her. The roughest among them was sorry if he
+      missed her in the usual place upon his way to school, and would turn out
+      of the path to ask for her at the latticed window. If she were sitting in
+      the church, they perhaps might peep in softly at the open door; but they
+      never spoke to her, unless she rose and went to speak to them. Some
+      feeling was abroad which raised the child above them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, when Sunday came. They were all poor country people in the church, for
+      the castle in which the old family had lived, was an empty ruin, and there
+      were none but humble folks for seven miles around. There, as elsewhere,
+      they had an interest in Nell. They would gather round her in the porch,
+      before and after service; young children would cluster at her skirts; and
+      aged men and women forsake their gossips, to give her kindly greeting.
+      None of them, young or old, thought of passing the child without a
+      friendly word. Many who came from three or four miles distant, brought her
+      little presents; the humblest and rudest had good wishes to bestow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had sought out the young children whom she first saw playing in the
+      churchyard. One of these&mdash;he who had spoken of his brother&mdash;was
+      her little favourite and friend, and often sat by her side in the church,
+      or climbed with her to the tower-top. It was his delight to help her, or
+      to fancy that he did so, and they soon became close companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened, that, as she was reading in the old spot by herself one day,
+      this child came running in with his eyes full of tears, and after holding
+      her from him, and looking at her eagerly for a moment, clasped his little
+      arms passionately about her neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What now?' said Nell, soothing him. 'What is the matter?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is not one yet!' cried the boy, embracing her still more closely.
+      'No, no. Not yet.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him wonderingly, and putting his hair back from his face,
+      and kissing him, asked what he meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You must not be one, dear Nell,' cried the boy. 'We can't see them. They
+      never come to play with us, or talk to us. Be what you are. You are better
+      so.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I do not understand you,' said the child. 'Tell me what you mean.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, they say,' replied the boy, looking up into her face, that you will
+      be an Angel, before the birds sing again. But you won't be, will you?
+      Don't leave us Nell, though the sky is bright. Do not leave us!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child dropped her head, and put her hands before her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She cannot bear the thought!' cried the boy, exulting through his tears.
+      'You will not go. You know how sorry we should be. Dear Nell, tell me that
+      you'll stay amongst us. Oh! Pray, pray, tell me that you will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little creature folded his hands, and knelt down at her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only look at me, Nell,' said the boy, 'and tell me that you'll stop, and
+      then I shall know that they are wrong, and will cry no more. Won't you say
+      yes, Nell?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still the drooping head and hidden face, and the child quite silent&mdash;save
+      for her sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'After a time,' pursued the boy, trying to draw away her hand, 'the kind
+      angels will be glad to think that you are not among them, and that you
+      stayed here to be with us. Willy went away, to join them; but if he had
+      known how I should miss him in our little bed at night, he never would
+      have left me, I am sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet the child could make him no answer, and sobbed as though her heart
+      were bursting. 'Why would you go, dear Nell? I know you would not be happy
+      when you heard that we were crying for your loss. They say that Willy is
+      in Heaven now, and that it's always summer there, and yet I'm sure he
+      grieves when I lie down upon his garden bed, and he cannot turn to kiss
+      me. But if you do go, Nell,' said the boy, caressing her, and pressing his
+      face to hers, 'be fond of him for my sake. Tell him how I love him still,
+      and how much I loved you; and when I think that you two are together, and
+      are happy, I'll try to bear it, and never give you pain by doing wrong&mdash;indeed
+      I never will!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child suffered him to move her hands, and put them round his neck.
+      There was a tearful silence, but it was not long before she looked upon
+      him with a smile, and promised him, in a very gentle, quiet voice, that
+      she would stay, and be his friend, as long as Heaven would let her. He
+      clapped his hands for joy, and thanked her many times; and being charged
+      to tell no person what had passed between them, gave her an earnest
+      promise that he never would.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0399m.jpg" alt="0399m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0399.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Nor did he, so far as the child could learn; but was her quiet companion
+      in all her walks and musings, and never again adverted to the theme, which
+      he felt had given her pain, although he was unconscious of its cause.
+      Something of distrust lingered about him still; for he would often come,
+      even in the dark evenings, and call in a timid voice outside the door to
+      know if she were safe within; and being answered yes, and bade to enter,
+      would take his station on a low stool at her feet, and sit there patiently
+      until they came to seek, and take him home. Sure as the morning came, it
+      found him lingering near the house to ask if she were well; and, morning,
+      noon, or night, go where she would, he would forsake his playmates and his
+      sports to bear her company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And a good little friend he is, too,' said the old sexton to her once.
+      'When his elder brother died&mdash;elder seems a strange word, for he was
+      only seven years old&mdash;I remember this one took it sorely to heart.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child thought of what the schoolmaster had told her, and felt how its
+      truth was shadowed out even in this infant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It has given him something of a quiet way, I think,' said the old man,
+      'though for that he is merry enough at times. I'd wager now that you and
+      he have been listening by the old well.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed we have not,' the child replied. 'I have been afraid to go near
+      it; for I am not often down in that part of the church, and do not know
+      the ground.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come down with me,' said the old man. 'I have known it from a boy. Come!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They descended the narrow steps which led into the crypt, and paused among
+      the gloomy arches, in a dim and murky spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is the place,' said the old man. 'Give me your hand while you throw
+      back the cover, lest you should stumble and fall in. I am too old&mdash;I
+      mean rheumatic&mdash;to stoop, myself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A black and dreadful place!' exclaimed the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Look in,' said the old man, pointing downward with his finger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child complied, and gazed down into the pit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It looks like a grave itself,' said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It does,' replied the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have often had the fancy,' said the sexton, 'that it might have been
+      dug at first to make the old place more gloomy, and the old monks more
+      religious. It's to be closed up, and built over.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child still stood, looking thoughtfully into the vault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We shall see,' said the sexton, 'on what gay heads other earth will have
+      closed, when the light is shut out from here. God knows! They'll close it
+      up, next spring.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The birds sing again in spring,' thought the child, as she leaned at her
+      casement window, and gazed at the declining sun. 'Spring! a beautiful and
+      happy time!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap56"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 56
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr Swiveller
+      walked into Sampson Brass's office at the usual hour, and being alone in
+      that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking from his
+      pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to folding and
+      pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband. Having completed
+      the construction of this appendage, he surveyed his work with great
+      complacency, and put his hat on again&mdash;very much over one eye, to
+      increase the mournfulness of the effect. These arrangements perfected to
+      his entire satisfaction, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked
+      up and down the office with measured steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It has always been the same with me,' said Mr Swiveller, 'always. 'Twas
+      ever thus&mdash;from childhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes decay, I
+      never loved a tree or flower but 'twas the first to fade away; I never
+      nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but when it
+      came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a
+      market-gardener.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Overpowered by these reflections, Mr Swiveller stopped short at the
+      clients' chair, and flung himself into its open arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And this,' said Mr Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure, 'is
+      life, I believe. Oh, certainly. Why not! I'm quite satisfied. I shall
+      wear,' added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard at it, as
+      if he were only deterred by pecuniary considerations from spurning it with
+      his foot, 'I shall wear this emblem of woman's perfidy, in remembrance of
+      her with whom I shall never again thread the windings of the mazy; whom I
+      shall never more pledge in the rosy; who, during the short remainder of my
+      existence, will murder the balmy. Ha, ha, ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any incongruity
+      in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr Swiveller did not wind up with a
+      cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been undoubtedly at variance
+      with his solemn reflections, but that, being in a theatrical mood, he
+      merely achieved that performance which is designated in melodramas
+      'laughing like a fiend,'&mdash;for it seems that your fiends always laugh
+      in syllables, and always in three syllables, never more nor less, which is
+      a remarkable property in such gentry, and one worthy of remembrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr Swiveller was still
+      sitting in a very grim state in the clients' chair, when there came a ring&mdash;or,
+      if we may adapt the sound to his then humour, a knell&mdash;at the office
+      bell. Opening the door with all speed, he beheld the expressive
+      countenance of Mr Chuckster, between whom and himself a fraternal greeting
+      ensued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter-house,' said that
+      gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the other in an easy
+      manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Rather,' returned Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Rather!' retorted Mr Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling which
+      so well became him. 'I should think so. Why, my good feller, do you know
+      what o'clock it is&mdash;half-past nine a.m. in the morning?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Won't you come in?' said Dick. 'All alone. Swiveller solus. "'Tis now the
+      witching&mdash;"'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '"Hour of night!"'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '"When churchyards yawn,"'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '"And graves give up their dead."'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an
+      attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the office.
+      Such morsels of enthusiasm are common among the Glorious Apollos, and were
+      indeed the links that bound them together, and raised them above the cold
+      dull earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, and how are you my buck?' said Mr Chuckster, taking a stool. 'I was
+      forced to come into the City upon some little private matters of my own,
+      and couldn't pass the corner of the street without looking in, but upon my
+      soul I didn't expect to find you. It is so everlastingly early.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments; and it appearing on further
+      conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr Chuckster was in the
+      like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in compliance with a solemn
+      custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which they belonged, joined in a
+      fragment of the popular duet of 'All's Well,' with a long shake at the
+      end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And what's the news?' said Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The town's as flat, my dear feller,' replied Mr Chuckster, 'as the
+      surface of a Dutch oven. There's no news. By-the-bye, that lodger of yours
+      is a most extraordinary person. He quite eludes the most vigorous
+      comprehension, you know. Never was such a feller!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What has he been doing now?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'By Jove, Sir,' returned Mr Chuckster, taking out an oblong snuff-box, the
+      lid whereof was ornamented with a fox's head curiously carved in brass,
+      'that man is an unfathomable. Sir, that man has made friends with our
+      articled clerk. There's no harm in him, but he is so amazingly slow and
+      soft. Now, if he wanted a friend, why couldn't he have one that knew a
+      thing or two, and could do him some good by his manners and conversation.
+      I have my faults, sir,' said Mr Chuckster&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no,' interposed Mr Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better than I
+      know mine. But,' said Mr Chuckster, 'I'm not meek. My worst enemies&mdash;every
+      man has his enemies, Sir, and I have mine&mdash;never accused me of being
+      meek. And I tell you what, Sir, if I hadn't more of these qualities that
+      commonly endear man to man, than our articled clerk has, I'd steal a
+      Cheshire cheese, tie it round my neck, and drown myself. I'd die degraded,
+      as I had lived. I would upon my honour.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Chuckster paused, rapped the fox's head exactly on the nose with the
+      knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at
+      Mr Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he was going to sneeze,
+      he would find himself mistaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not contented, Sir,' said Mr Chuckster, 'with making friends with Abel,
+      he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother. Since he came
+      home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there&mdash; actually been
+      there. He patronises young Snobby besides; you'll find, Sir, that he'll be
+      constantly coming backwards and forwards to this place: yet I don't
+      suppose that beyond the common forms of civility, he has ever exchanged
+      half-a-dozen words with me. Now, upon my soul, you know,' said Mr
+      Chuckster, shaking his head gravely, as men are wont to do when they
+      consider things are going a little too far, 'this is altogether such a
+      low-minded affair, that if I didn't feel for the governor, and know that
+      he could never get on without me, I should be obliged to cut the
+      connection. I should have no alternative.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend, stirred the
+      fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As to young Snob, sir,' pursued Mr Chuckster with a prophetic look,
+      'you'll find he'll turn out bad. In our profession we know something of
+      human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller that came back to
+      work out that shilling, will show himself one of these days in his true
+      colours. He's a low thief, sir. He must be.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject
+      further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door, which
+      seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business, caused him to
+      assume a greater appearance of meekness than was perhaps quite consistent
+      with his late declaration. Mr Swiveller, hearing the same sound, caused
+      his stool to revolve rapidly on one leg until it brought him to his desk,
+      into which, having forgotten in the sudden flurry of his spirits to part
+      with the poker, he thrust it as he cried 'Come in!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme of Mr
+      Chuckster's wrath! Never did man pluck up his courage so quickly, or look
+      so fierce, as Mr Chuckster when he found it was he. Mr Swiveller stared at
+      him for a moment, and then leaping from his stool, and drawing out the
+      poker from its place of concealment, performed the broad-sword exercise
+      with all the cuts and guards complete, in a species of frenzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is the gentleman at home?' said Kit, rather astonished by this uncommon
+      reception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took occasion to
+      enter his indignant protest against this form of inquiry; which he held to
+      be of a disrespectful and snobbish tendency, inasmuch as the inquirer,
+      seeing two gentlemen then and there present, should have spoken of the
+      other gentleman; or rather (for it was not impossible that the object of
+      his search might be of inferior quality) should have mentioned his name,
+      leaving it to his hearers to determine his degree as they thought proper.
+      Mr Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had some reason to believe this
+      form of address was personal to himself, and that he was not a man to be
+      trifled with&mdash;as certain snobs (whom he did not more particularly
+      mention or describe) might find to their cost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I mean the gentleman up-stairs,' said Kit, turning to Richard Swiveller.
+      'Is he at home?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why?' rejoined Dick.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0404m.jpg" alt="0404m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0404.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Because if he is, I have a letter for him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'From whom?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'From Mr Garland.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Dick, with extreme politeness. 'Then you may hand it over, Sir.
+      And if you're to wait for an answer, Sir, you may wait in the passage,
+      Sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated apartment, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you,' returned Kit. 'But I am to give it to himself, if you
+      please.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr Chuckster, and so
+      moved his tender regard for his friend's honour, that he declared, if he
+      were not restrained by official considerations, he must certainly have
+      annihilated Kit upon the spot; a resentment of the affront which he did
+      consider, under the extraordinary circumstances of aggravation attending
+      it, could but have met with the proper sanction and approval of a jury of
+      Englishmen, who, he had no doubt, would have returned a verdict of
+      justifiable Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the morals and
+      character of the Avenger. Mr Swiveller, without being quite so hot upon
+      the matter, was rather shamed by his friend's excitement, and not a little
+      puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and good-humoured), when the
+      single gentleman was heard to call violently down the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Didn't I see somebody for me, come in?' cried the lodger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Sir,' replied Dick. 'Certainly, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then where is he?' roared the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's here, sir,' rejoined Mr Swiveller. 'Now young man, don't you hear
+      you're to go up-stairs? Are you deaf?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any
+      altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing at each
+      other in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Didn't I tell you so?' said Mr Chuckster. 'What do you think of that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not perceiving
+      in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude, scarcely knew
+      what answer to return. He was relieved from his perplexity, however, by
+      the entrance of Mr Sampson and his sister, Sally, at sight of whom Mr
+      Chuckster precipitately retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a
+      consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of great
+      interest and importance. On the occasion of such conferences, they
+      generally appeared in the office some half an hour after their usual time,
+      and in a very smiling state, as though their late plots and designs had
+      tranquillised their minds and shed a light upon their toilsome way. In the
+      present instance, they seemed particularly gay; Miss Sally's aspect being
+      of a most oily kind, and Mr Brass rubbing his hands in an exceedingly
+      jocose and light-hearted manner.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Well, Mr Richard,' said Brass. 'How are
+      we this morning? Are we pretty fresh and cheerful sir&mdash;eh, Mr
+      Richard?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Pretty well, sir,' replied Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's well,' said Brass. 'Ha ha! We should be as gay as larks, Mr
+      Richard&mdash;why not? It's a pleasant world we live in sir, a very
+      pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr Richard, but if there were
+      no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. Ha ha! Any letters by the
+      post this morning, Mr Richard?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller answered in the negative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha!' said Brass, 'no matter. If there's little business to-day, there'll
+      be more to-morrow. A contented spirit, Mr Richard, is the sweetness of
+      existence. Anybody been here, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only my friend'&mdash;replied Dick. 'May we ne'er want a&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Friend,' Brass chimed in quickly, 'or a bottle to give him. Ha ha!
+      That's the way the song runs, isn't it? A very good song, Mr Richard, very
+      good. I like the sentiment of it. Ha ha! Your friend's the young man from
+      Witherden's office I think&mdash;yes&mdash;May we ne'er want a&mdash;
+      Nobody else at all, been, Mr Richard?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only somebody to the lodger,' replied Mr Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh indeed!' cried Brass. 'Somebody to the lodger eh? Ha ha! May we ne'er
+      want a friend, or a&mdash;&mdash;Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr Richard?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy of
+      spirits which his employer displayed. 'With him now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'With him now!' cried Brass; 'Ha ha! There let 'em be, merry and free,
+      toor rul lol le. Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh certainly,' replied Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And who,' said Brass, shuffling among his papers, 'who is the lodger's
+      visitor&mdash;not a lady visitor, I hope, eh, Mr Richard? The morals of
+      the Marks you know, sir&mdash;"when lovely women stoops to folly"&mdash;and
+      all that&mdash;eh, Mr Richard?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Another young man, who belongs to Witherden's too, or half belongs
+      there,' returned Richard. 'Kit, they call him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Kit, eh!' said Brass. 'Strange name&mdash;name of a dancing-master's
+      fiddle, eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha! Kit's there, is he? Oh!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn't check this uncommon
+      exuberance on the part of Mr Sampson; but as she made no attempt to do so,
+      and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit acquiescence in it, he concluded
+      that they had just been cheating somebody, and receiving the bill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Will you have the goodness, Mr Richard,' said Brass, taking a letter from
+      his desk, 'just to step over to Peckham Rye with that? There's no answer,
+      but it's rather particular and should go by hand. Charge the office with
+      your coach-hire back, you know; don't spare the office; get as much out of
+      it as you can&mdash;clerk's motto&mdash;Eh, Mr Richard? Ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller solemnly doffed the aquatic jacket, put on his coat, took
+      down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed. As soon as
+      he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling sweetly at her brother
+      (who nodded and smote his nose in return) withdrew also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-door wide
+      open, and establishing himself at his desk directly opposite, so that he
+      could not fail to see anybody who came down-stairs and passed out at the
+      street door, began to write with extreme cheerfulness and assiduity;
+      humming as he did so, in a voice that was anything but musical, certain
+      vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the union between
+      Church and State, inasmuch as they were compounded of the Evening Hymn and
+      God save the King.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for a long
+      time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning face, and
+      hearing nothing, went on humming louder, and writing slower than ever. At
+      length, in one of these pauses, he heard his lodger's door opened and
+      shut, and footsteps coming down the stairs. Then, Mr Brass left off
+      writing entirely, and, with his pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest;
+      shaking his head meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul
+      was in the music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the sweet
+      sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass stopped his
+      singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at the same time
+      beckoning to him with his pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Kit,' said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, 'how do you do?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had his
+      hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him softly
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are not to go, if you please, Kit,' said the attorney in a mysterious
+      and yet business-like way. 'You are to step in here, if you please. Dear
+      me, dear me! When I look at you,' said the lawyer, quitting his stool, and
+      standing before the fire with his back towards it, 'I am reminded of the
+      sweetest little face that ever my eyes beheld. I remember your coming
+      there, twice or thrice, when we were in possession. Ah Kit, my dear
+      fellow, gentleman in my profession have such painful duties to perform
+      sometimes, that you needn't envy us&mdash;you needn't indeed!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't, sir,' said Kit, 'though it isn't for the like of me to judge.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Our only consolation, Kit,' pursued the lawyer, looking at him in a sort
+      of pensive abstraction, 'is, that although we cannot turn away the wind,
+      we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so, to the shorn lambs.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Shorn indeed!' thought Kit. 'Pretty close!' But he didn't say <i>so</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'On that occasion, Kit,' said Mr Brass, 'on that occasion that I have just
+      alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr Quilp is a very hard
+      man) to obtain them the indulgence they had. It might have cost me a
+      client. But suffering virtue inspired me, and I prevailed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's not so bad after all,' thought honest Kit, as the attorney pursed up
+      his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with his better
+      feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I respect you, Kit,' said Brass with emotion. 'I saw enough of your
+      conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is humble, and
+      your fortune lowly. It isn't the waistcoat that I look at. It is the
+      heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. But the
+      heart is the bird. Ah! How many sich birds are perpetually moulting, and
+      putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all mankind!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to his own
+      checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass's voice and manner added
+      not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all the mild austerity
+      of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his rusty surtout,
+      and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be completely set up in that line of
+      business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, well,' said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they
+      compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-creatures, 'this
+      is wide of the bull's-eye. You're to take that, if you please.' As he
+      spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns on the desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For yourself,' said Brass. 'From&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No matter about the person they came from,' replied the lawyer. 'Say me,
+      if you like. We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and we mustn't ask
+      questions or talk too much&mdash;you understand? You're to take them,
+      that's all; and between you and me, I don't think they'll be the last
+      you'll have to take from the same place. I hope not. Good bye, Kit. Good
+      bye!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such slight
+      grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation turned out such
+      a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took the money and made the
+      best of his way home. Mr Brass remained airing himself at the fire, and
+      resumed his vocal exercise, and his seraphic smile, simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'May I come in?' said Miss Sally, peeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes, you may come in,' returned her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ahem!' coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, yes,' returned Sampson, 'I should say as good as done.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap57"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 57
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r Chuckster's indignant apprehensions were not without foundation.
+      Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr Garland was
+      not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and flourished exceedingly.
+      They were soon in habits of constant intercourse and communication; and
+      the single gentleman labouring at this time under a slight attack of
+      illness&mdash;the consequence most probably of his late excited feelings
+      and subsequent disappointment&mdash;furnished a reason for their holding
+      yet more frequent correspondence; so that some one of the inmates of Abel
+      Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between that place and
+      Bevis Marks, almost every day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any mincing of
+      the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused to be driven by
+      anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether old Mr Garland came,
+      or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party. Of all messages and inquiries, Kit was,
+      in right of his position, the bearer; thus it came about that, while the
+      single gentleman remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis Marks every
+      morning with nearly as much regularity as the General Postman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply about
+      him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony's trot and the clatter of the
+      little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever the sound reached his
+      ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to rubbing his hands
+      and exhibiting the greatest glee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha ha!' he would cry. 'Here's the pony again! Most remarkable pony,
+      extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass standing on
+      the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of the street over the
+      top of the window-blind, would take an observation of the visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The old gentleman again!' he would exclaim, 'a very prepossessing old
+      gentleman, Mr Richard&mdash;charming countenance, sir&mdash;extremely calm&mdash;benevolence
+      in every feature, sir. He quite realises my idea of King Lear, as he
+      appeared when in possession of his kingdom, Mr Richard&mdash;the same good
+      humour, the same white hair and partial baldness, the same liability to be
+      imposed upon. Ah! A sweet subject for contemplation, sir, very sweet!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would nod and
+      smile to Kit from the window, and presently walk out into the street to
+      greet him, when some such conversation as the following would ensue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Admirably groomed, Kit'&mdash;Mr Brass is patting the pony&mdash;'does
+      you great credit&mdash;amazingly sleek and bright to be sure. He literally
+      looks as if he had been varnished all over.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses his
+      conviction, 'that Mr Brass will not find many like him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A beautiful animal indeed!' cries Brass. 'Sagacious too?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bless you!' replies Kit, 'he knows what you say to him as well as a
+      Christian does.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Does he indeed!' cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the same
+      place from the same person in the same words a dozen times, but is
+      paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding. 'Dear me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,' says Kit, pleased with
+      the attorney's strong interest in his favourite, 'that I should come to be
+      as intimate with him as I am now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of virtue. 'A
+      charming subject of reflection for you, very charming. A subject of proper
+      pride and congratulation, Christopher. Honesty is the best policy.&mdash;I
+      always find it so myself. I lost forty-seven pound ten by being honest
+      this morning. But it's all gain, it's gain!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with the
+      water standing in his eyes. Kit thinks that if ever there was a good man
+      who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A man,' says Sampson, 'who loses forty-seven pound ten in one morning by
+      his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been eighty pound, the
+      luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased. Every pound lost,
+      would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained. The still small
+      voice, Christopher,' cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the
+      bosom, 'is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so completely home
+      to his feelings, that he is considering what he shall say, when Mr Garland
+      appears. The old gentleman is helped into the chaise with great
+      obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and the pony, after shaking his head
+      several times, and standing for three or four minutes with all his four
+      legs planted firmly on the ground, as if he had made up his mind never to
+      stir from that spot, but there to live and die, suddenly darts off,
+      without the smallest notice, at the rate of twelve English miles an hour.
+      Then, Mr Brass and his sister (who has joined him at the door) exchange an
+      odd kind of smile&mdash;not at all a pleasant one in its expression&mdash;and
+      return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, who, during their absence,
+      has been regaling himself with various feats of pantomime, and is
+      discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and heated condition, violently
+      scratching out nothing with half a penknife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened that
+      Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr Swiveller, if not
+      to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some pretty distant place from
+      which he could not be expected to return for two or three hours, or in all
+      probability a much longer period, as that gentleman was not, to say the
+      truth, renowned for using great expedition on such occasions, but rather
+      for protracting and spinning out the time to the very utmost limit of
+      possibility. Mr Swiveller out of sight, Miss Sally immediately withdrew.
+      Mr Brass would then set the office-door wide open, hum his old tune with
+      great gaiety of heart, and smile seraphically as before. Kit coming
+      down-stairs would be called in; entertained with some moral and agreeable
+      conversation; perhaps entreated to mind the office for an instant while Mr
+      Brass stepped over the way; and afterwards presented with one or two
+      half-crowns as the case might be. This occurred so often, that Kit,
+      nothing doubting but that they came from the single gentleman who had
+      already rewarded his mother with great liberality, could not enough admire
+      his generosity; and bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little
+      Jacob, and for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of
+      them was having some new trifle every day of their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the office of
+      Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone therein, began to
+      find the time hang heavy on his hands. For the better preservation of his
+      cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent his faculties from rusting, he
+      provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed
+      himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes
+      even fifty thousand pounds aside, besides many hazardous bets to a
+      considerable amount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the magnitude
+      of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think that on those
+      evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they often went out now) he
+      heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the direction of the
+      door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, must proceed from
+      the small servant, who always had a cold from damp living. Looking
+      intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and
+      glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions
+      were correct, he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she
+      was aware of his approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! I didn't mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn't,' cried the
+      small servant, struggling like a much larger one. 'It's so very dull,
+      down-stairs, Please don't you tell upon me, please don't.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tell upon you!' said Dick. 'Do you mean to say you were looking through
+      the keyhole for company?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, upon my word I was,' replied the small servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How long have you been cooling your eye there?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he had
+      refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of which, no
+      doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted Mr Swiveller;
+      but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered himself
+      speedily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well&mdash;come in'&mdash;he said, after a little consideration. 'Here&mdash;sit
+      down, and I'll teach you how to play.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! I durstn't do it,' rejoined the small servant; 'Miss Sally 'ud kill
+      me, if she know'd I come up here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you got a fire down-stairs?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A very little one,' replied the small servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she know'd I went down there, so I'll
+      come,' said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket. 'Why, how thin you
+      are! What do you mean by it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It ain't my fault.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Could you eat any bread and meat?' said Dick, taking down his hat. 'Yes?
+      Ah! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer?'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'I had a sip of it once,' said  the small servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to the
+      ceiling. 'She never tasted it&mdash;it can't be tasted in a sip! Why, how
+      old are you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a
+      moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, vanished
+      straightway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public-house, who
+      bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great pot,
+      filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a grateful
+      steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a particular recipe which Mr
+      Swiveller had imparted to the landlord, at a period when he was deep in
+      his books and desirous to conciliate his friendship. Relieving the boy of
+      his burden at the door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to
+      prevent surprise, Mr Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There!' said Richard, putting the plate before her. 'First of all clear
+      that off, and then you'll see what's next.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Next,' said Dick, handing the purl, 'take a pull at that; but moderate
+      your transports, you know, for you're not used to it. Well, is it good?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! isn't it?' said the small servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply, and
+      took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his companion while he
+      did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he applied himself to teaching
+      her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being both
+      sharp-witted and cunning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now,' said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and
+      trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt,
+      'those are the stakes. If you win, you get 'em all. If I win, I get 'em.
+      To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the Marchioness,
+      do you hear?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'fire away!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered
+      which to play, and Mr Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air
+      which such society required, took another pull at the tankard, and waited
+      for her lead.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0414m.jpg" alt="0414m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0414.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap58"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 58
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying success,
+      until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the purl, and
+      the striking of ten o'clock, combined to render that gentleman mindful of
+      the flight of Time, and the expediency of withdrawing before Mr Sampson
+      and Miss Sally Brass returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'With which object in view, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller gravely, 'I
+      shall ask your ladyship's permission to put the board in my pocket, and to
+      retire from the presence when I have finished this tankard; merely
+      observing, Marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, I care
+      not how fast it rolls on, ma'am, on, while such purl on the bank still is
+      growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run. Marchioness, your
+      health. You will excuse my wearing my hat, but the palace is damp, and the
+      marble floor is&mdash;if I may be allowed the expression&mdash;sloppy.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr Swiveller had been
+      sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude he now
+      gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly sipped the
+      last choice drops of nectar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the
+      Play?' said Mr Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table, and
+      raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a theatrical
+      bandit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marchioness nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha!' said Mr Swiveller, with a portentous frown. ''Tis well. Marchioness!&mdash;but
+      no matter. Some wine there. Ho!' He illustrated these melodramatic morsels
+      by handing the tankard to himself with great humility, receiving it
+      haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical
+      conventionalities as Mr Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play, or
+      heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors and in other
+      forbidden places), was rather alarmed by demonstrations so novel in their
+      nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks, that Mr Swiveller
+      felt it necessary to discharge his brigand manner for one more suitable to
+      private life, as he asked,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do they often go where glory waits 'em, and leave you here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, yes; I believe you they do,' returned the small servant. 'Miss
+      Sally's such a one-er for that, she is.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Such a what?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Such a one-er,' returned the Marchioness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment's reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his
+      responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk on; as it
+      was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and her
+      opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a
+      momentary check of little consequence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,' said the small servant with a shrewd
+      look; 'they go to a many places, bless you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is Mr Brass a wunner?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn't,' replied the small servant,
+      shaking her head. 'Bless you, he'd never do anything without her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! He wouldn't, wouldn't he?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Sally keeps him in such order,' said the small servant; 'he always
+      asks her advice, he does; and he catches it sometimes. Bless you, you
+      wouldn't believe how much he catches it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I suppose,' said Dick, 'that they consult together, a good deal, and talk
+      about a great many people&mdash;about me for instance, sometimes, eh,
+      Marchioness?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marchioness nodded amazingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Complimentary?' said Mr Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left off
+      nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side, with a
+      vehemence which threatened to dislocate her neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Humph!' Dick muttered. 'Would it be any breach of confidence,
+      Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has now
+      the honour to&mdash;?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Sally says you're a funny chap,' replied his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'that's not uncomplimentary.
+      Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a degrading quality. Old King Cole
+      was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages of
+      history.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But she says,' pursued his companion, 'that you an't to be trusted.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, really Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully; 'several
+      ladies and gentlemen&mdash;not exactly professional persons, but
+      tradespeople, ma'am, tradespeople&mdash;have made the same remark. The
+      obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined strongly to
+      that opinion to-night when I ordered him to prepare the banquet. It's a
+      popular prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure I don't know why, for I
+      have been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and I can safely
+      say that I never forsook my trust until it deserted me&mdash;never. Mr
+      Brass is of the same opinion, I suppose?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that Mr
+      Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and seeming
+      to recollect herself, added imploringly, 'But don't you ever tell upon me,
+      or I shall be beat to death.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, rising, 'the word of a gentleman is as
+      good as his bond&mdash;sometimes better, as in the present case, where his
+      bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. I am your friend, and I
+      hope we shall play many more rubbers together in this same saloon. But,
+      Marchioness,' added Richard, stopping in his way to the door, and wheeling
+      slowly round upon the small servant, who was following with the candle;
+      'it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye
+      at keyholes, to know all this.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I only wanted,' replied the trembling Marchioness, 'to know where the key
+      of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn't have taken much, if I
+      had found it&mdash;only enough to squench my hunger.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You didn't find it then?' said Dick. 'But of course you didn't, or you'd
+      be plumper. Good night, Marchioness. Fare thee well, and if for ever, then
+      for ever fare thee well&mdash;and put up the chain, Marchioness, in case
+      of accidents.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this parting injunction, Mr Swiveller emerged from the house; and
+      feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as promised
+      to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong and heady
+      compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings, and to bed
+      at once. Homeward he went therefore; and his apartments (for he still
+      retained the plural fiction) being at no great distance from the office,
+      he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber, where, having pulled off one
+      boot and forgotten the other, he fell into deep cogitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, folding his arms, 'is a very
+      extraordinary person&mdash;surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste
+      of beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and
+      taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors&mdash;can
+      these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an
+      opposition to the decrees of fate? It is a most inscrutable and
+      unmitigated staggerer!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became aware
+      of his remaining boot, of which, with unimpaired solemnity he proceeded to
+      divest himself; shaking his head with exceeding gravity all the time, and
+      sighing deeply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'These rubbers,' said Mr Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly the
+      same style as he wore his hat, 'remind me of the matrimonial fireside.
+      Cheggs's wife plays cribbage; all-fours likewise. She rings the changes on
+      'em now. From sport to sport they hurry her to banish her regrets, and
+      when they win a smile from her, they think that she forgets&mdash;but she
+      don't. By this time, I should say,' added Richard, getting his left cheek
+      into profile, and looking complacently at the reflection of a very little
+      scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; 'by this time, I should say, the
+      iron has entered into her soul. It serves her right!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic mood,
+      Mr Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a
+      show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better of, and
+      wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, undressing himself
+      with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but as Mr
+      Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the news
+      that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to playing the flute;
+      thinking after mature consideration that it was a good, sound, dismal
+      occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated
+      to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours. In pursuance
+      of this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and
+      arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage,
+      took his flute from its box, and began to play most mournfully.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0418m.jpg" alt="0418m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0418.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      The air was 'Away with melancholy'&mdash;a composition, which, when it is
+      played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage of
+      being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the
+      instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the
+      next, has not a lively effect. Yet, for half the night, or more, Mr
+      Swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling, and
+      sometimes half out of bed to correct himself by the book, played this
+      unhappy tune over and over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or
+      two at a time to take breath and soliloquise about the Marchioness, and
+      then beginning again with renewed vigour. It was not until he had quite
+      exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into the
+      flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs, and had
+      nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the next doors, and
+      over the way&mdash;that he shut up the music-book, extinguished the
+      candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and relieved in his mind,
+      turned round and fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having taken half an hour's
+      exercise at the flute, and graciously received a notice to quit from his
+      landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for that purpose since the
+      dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks; where the beautiful Sally was
+      already at her post, bearing in her looks a radiance, mild as that which
+      beameth from the virgin moon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his coat
+      for the aquatic jacket; which usually took some time fitting on, for in
+      consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only to be got into by a
+      series of struggles. This difficulty overcome, he took his seat at the
+      desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I say'&mdash;quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, 'you haven't
+      seen a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I didn't meet many in the street,' rejoined Mr Swiveller. 'I saw one&mdash;a
+      stout pencil-case of respectable appearance&mdash;but as he was in company
+      with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with whom he was in
+      earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking to him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, but have you?' returned Miss Brass. 'Seriously, you know.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,' said Mr
+      Swiveller. 'Haven't I this moment come?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, all I know is,' replied Miss Sally, 'that it's not to be found, and
+      that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on the desk.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Halloa!' thought Richard, 'I hope the Marchioness hasn't been at work
+      here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There was a knife too,' said Miss Sally, 'of the same pattern. They were
+      given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone. You haven't missed
+      anything yourself, have you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be quite
+      sure that it <i>was </i>a jacket and not a skirted coat; and having satisfied
+      himself of the safety of this, his only moveable in Bevis Marks, made
+      answer in the negative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's a very unpleasant thing, Dick,' said Miss Brass, pulling out the tin
+      box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff; 'but between you and me&mdash;between
+      friends you know, for if Sammy knew it, I should never hear the last of it&mdash;some
+      of the office-money, too, that has been left about, has gone in the same
+      way. In particular, I have missed three half-crowns at three different
+      times.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You don't mean that?' cried Dick. 'Be careful what you say, old boy, for
+      this is a serious matter. Are you quite sure? Is there no mistake?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is so, and there can't be any mistake at all,' rejoined Miss Brass
+      emphatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then by Jove,' thought Richard, laying down his pen, 'I am afraid the
+      Marchioness is done for!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more probable it
+      appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was the culprit. When
+      he considered on what a spare allowance of food she lived, how neglected
+      and untaught she was, and how her natural cunning had been sharpened by
+      necessity and privation, he scarcely doubted it. And yet he pitied her so
+      much, and felt so unwilling to have a matter of such gravity disturbing
+      the oddity of their acquaintance, that he thought, and thought truly, that
+      rather than receive fifty pounds down, he would have the Marchioness
+      proved innocent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was plunged in very profound and serious meditation upon this
+      theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great mystery and
+      doubt; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling a cheerful strain,
+      was heard in the passage, and that gentleman himself, beaming with
+      virtuous smiles, appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Richard, sir, good morning! Here we are again, sir, entering upon
+      another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and breakfast, and
+      our spirits fresh and flowing. Here we are, Mr Richard, rising with the
+      sun to run our little course&mdash;our course of duty, sir&mdash;and, like
+      him, to get through our day's work with credit to ourselves and advantage
+      to our fellow-creatures. A charming reflection sir, very charming!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr Brass was, somewhat
+      ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up against the
+      light a five-pound bank note, which he had brought in, in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Richard not receiving his remarks with anything like enthusiasm, his
+      employer turned his eyes to his face, and observed that it wore a troubled
+      expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're out of spirits, sir,' said Brass. 'Mr Richard, sir, we should fall
+      to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state. It becomes us, Mr
+      Richard, sir, to&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dear me!' said Mr Sampson, 'you too! Is anything the matter? Mr Richard,
+      sir&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making signals to him, to
+      acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent conversation. As his
+      own position was not a very pleasant one until the matter was set at rest
+      one way or other, he did so; and Miss Brass, plying her snuff-box at a
+      most wasteful rate, corroborated his account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his features.
+      Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money, as Miss Sally had
+      expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened it, looked outside, shut
+      it softly, returned on tiptoe, and said in a whisper,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance&mdash;Mr Richard,
+      sir, a most painful circumstance. The fact is, that I myself have missed
+      several small sums from the desk, of late, and have refrained from
+      mentioning it, hoping that accident would discover the offender; but it
+      has not done so&mdash;it has not done so. Sally&mdash;Mr Richard, sir&mdash;this
+      is a particularly distressing affair!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some papers,
+      in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Richard
+      Swiveller pointed to it, and admonished him to take it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, Mr Richard, sir,' rejoined Brass with emotion, 'I will not take it
+      up. I will let it lie there, sir. To take it up, Mr Richard, sir, would
+      imply a doubt of you; and in you, sir, I have unlimited confidence. We
+      will let it lie there, Sir, if you please, and we will not take it up by
+      any means.' With that, Mr Brass patted him twice or thrice on the
+      shoulder, in a most friendly manner, and entreated him to believe that he
+      had as much faith in his honesty as he had in his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although at another time Mr Swiveller might have looked upon this as a
+      doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then-existing circumstances, a
+      great relief to be assured that he was not wrongfully suspected. When he
+      had made a suitable reply, Mr Brass wrung him by the hand, and fell into a
+      brown study, as did Miss Sally likewise. Richard too remained in a
+      thoughtful state; fearing every moment to hear the Marchioness impeached,
+      and unable to resist the conviction that she must be guilty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had severally remained in this condition for some minutes, Miss
+      Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with her clenched fist,
+      and cried, 'I've hit it!'&mdash;as indeed she had, and chipped a piece out
+      of it too; but that was not her meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well,' cried Brass anxiously. 'Go on, will you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why,' replied his sister with an air of triumph, 'hasn't there been
+      somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or
+      four weeks; hasn't that somebody been left alone in it sometimes&mdash;thanks
+      to you; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody isn't the thief!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What somebody?' blustered Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, what do you call him&mdash;Kit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Garland's young man?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Never!' cried Brass. 'Never. I'll not hear of it. Don't tell me'&mdash;said
+      Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as if he were
+      clearing away ten thousand cobwebs. 'I'll never believe it of him. Never!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I say,' repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, 'that he's
+      the thief.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I say,' returned Sampson violently, 'that he is not. What do you mean?
+      How dare you? Are characters to be whispered away like this? Do you know
+      that he's the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever lived, and that
+      he has an irreproachable good name? Come in, come in!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook of
+      the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had been
+      uttered. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at the
+      office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr Brass, when this
+      very Kit himself looked in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, Kit,' said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and
+      frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; 'Yes Kit, he is. I am glad to
+      see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you come
+      down-stairs, Kit. That lad a robber!' cried Brass when he had withdrawn,
+      'with that frank and open countenance! I'd trust him with untold gold. Mr
+      Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to Wrasp and Co.'s in
+      Broad Street, and inquire if they have had instructions to appear in
+      Carkem and Painter. <i>That </i>lad a robber,' sneered Sampson, flushed and
+      heated with his wrath. 'Am I blind, deaf, silly; do I know nothing of
+      human nature when I see it before me? Kit a robber! Bah!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable scorn and
+      contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as if to shut the
+      base world from his view, and breathed defiance from under its half-closed
+      lid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap59"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 59
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen Kit, having discharged his errand, came down-stairs from the single
+      gentleman's apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or so, Mr
+      Sampson Brass was alone in the office. He was not singing as usual, nor
+      was he seated at his desk. The open door showed him standing before the
+      fire with his back towards it, and looking so very strange that Kit
+      supposed he must have been suddenly taken ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is anything the matter, sir?' said Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Matter!' cried Brass. 'No. Why anything the matter?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You are so very pale,' said Kit, 'that I should hardly have known you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Pooh pooh! mere fancy,' cried Brass, stooping to throw up the cinders.
+      'Never better, Kit, never better in all my life. Merry too. Ha ha! How's
+      our friend above-stairs, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A great deal better,' said Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm glad to hear it,' rejoined Brass; 'thankful, I may say. An excellent
+      gentleman&mdash;worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little trouble&mdash;an
+      admirable lodger. Ha ha! Mr Garland&mdash;he's well I hope, Kit&mdash;and
+      the pony&mdash;my friend, my particular friend you know. Ha ha!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel
+      Cottage. Mr Brass, who seemed remarkably inattentive and impatient,
+      mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him by the
+      button-hole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have been thinking, Kit,' said the lawyer, 'that I could throw some
+      little emoluments in your mother's way&mdash;You have a mother, I think?
+      If I recollect right, you told me&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes, Sir, yes certainly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A widow, I think? an industrious widow?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' cried Brass. 'That's affecting, truly affecting. A poor widow
+      struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a delicious
+      picture of human goodness.&mdash;Put down your hat, Kit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you Sir, I must be going directly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Put it down while you stay, at any rate,' said Brass, taking it from him
+      and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a place for it on
+      the desk. 'I was thinking, Kit, that we have often houses to let for
+      people we are concerned for, and matters of that sort. Now you know we're
+      obliged to put people into those houses to take care of 'em&mdash;very
+      often undeserving people that we can't depend upon. What's to prevent our
+      having a person that we <i>can </i>depend upon, and enjoying the delight of doing
+      a good action at the same time? I say, what's to prevent our employing
+      this worthy woman, your mother? What with one job and another, there's
+      lodging&mdash;and good lodging too&mdash;pretty well all the year round,
+      rent free, and a weekly allowance besides, Kit, that would provide her
+      with a great many comforts she don't at present enjoy. Now what do you
+      think of that? Do you see any objection? My only desire is to serve you,
+      Kit; therefore if you do, say so freely.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled among the
+      papers again, as if in search of something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?' replied Kit with
+      his whole heart. 'I don't know how to thank you sir, I don't indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why then,' said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his face
+      close to Kit's with such a repulsive smile that the latter, even in the
+      very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite startled. 'Why then, it's
+      done.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit looked at him in some confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Done, I say,' added Sampson, rubbing his hands and veiling himself again
+      in his usual oily manner. 'Ha ha! and so you shall find Kit, so you shall
+      find. But dear me,' said Brass, 'what a time Mr Richard is gone! A sad
+      loiterer to be sure! Will you mind the office one minute, while I run
+      up-stairs? Only one minute. I'll not detain you an instant longer, on any
+      account, Kit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talking as he went, Mr Brass bustled out of the office, and in a very
+      short time returned. Mr Swiveller came back, almost at the same instant;
+      and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up for lost time, Miss
+      Brass herself encountered him in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered. 'There goes your
+      pet, Sammy, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah! There he goes,' replied Brass. 'My pet, if you please. An honest
+      fellow, Mr Richard, sir&mdash;a worthy fellow indeed!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hem!' coughed Miss Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,' said the angry Sampson, 'that I'd
+      stake my life upon his honesty. Am I never to hear the last of this? Am I
+      always to be baited, and beset, by your mean suspicions? Have you no
+      regard for true merit, you malignant fellow? If you come to that, I'd
+      sooner suspect your honesty than his.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow pinch,
+      regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She drives me wild, Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass, 'she exasperates me
+      beyond all bearing. I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am. These are
+      not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she carries me out of
+      myself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why don't you leave him alone?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Because she can't, sir,' retorted Brass; 'because to chafe and vex me is
+      a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don't believe
+      she'd have her health. But never mind,' said Brass, 'never mind. I've
+      carried my point. I've shown my confidence in the lad. He has minded the
+      office again. Ha ha! Ugh, you viper!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff-box in her
+      pocket; still looking at her brother with perfect composure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He has minded the office again,' said Brass triumphantly; 'he has had my
+      confidence, and he shall continue to have it; he&mdash;why, where's the&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What have you lost?' inquired Mr Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dear me!' said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after another, and
+      looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly tossing the
+      papers about, 'the note, Mr Richard, sir, the five-pound note&mdash;what
+      can have become of it? I laid it down here&mdash;God bless me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What!' cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and scattering
+      the papers on the floor. 'Gone! Now who's right? Now who's got it? Never
+      mind five pounds&mdash;what's five pounds? He's honest, you know, quite
+      honest. It would be mean to suspect him. Don't run after him. No, no, not
+      for the world!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it really gone though?' said Dick, looking at Brass with a face as
+      pale as his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Upon my word, Mr Richard, Sir,' replied the lawyer, feeling in all his
+      pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, 'I fear this is a black
+      business. It's certainly gone, Sir. What's to be done?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't run after him,' said Miss Sally, taking more snuff. 'Don't run
+      after him on any account. Give him time to get rid of it, you know. It
+      would be cruel to find him out!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each other, in a
+      state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse, caught up their hats
+      and rushed out into the street&mdash;darting along in the middle of the
+      road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as though they were running for
+      their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and having
+      the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance ahead. As they
+      were pretty certain of the road he must have taken, however, and kept on
+      at a great pace, they came up with him, at the very moment when he had
+      taken breath, and was breaking into a run again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Stop!' cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr Swiveller
+      pounced upon the other. 'Not so fast sir. You're in a hurry?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, I am,' said Kit, looking from one to the other in great surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I&mdash;I&mdash;can hardly believe it,' panted Sampson, 'but something of
+      value is missing from the office. I hope you don't know what.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Know what! good Heaven, Mr Brass!' cried Kit, trembling from head to
+      foot; 'you don't suppose&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no,' rejoined Brass quickly, 'I don't suppose anything. Don't say I
+      said you did. You'll come back quietly, I hope?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of course I will,' returned Kit. 'Why not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be sure!' said Brass. 'Why not? I hope there may turn out to be no why
+      not. If you knew the trouble I've been in, this morning, through taking
+      your part, Christopher, you'd be sorry for it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And I am sure you'll be sorry for having suspected me sir,' replied Kit.
+      'Come. Let us make haste back.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly!' cried Brass, 'the quicker, the better. Mr Richard&mdash;have
+      the goodness, sir, to take that arm. I'll take this one. It's not easy
+      walking three abreast, but under these circumstances it must be done, sir;
+      there's no help for it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when they
+      secured him thus, and for a moment seemed disposed to resist. But, quickly
+      recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made any struggle, he
+      would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the public streets, he only
+      repeated, with great earnestness and with the tears standing in his eyes,
+      that they would be sorry for this&mdash;and suffered them to lead him off.
+      While they were on the way back, Mr Swiveller, upon whom his present
+      functions sat very irksomely, took an opportunity of whispering in his ear
+      that if he would confess his guilt, even by so much as a nod, and promise
+      not to do so any more, he would connive at his kicking Sampson Brass on
+      the shins and escaping up a court; but Kit indignantly rejecting this
+      proposal, Mr Richard had nothing for it, but to hold him tight until they
+      reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into the presence of the charming
+      Sarah, who immediately took the precaution of locking the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, you know,' said Brass, 'if this is a case of innocence, it is a case
+      of that description, Christopher, where the fullest disclosure is the best
+      satisfaction for everybody. Therefore if you'll consent to an
+      examination,' he demonstrated what kind of examination he meant by turning
+      back the cuffs of his coat, 'it will be a comfortable and pleasant thing
+      for all parties.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Search me,' said Kit, proudly holding up his arms. 'But mind, sir&mdash;I
+      know you'll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is certainly a very painful occurrence,' said Brass with a sigh, as he
+      dived into one of Kit's pockets, and fished up a miscellaneous collection
+      of small articles; 'very painful. Nothing here, Mr Richard, Sir, all
+      perfectly satisfactory. Nor here, sir. Nor in the waistcoat, Mr Richard,
+      nor in the coat tails. So far, I am rejoiced, I am sure.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Swiveller, holding Kit's hat in his hand, was watching the
+      proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the slightest
+      possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of his eyes, looked
+      with the other up the inside of one of the poor fellow's sleeves as if it
+      were a telescope&mdash;when Sampson turning hastily to him, bade him
+      search the hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Here's a handkerchief,' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No harm in that sir,' rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the other
+      sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was contemplating an immense
+      extent of prospect. 'No harm in a handkerchief Sir, whatever. The faculty
+      don't consider it a healthy custom, I believe, Mr Richard, to carry one's
+      handkerchief in one's hat&mdash;I have heard that it keeps the head too
+      warm&mdash;but in every other point of view, its being there, is extremely
+      satisfactory&mdash;extremely so.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An exclamation, at once from Richard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit
+      himself, cut the lawyer short. He turned his head, and saw Dick standing
+      with the bank-note in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In the hat?' cried Brass in a sort of shriek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,' said Dick, aghast
+      at the discovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at
+      the floor&mdash;everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite stupefied and
+      motionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And this,' cried Sampson, clasping his hands, 'is the world that turns
+      upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions round
+      Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort! This is human natur, is
+      it! Oh natur, natur! This is the miscreant that I was going to benefit
+      with all my little arts, and that, even now, I feel so much for, as to
+      wish to let him go! But,' added Mr Brass with greater fortitude, 'I am
+      myself a lawyer, and bound to set an example in carrying the laws of my
+      happy country into effect. Sally my dear, forgive me, and catch hold of
+      him on the other side. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to run and fetch
+      a constable. The weakness is past and over sir, and moral strength
+      returns. A constable, sir, if you please!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap60"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 60
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>it stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed upon the
+      ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr Brass maintained
+      on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp of Miss Sally upon the
+      other; although this latter detention was in itself no small
+      inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides screwing her knuckles
+      inconveniently into his throat from time to time, had fastened upon him in
+      the first instance with so tight a grip that even in the disorder and
+      distraction of his thoughts he could not divest himself of an uneasy sense
+      of choking. Between the brother and sister he remained in this posture,
+      quite unresisting and passive, until Mr Swiveller returned, with a police
+      constable at his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes; looking upon
+      all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to housebreaking or ventures
+      on the highway, as matters in the regular course of business; and
+      regarding the perpetrators in the light of so many customers coming to be
+      served at the wholesale and retail shop of criminal law where he stood
+      behind the counter; received Mr Brass's statement of facts with about as
+      much interest and surprise, as an undertaker might evince if required to
+      listen to a circumstantial account of the last illness of a person whom he
+      was called in to wait upon professionally; and took Kit into custody with
+      a decent indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We had better,' said this subordinate minister of justice, 'get to the
+      office while there's a magistrate sitting. I shall want you to come along
+      with us, Mr Brass, and the&mdash;' he looked at Miss Sally as if in some
+      doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other fabulous monster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The lady, eh?' said Sampson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' replied the constable. 'Yes&mdash;the lady. Likewise the young man
+      that found the property.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Richard, Sir,' said Brass in a mournful voice. 'A sad necessity. But
+      the altar of our country sir&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll have a hackney-coach, I suppose?' interrupted the constable,
+      holding Kit (whom his other captors had released) carelessly by the arm, a
+      little above the elbow. 'Be so good as send for one, will you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But, hear me speak a word,' cried Kit, raising his eyes and looking
+      imploringly about him. 'Hear me speak a word. I am no more guilty than any
+      one of you. Upon my soul I am not. I a thief! Oh, Mr Brass, you know me
+      better. I am sure you know me better. This is not right of you, indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I give you my word, constable&mdash;' said Brass. But here the constable
+      interposed with the constitutional principle 'words be blowed;' observing
+      that words were but spoon-meat for babes and sucklings, and that oaths
+      were the food for strong men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quite true, constable,' assented Brass in the same mournful tone.
+      'Strictly correct. I give you my oath, constable, that down to a few
+      minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such confidence in
+      that lad, that I'd have trusted him with&mdash;a hackney-coach, Mr
+      Richard, sir; you're very slow, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who is there that knows me,' cried Kit, 'that would not trust me&mdash;
+      that does not? ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me; whether I
+      have ever wronged them of a farthing. Was I ever once dishonest when I was
+      poor and hungry, and is it likely I would begin now! Oh consider what you
+      do. How can I meet the kindest friends that ever human creature had, with
+      this dreadful charge upon me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if he had
+      thought of that before, and was about to make some other gloomy
+      observations when the voice of the single gentleman was heard, demanding
+      from above-stairs what was the matter, and what was the cause of all that
+      noise and hurry. Kit made an involuntary start towards the door in his
+      anxiety to answer for himself, but being speedily detained by the
+      constable, had the agony of seeing Sampson Brass run out alone to tell the
+      story in his own way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And he can hardly believe it, either,' said Sampson, when he returned,
+      'nor nobody will. I wish I could doubt the evidence of my senses, but
+      their depositions are unimpeachable. It's of no use cross-examining my
+      eyes,' cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them, 'they stick to their first
+      account, and will. Now, Sarah, I hear the coach in the Marks; get on your
+      bonnet, and we'll be off. A sad errand! a moral funeral, quite!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Brass,' said Kit. 'Do me one favour. Take me to Mr Witherden's first.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sampson shook his head irresolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do,' said Kit. 'My master's there. For Heaven's sake, take me there,
+      first.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, I don't know,' stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons for
+      wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary. 'How do we
+      stand in point of time, constable, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with great
+      philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would have time
+      enough, but that if they stood shilly-shallying there, any longer, they
+      must go straight to the Mansion House; and finally expressed his opinion
+      that that was where it was, and that was all about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Richard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still remaining
+      immoveable in the most commodious corner with his face to the horses, Mr
+      Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner, and declared himself
+      quite ready. Therefore, the constable, still holding Kit in the same
+      manner, and pushing him on a little before him, so as to keep him at about
+      three-quarters of an arm's length in advance (which is the professional
+      mode), thrust him into the vehicle and followed himself. Miss Sally
+      entered next; and there being now four inside, Sampson Brass got upon the
+      box, and made the coachman drive on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which had taken
+      place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach window, almost
+      hoping to see some monstrous phenomenon in the streets which might give
+      him reason to believe he was in a dream. Alas! Everything was too real and
+      familiar: the same succession of turnings, the same houses, the same
+      streams of people running side by side in different directions upon the
+      pavement, the same bustle of carts and carriages in the road, the same
+      well-remembered objects in the shop windows: a regularity in the very
+      noise and hurry which no dream ever mirrored. Dream-like as the story was,
+      it was true. He stood charged with robbery; the note had been found upon
+      him, though he was innocent in thought and deed; and they were carrying
+      him back, a prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping heart of
+      his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the consciousness of
+      innocence would be insufficient to support him in the presence of his
+      friends if they believed him guilty, and sinking in hope and courage more
+      and more as they drew nearer to the notary's, poor Kit was looking
+      earnestly out of the window, observant of nothing,&mdash;when all at once,
+      as though it had been conjured up by magic, he became aware of the face of
+      Quilp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what a leer there was upon the face! It was from the open window of a
+      tavern that it looked out; and the dwarf had so spread himself over it,
+      with his elbows on the window-sill and his head resting on both his hands,
+      that what between this attitude and his being swoln with suppressed
+      laughter, he looked puffed and bloated into twice his usual breadth. Mr
+      Brass, on recognising him, immediately stopped the coach. As it came to a
+      halt directly opposite to where he stood, the dwarf pulled off his hat,
+      and saluted the party with a hideous and grotesque politeness.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Aha!' he
+      cried. 'Where now, Brass? where now? Sally with you too? Sweet Sally! And
+      Dick? Pleasant Dick! And Kit! Honest Kit!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's extremely cheerful!' said Brass to the coachman. 'Very much so! Ah,
+      sir&mdash;a sad business! Never believe in honesty any more, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why not?' returned the dwarf. 'Why not, you rogue of a lawyer, why not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Bank-note lost in our office sir,' said Brass, shaking his head. 'Found
+      in his hat sir&mdash;he previously left alone there&mdash;no mistake at
+      all sir&mdash;chain of evidence complete&mdash;not a link wanting.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What!' cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window. 'Kit a
+      thief! Kit a thief! Ha ha ha! Why, he's an uglier-looking thief than can
+      be seen anywhere for a penny. Eh, Kit&mdash;eh? Ha ha ha! Have you taken
+      Kit into custody before he had time and opportunity to beat me! Eh, Kit,
+      eh?' And with that, he burst into a yell of laughter, manifestly to the
+      great terror of the coachman, and pointed to a dyer's pole hard by, where
+      a dangling suit of clothes bore some resemblance to a man upon a gibbet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it coming to that, Kit!' cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands violently.
+      'Ha ha ha ha! What a disappointment for little Jacob, and for his darling
+      mother! Let him have the Bethel minister to comfort and console him,
+      Brass. Eh, Kit, eh? Drive on coachey, drive on. Bye bye, Kit; all good go
+      with you; keep up your spirits; my love to the Garlands&mdash;the dear old
+      lady and gentleman. Say I inquired after 'em, will you? Blessings on 'em,
+      on you, and on everybody, Kit. Blessings on all the world!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent until
+      they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and when he could
+      see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled upon the ground in
+      an ecstacy of enjoyment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they reached the notary's, which they were not long in doing, for
+      they had encountered the dwarf in a bye street at a very little distance
+      from the house, Mr Brass dismounted; and opening the coach door with a
+      melancholy visage, requested his sister to accompany him into the office,
+      with the view of preparing the good people within, for the mournful
+      intelligence that awaited them. Miss Sally complying, he desired Mr
+      Swiveller to accompany them. So, into the office they went; Mr Sampson and
+      his sister arm-in-arm; and Mr Swiveller following, alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The notary was standing before the fire in the outer office, talking to Mr
+      Abel and the elder Mr Garland, while Mr Chuckster sat writing at the desk,
+      picking up such crumbs of their conversation as happened to fall in his
+      way. This posture of affairs Mr Brass observed through the glass-door as
+      he was turning the handle, and seeing that the notary recognised him, he
+      began to shake his head and sigh deeply while that partition yet divided
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir,' said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two fore-fingers
+      of his right hand beaver glove, 'my name is Brass&mdash;Brass of Bevis
+      Marks, Sir. I have had the honour and pleasure, Sir, of being concerned
+      against you in some little testamentary matters. How do you do, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr Brass,'
+      said the notary, turning away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank you Sir,' said Brass, 'thank you, I am sure. Allow me, Sir, to
+      introduce my sister&mdash;quite one of us Sir, although of the weaker sex&mdash;of
+      great use in my business Sir, I assure you. Mr Richard, sir, have the
+      goodness to come foward if you please&mdash;No really,' said Brass,
+      stepping between the notary and his private office (towards which he had
+      begun to retreat), and speaking in the tone of an injured man, 'really
+      Sir, I must, under favour, request a word or two with you, indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Brass,' said the other, in a decided tone, 'I am engaged. You see that
+      I am occupied with these gentlemen. If you will communicate your business
+      to Mr Chuckster yonder, you will receive every attention.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Gentlemen,' said Brass, laying his right hand on his waistcoat, and
+      looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile&mdash;'Gentlemen, I
+      appeal to you&mdash;really, gentlemen&mdash;consider, I beg of you. I am
+      of the law. I am styled "gentleman" by Act of Parliament. I maintain the
+      title by the annual payment of twelve pound sterling for a certificate. I
+      am not one of your players of music, stage actors, writers of books, or
+      painters of pictures, who assume a station that the laws of their country
+      don't recognise. I am none of your strollers or vagabonds. If any man
+      brings his action against me, he must describe me as a gentleman, or his
+      action is null and void. I appeal to you&mdash;is this quite respectful?
+      Really gentlemen&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr Brass?'
+      said the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir,' rejoined Brass, 'I will. Ah Mr Witherden! you little know the&mdash;but
+      I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir, I believe the name of
+      one of these gentlemen is Garland.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of both,' said the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In-deed!' rejoined Brass, cringing excessively. 'But I might have known
+      that, from the uncommon likeness. Extremely happy, I am sure, to have the
+      honour of an introduction to two such gentlemen, although the occasion is
+      a most painful one. One of you gentlemen has a servant called Kit?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Both,' replied the notary.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Two Kits?' said Brass smiling. 'Dear me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'One Kit, sir,' returned Mr Witherden angrily, 'who is employed by both
+      gentlemen. What of him?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This of him, sir,' rejoined Brass, dropping his voice impressively. 'That
+      young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and unlimited confidence in,
+      and always behaved to as if he was my equal&mdash;that young man has this
+      morning committed a robbery in my office, and been taken almost in the
+      fact.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This must be some falsehood!' cried the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is not possible,' said Mr Abel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll not believe one word of it,' exclaimed the old gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Witherden, sir, <i>your </i>words are actionable, and if I was a man of low
+      and mean standing, who couldn't afford to be slandered, I should proceed
+      for damages. Hows'ever, sir, being what I am, I merely scorn such
+      expressions. The honest warmth of the other gentleman I respect, and I'm
+      truly sorry to be the messenger of such unpleasant news. I shouldn't have
+      put myself in this painful position, I assure you, but that the lad
+      himself desired to be brought here in the first instance, and I yielded to
+      his prayers. Mr Chuckster, sir, will you have the goodness to tap at the
+      window for the constable that's waiting in the coach?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when these words
+      were uttered, and Mr Chuckster, doing as he was desired, and leaping off
+      his stool with something of the excitement of an inspired prophet whose
+      foretellings had in the fulness of time been realised, held the door open
+      for the entrance of the wretched captive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the rude
+      eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called Heaven to
+      witness that he was innocent, and that how the property came to be found
+      upon him he knew not! Such a confusion of tongues, before the
+      circumstances were related, and the proofs disclosed! Such a dead silence
+      when all was told, and his three friends exchanged looks of doubt and
+      amazement!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it not possible,' said Mr Witherden, after a long pause, 'that this
+      note may have found its way into the hat by some accident,&mdash;such as
+      the removal of papers on the desk, for instance?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;strongly against him&mdash;but we're Christians, I
+      hope?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes to be sure,' said Kit eagerly. 'You can bear me out in that, Sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Eh?' cried Brass, looking from face to face with an expression of stupid
+      amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The money you know, the half-crowns, that you gave me&mdash;from the
+      lodger,' said Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh dear me!' cried Brass, shaking his head and frowning heavily. 'This is
+      a bad case, I find; a very bad case indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What! Did you give him no money on account of anybody, Sir?' asked Mr
+      Garland, with great anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I give him money, Sir!' returned Sampson. 'Oh, come you know, this is too
+      barefaced. Constable, my good fellow, we had better be going.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What!' shrieked Kit. 'Does he deny that he did? ask him, somebody, pray.
+      Ask him to tell you whether he did or not!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did you, sir?' asked the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Gentlemen,' cried Kit, on whom a light broke suddenly, 'Master, Mr Abel,
+      Mr Witherden, every one of you&mdash;he did it! What I have done to offend
+      him, I don't know, but this is a plot to ruin me. Mind, 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&mdash;he, or I?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap61"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 61
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>et 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 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, '&mdash;though we certainly don't expect it&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that
+      Mr and Mrs Garland would look upon him as a monster of ingratitude&mdash;that
+      Barbara would associate him with all that was bad and criminal&mdash;that
+      the pony would consider himself forsaken&mdash;and that even his own
+      mother might perhaps yield to the strong appearances against him, and
+      believe him to be the wretch he seemed&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the
+      bright star of the simple fellow's life&mdash;she, who always came back
+      upon him like a beautiful dream&mdash;who had made the poorest part of his
+      existence, the happiest and best&mdash;who had ever been so gentle, and
+      considerate, and good&mdash;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&mdash;the fireside, the little supper table,
+      the old man's hat, and coat, and stick&mdash;the half-opened door, leading
+      to her little room&mdash;they were all there. And Nell herself was there,
+      and he&mdash;both laughing heartily as they had often done&mdash;and when
+      he had got as far as this, Kit could go no farther, but flung himself upon
+      his poor bedstead and wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a long night, which seemed as though it would have no end; but he
+      slept too, and dreamed&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;cold, black, and
+      dreary, and very real indeed.
+</p>
+    <p>
+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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now then,' he said, 'come on!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where to, Sir?' asked Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0438m.jpg" alt="0438m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0438.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm his poor mother, sir,'&mdash;sobbed Mrs Nubbles, curtseying humbly,
+      'and this is his brother, sir. Oh dear me, dear me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;some hadn't&mdash;just
+      as it might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You don't believe that I did what they accuse me of, mother dear?' cried
+      Kit, in a choking voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I believe it!' exclaimed the poor woman, 'I that never knew you tell a
+      lie, or do a bad action from your cradle&mdash;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!&mdash;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!&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;nothing indeed, but a caged
+      brother&mdash;added his tears to theirs with as little noise as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a funny dog,' and then asked her
+      what she wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have brought him a little something to eat,' said the good woman. 'If
+      you please, Sir, might he have it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,&mdash;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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, but if you please sir&mdash;don't be angry with me sir&mdash;I am his
+      mother, and you had a mother once&mdash;if I might only see him eat a
+      little bit, I should go away, so much more satisfied that he was all
+      comfortable.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;under the idea, apparently, that the whole scene had been
+      invented and got up for its particular satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about his
+      employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion concerning him; but
+      all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself broken the intelligence to
+      his mother, with great kindness and delicacy, late on the previous night,
+      but had himself expressed no opinion of his innocence or guilt. Kit was on
+      the point of mustering courage to ask Barbara's mother about Barbara, when
+      the turnkey who had conducted him, reappeared, a second turnkey appeared
+      behind his visitors, and the third turnkey with the newspaper cried
+      'Time's up!'&mdash;adding in the same breath 'Now for the next party!' and
+      then plunging deep into his newspaper again. Kit was taken off in an
+      instant, with a blessing from his mother, and a scream from little Jacob,
+      ringing in his ears. As he was crossing the next yard with the basket in
+      his hand, under the guidance of his former conductor, another officer
+      called to them to stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is Christopher Nubbles, isn't it, that come in last night for
+      felony?' said the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then here's your beer,' said the other man to Christopher. 'What are you
+      looking at? There an't a discharge in it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I beg your pardon,' said Kit. 'Who sent it me?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, your friend,' replied the man. 'You're to have it every day, he
+      says. And so you will, if he pays for it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'My friend!' repeated Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're all abroad, seemingly,' returned the other man. 'There's his
+      letter. Take hold!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Drink of this cup, you'll find there's a spell in its every drop 'gainst
+      the ills of mortality. Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen! <i>Her</i>
+      cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and Co.'s).&mdash;If they
+      ever send it in a flat state, complain to the Governor. Yours, R. S.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'R. S.!' said Kit, after some consideration. 'It must be Mr Richard
+      Swiveller. Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him heartily.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap62"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 62
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on Quilp's
+      wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog, as though it
+      suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson Brass, as he
+      approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the excellent
+      proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and probably waiting with his
+      accustomed patience and sweetness of temper the fulfilment of the
+      appointment which now brought Mr Brass within his fair domain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A treacherous place to pick one's steps in, of a dark night,' muttered
+      Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some stray lumber, and
+      limped in pain. 'I believe that boy strews the ground differently every
+      day, on purpose to bruise and maim one; unless his master does it with his
+      own hands, which is more than likely. I hate to come to this place without
+      Sally. She's more protection than a dozen men.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr Brass
+      came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and over his
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's he about, I wonder?' murmured the lawyer, standing on tiptoe, and
+      endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing inside, which at that
+      distance was impossible&mdash;'drinking, I suppose,&mdash;making himself
+      more fiery and furious, and heating his malice and mischievousness till
+      they boil. I'm always afraid to come here by myself, when his account's a
+      pretty large one. I don't believe he'd mind throttling me, and dropping me
+      softly into the river when the tide was at its strongest, any more than
+      he'd mind killing a rat&mdash;indeed I don't know whether he wouldn't
+      consider it a pleasant joke. Hark! Now he's singing!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it
+      was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous repetition of
+      one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long stress upon the last
+      word, which he swelled into a dismal roar. Nor did the burden of this
+      performance bear any reference to love, or war, or wine, or loyalty, or
+      any other, the standard topics of song, but to a subject not often set to
+      music or generally known in ballads; the words being these:&mdash;'The
+      worthy magistrate, after remarking that the prisoner would find some
+      difficulty in persuading a jury to believe his tale, committed him to take
+      his trial at the approaching sessions; and directed the customary
+      recognisances to be entered into for the pros-e-cu-tion.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all possible
+      stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and began again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's dreadfully imprudent,' muttered Brass, after he had listened to two
+      or three repetitions of the chant. 'Horribly imprudent. I wish he was
+      dumb. I wish he was deaf. I wish he was blind. Hang him,' cried Brass, as
+      the chant began again. 'I wish he was dead!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client, Mr
+      Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and waiting
+      until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the wooden
+      house, and knocked at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come in!' cried the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How do you do to-night sir?' said Sampson, peeping in. 'Ha ha ha! How do
+      you do sir? Oh dear me, how very whimsical! Amazingly whimsical to be
+      sure!'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0444m.jpg" alt="0444m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0444.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'Come in, you fool!' returned the dwarf, 'and don't stand there shaking
+      your head and showing your teeth. Come in, you false witness, you
+      perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He has the richest humour!' cried Brass, shutting the door behind him;
+      'the most amazing vein of comicality! But isn't it rather injudicious, sir&mdash;?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What?' demanded Quilp. 'What, Judas?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Judas!' cried Brass. 'He has such extraordinary spirits! His humour is so
+      extremely playful! Judas! Oh yes&mdash;dear me, how very good! Ha ha ha!'
+</p>
+    <p>
+      All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with ludicrous
+      surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed figure-head of
+      some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a corner near the
+      stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the dwarf worshipped. A
+      mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim and distant semblance of a
+      cocked hat, together with a representation of a star on the left breast
+      and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the
+      effigy of some famous admiral; but, without those helps, any observer
+      might have supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman,
+      or great sea-monster. Being originally much too large for the apartment
+      which it was now employed to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the
+      waist. Even in this state it reached from floor to ceiling; and thrusting
+      itself forward, with that excessively wide-awake aspect, and air of
+      somewhat obtrusive politeness, by which figure-heads are usually
+      characterised, seemed to reduce everything else to mere pigmy proportions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you know it?' said the dwarf, watching Sampson's eyes. 'Do you see the
+      likeness?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Eh?' said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a little
+      back, as connoisseurs do. 'Now I look at it again, I fancy I see a&mdash;yes,
+      there certainly is something in the smile that reminds me of&mdash;and yet
+      upon my word I&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the
+      smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much perplexed;
+      being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like himself, and had
+      therefore bought it for a family portrait; or whether he was pleased to
+      consider it as the likeness of some enemy. He was not very long in doubt;
+      for, while he was surveying it with that knowing look which people assume
+      when they are contemplating for the first time portraits which they ought
+      to recognise but don't, the dwarf threw down the newspaper from which he
+      had been chanting the words already quoted, and seizing a rusty iron bar,
+      which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the figure such a stroke on the nose
+      that it rocked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it like Kit&mdash;is it his picture, his image, his very self?' cried
+      the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible countenance, and
+      covering it with deep dimples. 'Is it the exact model and counterpart of
+      the dog&mdash;is it&mdash;is it&mdash;is it?' And with every repetition of
+      the question, he battered the great image, until the perspiration streamed
+      down his face with the violence of the exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from a
+      secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable spectacle by
+      those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is better than a play
+      to people who don't live near it, there was something in the earnestness
+      of Mr Quilp's manner which made his legal adviser feel that the
+      counting-house was a little too small, and a deal too lonely, for the
+      complete enjoyment of these humours. Therefore, he stood as far off as he
+      could, while the dwarf was thus engaged; whimpering out but feeble
+      applause; and when Quilp left off and sat down again from pure exhaustion,
+      approached with more obsequiousness than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Excellent indeed!' cried Brass. 'He he! Oh, very good Sir. You know,'
+      said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised animal, 'he's
+      quite a remarkable man&mdash;quite!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sit down,' said the dwarf. 'I bought the dog yesterday. I've been
+      screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and cutting my
+      name on him. I mean to burn him at last.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha ha!' cried Brass. 'Extremely entertaining, indeed!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come here,' said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near. 'What's injudicious,
+      hey?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing Sir&mdash;nothing. Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I thought
+      that song&mdash;admirably humorous in itself you know&mdash;was perhaps
+      rather&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Quilp, 'rather what?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the confines of
+      injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,' returned Brass, looking timidly at the
+      dwarf's cunning eyes, which were turned towards the fire and reflected its
+      red light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why?' inquired Quilp, without looking up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, you know, sir,' returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar: '&mdash;the
+      fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings together, of
+      friends, for objects in themselves extremely laudable, but which the law
+      terms conspiracies, are&mdash;you take me, sir?&mdash;best kept snug and
+      among friends, you know.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Eh!' said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance. 'What do
+      you mean?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!' cried Brass,
+      nodding his head. 'Mum, sir, even here&mdash;my meaning, sir, exactly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '<i>Your </i>meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,&mdash;what's your meaning?'
+      retorted Quilp. 'Why do you talk to me of combining together? Do I
+      combine? Do I know anything about your combinings?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No no, sir&mdash;certainly not; not by any means,' returned Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you so wink and nod at me,' said the dwarf, looking about him as if
+      for his poker, 'I'll spoil the expression of your monkey's face, I will.'
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,' rejoined Brass, checking
+      himself with great alacrity. 'You're quite right, sir, quite right. I
+      shouldn't have mentioned the subject, sir. It's much better not to. You're
+      quite right, sir. Let us change it, if you please. You were asking, sir,
+      Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not returned, sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No?' said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching it
+      to prevent its boiling over. 'Why not?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, sir,' returned Brass, 'he&mdash;dear me, Mr Quilp, sir&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of
+      carrying the saucepan to his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have forgotten the water, sir,' said Brass. 'And&mdash;excuse me, sir&mdash;but
+      it's burning hot.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr Quilp
+      raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off all the
+      spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about half a pint,
+      and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the fire, bubbling
+      and hissing fiercely. Having swallowed this gentle stimulant, and shaken
+      his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr Brass proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But first,' said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, 'have a drop yourself&mdash;a
+      nice drop&mdash;a good, warm, fiery drop.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'if there was such a thing as a mouthful of
+      water that could be got without trouble&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's no such thing to be had here,' cried the dwarf. 'Water for
+      lawyers! Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering pitch
+      and tar&mdash;that's the thing for them&mdash;eh, Brass, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha ha ha!' laughed Mr Brass. 'Oh very biting! and yet it's like being
+      tickled&mdash;there's a pleasure in it too, sir!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Drink that,' said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more. 'Toss
+      it off, don't leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which
+      immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form came
+      rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the colour of his
+      face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a violent fit of
+      coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard to declare, with the
+      constancy of a martyr, that it was 'beautiful indeed!' While he was yet in
+      unspeakable agonies, the dwarf renewed their conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The lodger,' said Quilp, '&mdash;what about him?'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'He is still, sir,'
+      returned Brass, with intervals of coughing, 'stopping with the Garland
+      family. He has only been home once, Sir, since the day of the examination
+      of that culprit. He informed Mr Richard, sir, that he couldn't bear the
+      house after what had taken place; that he was wretched in it; and that he
+      looked upon himself as being in a certain kind of way the cause of the
+      occurrence.&mdash;A very excellent lodger Sir. I hope we may not lose
+      him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yah!' cried the dwarf. 'Never thinking of anybody but yourself&mdash;why
+      don't you retrench then&mdash;scrape up, hoard, economise, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'upon my word I think Sarah's as good an
+      economiser as any going. I do indeed, Mr Quilp.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink, man!' cried the dwarf. 'You
+      took a clerk to oblige me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,' replied Sampson. 'Yes, Sir, I
+      did.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then now you may discharge him,' said Quilp. 'There's a means of
+      retrenchment for you at once.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Discharge Mr Richard, sir?' cried Brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the question?
+      Yes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Upon my word, Sir,' said Brass, 'I wasn't prepared for this--'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How could you be?' sneered the dwarf, 'when I wasn't? How often am I to
+      tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have my eye on him
+      and know where he was&mdash;and that I had a plot, a scheme, a little
+      quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very cream and essence was,
+      that this old man and grandchild (who have sunk underground I think)
+      should be, while he and his precious friend believed them rich, in reality
+      as poor as frozen rats?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I quite understood that, sir,' rejoined Brass. 'Thoroughly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well, Sir,' retorted Quilp, 'and do you understand now, that they're not
+      poor&mdash;that they can't be, if they have such men as your lodger
+      searching for them, and scouring the country far and wide?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of course I do, Sir,' said Sampson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Of course you do,' retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his words.
+      'Of course do you understand then, that it's no matter what comes of this
+      fellow? of course do you understand that for any other purpose he's no man
+      for me, nor for you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,' returned Brass, 'that he was of no
+      use at all in the business. You can't put any confidence in him, sir. If
+      you'll believe me I've found that fellow, in the commonest little matters
+      of the office that have been trusted to him, blurting out the truth,
+      though expressly cautioned. The aggravation of that chap sir, has exceeded
+      anything you can imagine, it has indeed. Nothing but the respect and
+      obligation I owe to you, sir&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue, unless
+      he received a timely interruption, Mr Quilp politely tapped him on the
+      crown of his head with the little saucepan, and requested that he would be
+      so obliging as to hold his peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Practical, sir, practical,' said Brass, rubbing the place and smiling;
+      'but still extremely pleasant&mdash;immensely so!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Hearken to me, will you?' returned Quilp, 'or I'll be a little more
+      pleasant, presently. There's no chance of his comrade and friend
+      returning. The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn, for some
+      knavery, and has found his way abroad. Let him rot there.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly, sir. Quite proper.&mdash;Forcible!' cried Brass, glancing at
+      the admiral again, as if he made a third in company. 'Extremely forcible!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hate him,' said Quilp between his teeth, 'and have always hated him,
+      for family reasons. Besides, he was an intractable ruffian; otherwise he
+      would have been of use. This fellow is pigeon-hearted and light-headed. I
+      don't want him any longer. Let him hang or drown&mdash;starve&mdash;go to
+      the devil.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'By all means, sir,' returned Brass. 'When would you wish him, sir, to&mdash;ha,
+      ha!&mdash;to make that little excursion?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When this trial's over,' said Quilp. 'As soon as that's ended, send him
+      about his business.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It shall be done, sir,' returned Brass; 'by all means. It will be rather
+      a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under control. Ah, Mr
+      Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased Providence to bring you
+      and Sarah together, in earlier life, what blessed results would have
+      flowed from such a union! You never saw our dear father, sir?&mdash;A
+      charming gentleman. Sarah was his pride and joy, sir. He would have closed
+      his eyes in bliss, would Foxey, Mr Quilp, if he could have found her such
+      a partner. You esteem her, sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I love her,' croaked the dwarf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You're very good, Sir,' returned Brass, 'I am sure. Is there any other
+      order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little matter of Mr
+      Richard?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'None,' replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan. 'Let us drink the lovely
+      Sarah.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn't quite boiling,'
+      suggested Brass humbly, 'perhaps it would be better. I think it will be
+      more agreeable to Sarah's feelings, when she comes to hear from me of the
+      honour you have done her, if she learns it was in liquor rather cooler
+      than the last, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to these remonstrances, Mr Quilp turned a deaf ear. Sampson Brass, who
+      was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled to take further
+      draughts of the same strong bowl, found that, instead of at all
+      contributing to his recovery, they had the novel effect of making the
+      counting-house spin round and round with extreme velocity, and causing the
+      floor and ceiling to heave in a very distressing manner. After a brief
+      stupor, he awoke to a consciousness of being partly under the table and
+      partly under the grate. This position not being the most comfortable one
+      he could have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger to his feet, and,
+      holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass's first impression was, that his host was gone and had left him
+      there alone&mdash;perhaps locked him in for the night. A strong smell of
+      tobacco, however, suggested a new train of ideas, he looked upward, and
+      saw that the dwarf was smoking in his hammock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Good bye, Sir,' cried Brass faintly. 'Good bye, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Won't you stop all night?' said the dwarf, peeping out. 'Do stop all
+      night!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I couldn't indeed, Sir,' replied Brass, who was almost dead from nausea
+      and the closeness of the room. 'If you'd have the goodness to show me a
+      light, so that I may see my way across the yard, sir&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head first,
+      or his arms first, but bodily&mdash;altogether.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be sure,' he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only light
+      in the place. 'Be careful how you go, my dear friend. Be sure to pick your
+      way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are upwards. There's a dog
+      in the lane. He bit a man last night, and a woman the night before, and
+      last Tuesday he killed a child&mdash;but that was in play. Don't go too
+      near him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Which side of the road is he, sir?' asked Brass, in great dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He lives on the right hand,' said Quilp, 'but sometimes he hides on the
+      left, ready for a spring. He's uncertain in that respect. Mind you take
+      care of yourself. I'll never forgive you if you don't. There's the light
+      out&mdash;never mind&mdash;you know the way&mdash;straight on!' Quilp had
+      slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast, and now stood
+      chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture of delight, as he
+      heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now and then falling heavily
+      down. At length, however, he got quit of the place, and was out of
+      hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his hammock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap63"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 63
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he professional gentleman who had given Kit the consolatory piece of
+      information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business at the
+      Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon disposed of, turned
+      out to be quite correct in his prognostications. In eight days' time, the
+      sessions commenced. In one day afterwards, the Grand Jury found a True
+      Bill against Christopher Nubbles for felony; and in two days from that
+      finding, the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called upon to plead Guilty
+      or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the said Christopher did
+      feloniously abstract and steal from the dwelling-house and office of one
+      Sampson Brass, gentleman, one Bank Note for Five Pounds issued by the
+      Governor and Company of the Bank of England; in contravention of the
+      Statutes in that case made and provided, and against the peace of our
+      Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trembling voice,
+      pleaded Not Guilty; and here, let those who are in the habit of forming
+      hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had Christopher, if
+      innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe, that confinement and
+      anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and that to one who has been
+      close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing but stone
+      walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a great hall
+      filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling circumstance. To
+      this, it must be added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people
+      much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair;
+      and if, in addition to these considerations, there be taken into account
+      Kit's natural emotion on seeing the two Mr Garlands and the little Notary
+      looking on with pale and anxious faces, it will perhaps seem matter of no
+      very great wonder that he should have been rather out of sorts, and unable
+      to make himself quite at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although he had never seen either of the Mr Garlands, or Mr Witherden,
+      since the time of his arrest, he had been given to understand that they
+      had employed counsel for him. Therefore, when one of the gentlemen in wigs
+      got up and said 'I am for the prisoner, my Lord,' Kit made him a bow; and
+      when another gentleman in a wig got up and said 'And I'm against him, my
+      Lord,' Kit trembled very much, and bowed to him too. And didn't he hope in
+      his own heart that his gentleman was a match for the other gentleman, and
+      would make him ashamed of himself in no time!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in
+      dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly
+      procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune to
+      murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury that if
+      they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less pangs and
+      agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly undergo if
+      they convicted that prisoner. And when he had told them all about the
+      case, and that he had never known a worse case, he stopped a little while,
+      like a man who had something terrible to tell them, and then said that he
+      understood an attempt would be made by his learned friend (and here he
+      looked sideways at Kit's gentleman) to impeach the testimony of those
+      immaculate witnesses whom he should call before them; but he did hope and
+      trust that his learned friend would have a greater respect and veneration
+      for the character of the prosecutor; than whom, as he well knew, there did
+      not exist, and never had existed, a more honourable member of that most
+      honourable profession to which he was attached. And then he said, did the
+      jury know Bevis Marks? And if they did know Bevis Marks (as he trusted for
+      their own character, they did) did they know the historical and elevating
+      associations connected with that most remarkable spot? Did they believe
+      that a man like Brass could reside in a place like Bevis Marks, and not be
+      a virtuous and most upright character? And when he had said a great deal
+      to them on this point, he remembered that it was an insult to their
+      understandings to make any remarks on what they must have felt so strongly
+      without him, and therefore called Sampson Brass into the witness-box,
+      straightway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then up comes Mr Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to the
+      judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him before, and who
+      hopes he has been pretty well since their last meeting, folds his arms,
+      and looks at his gentleman as much as to say 'Here I am&mdash;full of
+      evidence&mdash;Tap me!' And the gentleman does tap him presently, and with
+      great discretion too; drawing off the evidence by little and little, and
+      making it run quite clear and bright in the eyes of all present. Then,
+      Kit's gentleman takes him in hand, but can make nothing of him; and after
+      a great many very long questions and very short answers, Mr Sampson Brass
+      goes down in glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by Mr
+      Brass's gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit's. In short, Kit's gentleman
+      can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she has said before
+      (only a little stronger this time, as against his client), and therefore
+      lets her go, in some confusion. Then, Mr Brass's gentleman calls Richard
+      Swiveller, and Richard Swiveller appears accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Mr Brass's gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this witness is
+      disposed to be friendly to the prisoner&mdash;which, to say the truth, he
+      is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered to lie in what is
+      familiarly termed badgering. Wherefore, he begins by requesting the
+      officer to be quite sure that this witness kisses the book, then goes to
+      work at him, tooth and nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Swiveller,' says this gentleman to Dick, when he had told his tale
+      with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it: 'Pray sir,
+      where did you dine yesterday?'&mdash;'Where did I dine yesterday?'&mdash;'Aye,
+      sir, where did you dine yesterday&mdash;was it near here, sir?'&mdash;'Oh
+      to be sure&mdash;yes&mdash;just over the way.'&mdash;'To be sure. Yes.
+      Just over the way,' repeats Mr Brass's gentleman, with a glance at the
+      court.&mdash;'Alone, sir?'&mdash;'I beg your pardon,' says Mr Swiveller,
+      who has not caught the question&mdash;'Alone, sir?' repeats Mr Brass's
+      gentleman in a voice of thunder, 'did you dine alone? Did you treat
+      anybody, sir? Come!'&mdash;'Oh yes, to be sure&mdash;yes, I did,' says Mr
+      Swiveller with a smile.&mdash;'Have the goodness to banish a levity, sir,
+      which is very ill-suited to the place in which you stand (though perhaps
+      you have reason to be thankful that it's only that place),' says Mr
+      Brass's gentleman, with a nod of the head, insinuating that the dock is Mr
+      Swiveller's legitimate sphere of action; 'and attend to me. You were
+      waiting about here, yesterday, in expectation that this trial was coming
+      on. You dined over the way. You treated somebody. Now, was that somebody
+      brother to the prisoner at the bar?'&mdash;Mr Swiveller is proceeding to
+      explain&mdash;'Yes or No, sir,' cries Mr Brass's gentleman&mdash;'But will
+      you allow me&mdash;'&mdash;'Yes or No, sir'&mdash;'Yes it was, but&mdash;'&mdash;'Yes
+      it was,' cries the gentleman, taking him up short. 'And a very pretty
+      witness <i>you </i>are!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down sits Mr Brass's gentleman. Kit's gentleman, not knowing how the
+      matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject. Richard Swiveller
+      retires abashed. Judge, jury and spectators have visions of his lounging
+      about, with an ill-looking, large-whiskered, dissolute young fellow of six
+      feet high. The reality is, little Jacob, with the calves of his legs
+      exposed to the open air, and himself tied up in a shawl. Nobody knows the
+      truth; everybody believes a falsehood; and all because of the ingenuity of
+      Mr Brass's gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then come the witnesses to character, and here Mr Brass's gentleman shines
+      again. It turns out that Mr Garland has had no character with Kit, no
+      recommendation of him but from his own mother, and that he was suddenly
+      dismissed by his former master for unknown reasons. 'Really Mr Garland,'
+      says Mr Brass's gentleman, 'for a person who has arrived at your time of
+      life, you are, to say the least of it, singularly indiscreet, I think.'
+      The jury think so too, and find Kit guilty. He is taken off, humbly
+      protesting his innocence. The spectators settle themselves in their places
+      with renewed attention, for there are several female witnesses to be
+      examined in the next case, and it has been rumoured that Mr Brass's
+      gentleman will make great fun in cross-examining them for the prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit's mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs,
+      accompanied by Barbara's mother (who, honest soul! never does anything but
+      cry, and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues. The newspaper-reading
+      turnkey has told them all. He don't think it will be transportation for
+      life, because there's time to prove the good character yet, and that is
+      sure to serve him. He wonders what he did it for. 'He never did it!' cries
+      Kit's mother. 'Well,' says the turnkey, 'I won't contradict you. It's all
+      one, now, whether he did it or not.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit's mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it&mdash;
+      God, and those to whom he has given such tenderness, only know in how much
+      agony. Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under pretence of having the
+      children lifted up to kiss him, prays Barbara's mother in a whisper to
+      take her home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Some friend will rise up for us, mother,' cried Kit, 'I am sure. If not
+      now, before long. My innocence will come out, mother, and I shall be
+      brought back again; I feel confidence in that. You must teach little Jacob
+      and the baby how all this was, for if they thought I had ever been
+      dishonest, when they grew old enough to understand, it would break my
+      heart to know it, if I was thousands of miles away.&mdash;Oh! is there no
+      good gentleman here, who will take care of her!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon the
+      earth, insensible. Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows the
+      bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in one arm after
+      the manner of theatrical ravishers, and, nodding to Kit, and commanding
+      Barbara's mother to follow, for he has a coach waiting, bears her swiftly
+      off.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0454m.jpg" alt="0454m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0454.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Well; Richard took her home. And what astonishing absurdities in the way
+      of quotation from song and poem he perpetrated on the road, no man knows.
+      He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered; and, having no money
+      to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis Marks, bidding the driver
+      (for it was Saturday night) wait at the door while he went in for
+      'change.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr Richard, sir,' said Brass cheerfully, 'Good evening!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monstrous as Kit's tale had appeared, at first, Mr Richard did, that
+      night, half suspect his affable employer of some deep villany. Perhaps it
+      was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his careless nature
+      this impulse; but, be that as it may, it was very strong upon him, and he
+      said in as few words as possible, what he wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Money?' cried Brass, taking out his purse. 'Ha ha! To be sure, Mr
+      Richard, to be sure, sir. All men must live. You haven't change for a
+      five-pound note, have you sir?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No,' returned Dick, shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Brass, 'here's the very sum. That saves trouble. You're very
+      welcome I'm sure.&mdash;Mr Richard, sir&mdash;' Dick, who had by this time
+      reached the door, turned round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You needn't,' said Brass, 'trouble yourself to come back any more, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You see, Mr Richard,' said Brass, thrusting his hands in his pockets, and
+      rocking himself to and fro on his stool, 'the fact is, that a man of your
+      abilities is lost, Sir, quite lost, in our dry and mouldy line. It's
+      terrible drudgery&mdash;shocking. I should say, now, that the stage, or
+      the&mdash;or the army, Mr Richard&mdash;or something very superior in the
+      licensed victualling way&mdash;was the kind of thing that would call out
+      the genius of such a man as you. I hope you'll look in to see us now and
+      then. Sally, Sir, will be delighted I'm sure. She's extremely sorry to
+      lose you, Mr Richard, but a sense of her duty to society reconciles her.
+      An amazing creature that, sir! You'll find the money quite correct, I
+      think. There's a cracked window sir, but I've not made any deduction on
+      that account. Whenever we part with friends, Mr Richard, let us part
+      liberally. A delightful sentiment, sir!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To all these rambling observations, Mr Swiveller answered not one word,
+      but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight round ball:
+      looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some intention of bowling
+      him down with it. He only took it under his arm, however, and marched out
+      of the office in profound silence. When he had closed the door, he
+      re-opened it, stared in again for a few moments with the same portentous
+      gravity, and nodding his head once, in a slow and ghost-like manner,
+      vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with great
+      designs for the comforting of Kit's mother and the aid of Kit himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard Swiveller,
+      are extremely precarious. The spiritual excitement of the last fortnight,
+      working upon a system affected in no slight degree by the spirituous
+      excitement of some years, proved a little too much for him. That very
+      night, Mr Richard was seized with an alarming illness, and in twenty-four
+      hours was stricken with a raging fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap64"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 64
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>ossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce thirst
+      which nothing could appease; unable to find, in any change of posture, a
+      moment's peace or ease; and rambling, ever, through deserts of thought
+      where there was no resting-place, no sight or sound suggestive of
+      refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull eternal weariness, with no
+      change but the restless shiftings of his miserable body, and the weary
+      wandering of his mind, constant still to one ever-present anxiety&mdash;to
+      a sense of something left undone, of some fearful obstacle to be
+      surmounted, of some carking care that would not be driven away, and which
+      haunted the distempered brain, now in this form, now in that, always
+      shadowy and dim, but recognisable for the same phantom in every shape it
+      took: darkening every vision like an evil conscience, and making slumber
+      horrible&mdash;in these slow tortures of his dread disease, the
+      unfortunate Richard lay wasting and consuming inch by inch, until, at
+      last, when he seemed to fight and struggle to rise up, and to be held down
+      by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and dreamed no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He awoke. With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than sleep
+      itself, he began gradually to remember something of these sufferings, and
+      to think what a long night it had been, and whether he had not been
+      delirious twice or thrice. Happening, in the midst of these cogitations,
+      to raise his hand, he was astonished to find how heavy it seemed, and yet
+      how thin and light it really was. Still, he felt indifferent and happy;
+      and having no curiosity to pursue the subject, remained in the same waking
+      slumber until his attention was attracted by a cough. This made him doubt
+      whether he had locked his door last night, and feel a little surprised at
+      having a companion in the room. Still, he lacked energy to follow up this
+      train of thought; and unconsciously fell, in a luxury of repose, to
+      staring at some green stripes on the bed-furniture, and associating them
+      strangely with patches of fresh turf, while the yellow ground between made
+      gravel-walks, and so helped out a long perspective of trim gardens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite lost
+      himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more. The walks
+      shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising himself a little in
+      the bed, and holding the curtain open with one hand, he looked out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same room certainly, and still by candlelight; but with what unbounded
+      astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins, and articles of
+      linen airing by the fire, and such-like furniture of a sick chamber&mdash;all
+      very clean and neat, but all quite different from anything he had left
+      there, when he went to bed! The atmosphere, too, filled with a cool smell
+      of herbs and vinegar; the floor newly sprinkled; the&mdash;the what? The
+      Marchioness?
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0458m.jpg" alt="0458m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0458.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table. There she sat, intent
+      upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as if she feared
+      to disturb him&mdash;shuffling the cards, cutting, dealing, playing,
+      counting, pegging&mdash;going through all the mysteries of cribbage as if
+      she had been in full practice from her cradle! Mr Swiveller contemplated
+      these things for a short time, and suffering the curtain to fall into its
+      former position, laid his head on the pillow again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm dreaming,' thought Richard, 'that's clear. When I went to bed, my
+      hands were not made of egg-shells; and now I can almost see through 'em.
+      If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake, in an Arabian Night,
+      instead of a London one. But I have no doubt I'm asleep. Not the least.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the small servant had another cough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very remarkable!' thought Mr Swiveller. 'I never dreamt such a real cough
+      as that before. I don't know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either a cough or
+      a sneeze. Perhaps it's part of the philosophy of dreams that one never
+      does. There's another&mdash;and another&mdash;I say!&mdash;I'm dreaming
+      rather fast!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr Swiveller, after some
+      reflection, pinched himself in the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Queerer still!' he thought. 'I came to bed rather plump than otherwise,
+      and now there's nothing to lay hold of. I'll take another survey.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr Swiveller
+      that the objects by which he was surrounded were real, and that he saw
+      them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's an Arabian Night; that's what it is,' said Richard. 'I'm in Damascus
+      or Grand Cairo. The Marchioness is a Genie, and having had a wager with
+      another Genie about who is the handsomest young man alive, and the
+      worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of China, has brought me away,
+      room and all, to compare us together. Perhaps,' said Mr Swiveller, turning
+      languidly round on his pillow, and looking on that side of his bed which
+      was next the wall, 'the Princess may be still&mdash;No, she's gone.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking it to
+      be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and doubt, Mr
+      Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take the first
+      favourable opportunity of addressing his companion. An occasion presented
+      itself. The Marchioness dealt, turned up a knave, and omitted to take the
+      usual advantage; upon which Mr Swiveller called out as loud as he could&mdash;'Two
+      for his heels!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marchioness jumped up quickly and clapped her hands. 'Arabian Night,
+      certainly,' thought Mr Swiveller; 'they always clap their hands instead of
+      ringing the bell. Now for the two thousand black slaves, with jars of
+      jewels on their heads!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy; for
+      directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry; declaring, not in
+      choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was 'so glad, she didn't
+      know what to do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, thoughtfully, 'be pleased to draw
+      nearer. First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me where I
+      shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my flesh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again; whereupon
+      Mr Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected likewise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appearances, Marchioness,'
+      said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a trembling lip, 'that I have
+      been ill.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You just have!' replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. 'And haven't
+      you been a talking nonsense!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Dick. 'Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Dead, all but,' replied the small servant. 'I never thought you'd get
+      better. Thank Heaven you have!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller was silent for a long while. By and bye, he began to talk
+      again, inquiring how long he had been there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Three weeks to-morrow,' replied the servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Three what?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Weeks,' returned the Marchioness emphatically; 'three long, slow weeks.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard to fall
+      into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his full length. The
+      Marchioness, having arranged the bed-clothes more comfortably, and felt
+      that his hands and forehead were quite cool&mdash;a discovery that filled
+      her with delight&mdash;cried a little more, and then applied herself to
+      getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While she was thus engaged, Mr Swiveller looked on with a grateful heart,
+      very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made herself, and
+      attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally Brass, whom, in his
+      own mind, he could not thank enough. When the Marchioness had finished her
+      toasting, she spread a clean cloth on a tray, and brought him some crisp
+      slices and a great basin of weak tea, with which (she said) the doctor had
+      left word he might refresh himself when he awoke. She propped him up with
+      pillows, if not as skilfully as if she had been a professional nurse all
+      her life, at least as tenderly; and looked on with unutterable
+      satisfaction while the patient&mdash;stopping every now and then to shake
+      her by the hand&mdash;took his poor meal with an appetite and relish,
+      which the greatest dainties of the earth, under any other circumstances,
+      would have failed to provoke. Having cleared away, and disposed everything
+      comfortably about him again, she sat down at the table to take her own
+      tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'how's Sally?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very
+      uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What, haven't you seen her lately?' said Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Seen her!' cried the small servant. 'Bless you, I've run away!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so
+      remained for about five minutes. By slow degrees he resumed his sitting
+      posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And where do you live, Marchioness?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Live!' cried the small servant. 'Here!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Mr Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been shot.
+      Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had finished
+      her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth; when he
+      motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and, being propped up again,
+      opened a farther conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And so,' said Dick, 'you have run away?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said the Marchioness, 'and they've been a tizing of me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Been&mdash;I beg your pardon,' said Dick&mdash;'what have they been
+      doing?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Been a tizing of me&mdash;tizing you know&mdash;in the newspapers,'
+      rejoined the Marchioness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye, aye,' said Dick, 'advertising?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were so red with waking and
+      crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater consistency.
+      And so Dick felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tell me,' said he, 'how it was that you thought of coming here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, you see,' returned the Marchioness, 'when you was gone, I hadn't any
+      friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn't know
+      where either him or you was to be found, you know. But one morning, when I
+      was&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Was near a keyhole?' suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well then,' said the small servant, nodding; 'when I was near the office
+      keyhole&mdash;as you see me through, you know&mdash;I heard somebody
+      saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at,
+      and that you was took very bad, and wouldn't nobody come and take care of
+      you. Mr Brass, he says, "It's no business of mine," he says; and Miss
+      Sally, she says, "He's a funny chap, but it's no business of mine;" and
+      the lady went away, and slammed the door to, when she went out, I can tell
+      you. So I run away that night, and come here, and told 'em you was my
+      brother, and they believed me, and I've been here ever since.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death!' cried
+      Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No I haven't,' she returned, 'not a bit of it. Don't you mind about me. I
+      like sitting up, and I've often had a sleep, bless you, in one of them
+      chairs. But if you could have seen how you tried to jump out o' winder,
+      and if you could have heard how you used to keep on singing and making
+      speeches, you wouldn't have believed it&mdash;I'm so glad you're better,
+      Mr Liverer.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Liverer indeed!' said Dick thoughtfully. 'It's well I am a liverer. I
+      strongly suspect I should have died, Marchioness, but for you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point, Mr Swiveller took the small servant's hand in his again,
+      and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling to express his
+      thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that she quickly changed the
+      theme by making him lie down, and urging him to keep very quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The doctor,' she told him, 'said you was to be kept quite still, and
+      there was to be no noise nor nothing. Now, take a rest, and then we'll
+      talk again. I'll sit by you, you know. If you shut your eyes, perhaps
+      you'll go to sleep. You'll be all the better for it, if you do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to the
+      bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the concoction of
+      some cooling drink, with the address of a score of chemists. Richard
+      Swiveller being indeed fatigued, fell into a slumber, and waking in about
+      half an hour, inquired what time it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Just gone half after six,' replied his small friend, helping him to sit
+      up again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Marchioness,' said Richard, passing his hand over his forehead and
+      turning suddenly round, as though the subject but that moment flashed upon
+      him, 'what has become of Kit?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has he gone?' asked Dick&mdash;'his mother&mdash;how is she,&mdash;what
+      has become of her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about them.
+      'But, if I thought,' said she, very slowly, 'that you'd keep quiet, and
+      not put yourself into another fever, I could tell you&mdash;but I won't
+      now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, do,' said Dick. 'It will amuse me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! would it though!' rejoined the small servant, with a horrified look.
+      'I know better than that. Wait till you're better and then I'll tell you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes, being large
+      and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so much, that she was
+      quite frightened, and besought him not to think any more about it. What
+      had already fallen from her, however, had not only piqued his curiosity,
+      but seriously alarmed him, wherefore he urged her to tell him the worst at
+      once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh there's no worst in it,' said the small servant. 'It hasn't anything
+      to do with you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has it anything to do with&mdash;is it anything you heard through chinks
+      or keyholes&mdash;and that you were not intended to hear?' asked Dick, in
+      a breathless state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' replied the small servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In&mdash;in Bevis Marks?' pursued Dick hastily. 'Conversations between
+      Brass and Sally?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' cried the small servant again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her by the
+      wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and freely too,
+      or he would not answer for the consequences; being wholly unable to endure
+      the state of excitement and expectation. She, seeing that he was greatly
+      agitated, and that the effects of postponing her revelation might be much
+      more injurious than any that were likely to ensue from its being made at
+      once, promised compliance, on condition that the patient kept himself
+      perfectly quiet, and abstained from starting up or tossing about.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But if you begin to do that,' said the small servant, 'I'll leave off.
+      And so I tell you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You can't leave off, till you have gone on,' said Dick. 'And do go on,
+      there's a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say. Oh tell me
+      when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller poured
+      out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and tremendous
+      nature, his companion spoke thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen&mdash;where we
+      played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen
+      door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the
+      candle and rake out the fire. When she had done that, she left me to go to
+      bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in her pocket
+      again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the morning&mdash;very
+      early I can tell you&mdash;and let me out. I was terrible afraid of being
+      kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought they might forget
+      me and only take care of themselves you know. So, whenever I see an old
+      rusty key anywhere, I picked it up and tried if it would fit the door, and
+      at last I found in the dust cellar a key that did fit it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But the
+      small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and
+      pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to
+      proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They kept me very short,' said the small servant. 'Oh! you can't think
+      how short they kept me! So I used to come out at night after they'd gone
+      to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or sangwitches
+      that you'd left in the office, or even pieces of orange peel to put into
+      cold water and make believe it was wine. Did you ever taste orange peel
+      and water?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and once
+      more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you make believe very much, it's quite nice,' said the small servant,
+      'but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more
+      seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come out after they'd gone
+      to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or two nights before there
+      was all that precious noise in the office&mdash;when the young man was
+      took, I mean&mdash;I come upstairs while Mr Brass and Miss Sally was
+      a-sittin' at the office fire; and I tell you the truth, that I come to
+      listen again, about the key of the safe.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the
+      bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the utmost
+      concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up her finger, the
+      cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There was him and her,' said the small servant, 'a-sittin' by the fire,
+      and talking softly together. Mr Brass says to Miss Sally, "Upon my word,"
+      he says "it's a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a world of
+      trouble, and I don't half like it." She says&mdash;you know her way&mdash;she
+      says, "You're the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I ever see,
+      and I think," she says, "that I ought to have been the brother, and you
+      the sister. Isn't Quilp," she says, "our principal support?" "He certainly
+      is," says Mr Brass, "And an't we," she says, "constantly ruining somebody
+      or other in the way of business?" "We certainly are," says Mr Brass. "Then
+      does it signify," she says, "about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires
+      it?" "It certainly does not signify," says Mr Brass. Then they whispered
+      and laughed for a long time about there being no danger if it was well
+      done, and then Mr Brass pulls out his pocket-book, and says, "Well," he
+      says, "here it is&mdash;Quilp's own five-pound note. We'll agree that way,
+      then," he says. "Kit's coming to-morrow morning, I know. While he's
+      up-stairs, you'll get out of the way, and I'll clear off Mr Richard.
+      Having Kit alone, I'll hold him in conversation, and put this property in
+      his hat. I'll manage so, besides," he says, "that Mr Richard shall find it
+      there, and be the evidence. And if that don't get Christopher out of Mr
+      Quilp's way, and satisfy Mr Quilp's grudges," he says, "the Devil's in
+      it." Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to
+      be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went down-stairs
+      again.&mdash;There!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation as
+      Mr Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he sat up
+      in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to anybody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'How could it be?' replied his nurse. 'I was almost afraid to think about
+      it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I heard 'em say they
+      had found him guilty of what he didn't do, you was gone, and so was the
+      lodger&mdash;though I think I should have been frightened to tell him,
+      even if he'd been there. Ever since I come here, you've been out of your
+      senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, plucking off his nightcap and flinging
+      it to the other end of the room; 'if you'll do me the favour to retire for
+      a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I'll get up.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You mustn't think of such a thing,' cried his nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I must indeed,' said the patient, looking round the room. 'Whereabouts
+      are my clothes?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh, I'm so glad&mdash;you haven't got any,' replied the Marchioness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ma'am!' said Mr Swiveller, in great astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I've been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was
+      ordered for you. But don't take on about that,' urged the Marchioness, as
+      Dick fell back upon his pillow. 'You're too weak to stand, indeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am afraid,' said Richard dolefully, 'that you're right. What ought I to
+      do! what is to be done!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the first
+      step to take would be to communicate with one of the Mr Garlands
+      instantly. It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet left the office.
+      In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant had the
+      address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of father and
+      son, which would enable her to recognise either, without difficulty; and a
+      special caution to be shy of Mr Chuckster, in consequence of that
+      gentleman's known antipathy to Kit. Armed with these slender powers, she
+      hurried away, commissioned to bring either old Mr Garland or Mr Abel,
+      bodily, to that apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I suppose,' said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into the
+      room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, 'I suppose there's
+      nothing left&mdash;not so much as a waistcoat even?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, nothing.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's embarrassing,' said Mr Swiveller, 'in case of fire&mdash;even an
+      umbrella would be something&mdash;but you did quite right, dear
+      Marchioness. I should have died without you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap65"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 65
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick nature,
+      or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very neighbourhood
+      in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would probably have been
+      the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme authority over her
+      person. Not unmindful of the risk she ran, however, the Marchioness no
+      sooner left the house than she dived into the first dark by-way that
+      presented itself, and, without any present reference to the point to which
+      her journey tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of
+      brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course for
+      the notary's office, to which&mdash;shrewdly inquiring of apple-women and
+      oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or of
+      well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice&mdash;she easily
+      procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in a
+      strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting off
+      towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the Marchioness
+      flutter round and round until she believed herself in safety, and then
+      bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was bound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had no bonnet&mdash;nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some
+      old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses was,
+      as we have seen, peculiar&mdash;and her speed was rather retarded than
+      assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew off
+      every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the crowd of
+      passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so much trouble
+      and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress in mud and
+      kennel, and suffered in these researches so much jostling, pushing,
+      squeezing and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the
+      street in which the notary lived, she was fairly worn out and exhausted,
+      and could not refrain from tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as there
+      were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore some hope
+      that she was not too late. So the Marchioness dried her eyes with the
+      backs of her hands, and, stealing softly up the steps, peeped in through
+      the glass door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such
+      preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down his
+      wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, settling his neck more
+      gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers by the aid of
+      a little triangular bit of looking glass. Before the ashes of the fire
+      stood two gentlemen, one of whom she rightly judged to be the notary, and
+      the other (who was buttoning his great-coat and was evidently about to
+      depart immediately) Mr Abel Garland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with herself,
+      and resolved to wait in the street until Mr Abel came out, as there would
+      be then no fear of having to speak before Mr Chuckster, and less
+      difficulty in delivering her message. With this purpose she slipped out
+      again, and crossing the road, sat down upon a door-step just opposite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had hardly taken this position, when there came dancing up the street,
+      with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns, a pony. This
+      pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in it; but neither man nor
+      phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the least, as he reared up on his hind
+      legs, or stopped, or went on, or stood still again, or backed, or went
+      side-ways, without the smallest reference to them&mdash;just as the fancy
+      seized him, and as if he were the freest animal in creation. When they
+      came to the notary's door, the man called out in a very respectful manner,
+      'Woa then'&mdash;intimating that if he might venture to express a wish, it
+      would be that they stopped there. The pony made a moment's pause; but, as
+      if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required might be to
+      establish an inconvenient and dangerous precedent, he immediately started
+      off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street corner, wheeled round,
+      came back, and then stopped of his own accord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh! you're a precious creatur!' said the man&mdash;who didn't venture by
+      the bye to come out in his true colours until he was safe on the pavement.
+      'I wish I had the rewarding of you&mdash;I do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What has he been doing?' said Mr Abel, tying a shawl round his neck as he
+      came down the steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He's enough to fret a man's heart out,' replied the hostler. 'He is the
+      most wicious rascal&mdash;Woa then, will you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He'll never stand still, if you call him names,' said Mr Abel, getting
+      in, and taking the reins. 'He's a very good fellow if you know how to
+      manage him. This is the first time he has been out, this long while, for
+      he has lost his old driver and wouldn't stir for anybody else, till this
+      morning. The lamps are right, are they? That's well. Be here to take him
+      to-morrow, if you please. Good night!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention, the
+      pony yielded to Mr Abel's mildness, and trotted gently off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time Mr Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the small
+      servant had been afraid to approach. She had nothing for it now,
+      therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr Abel to stop.
+      Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was unable to make him
+      hear. The case was desperate; for the pony was quickening his pace. The
+      Marchioness hung on behind for a few moments, and, feeling that she could
+      go no farther, and must soon yield, clambered by a vigorous effort into
+      the hinder seat, and in so doing lost one of the shoes for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite enough to do
+      to keep the pony going, went jogging on without looking round: little
+      dreaming of the strange figure that was close behind him, until the Marchioness,
+      having in some degree recovered her breath, and the loss of her shoe, and
+      the novelty of her position, uttered close into his ear, the words&mdash;'I
+      say, Sir'&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony, cried, with
+      some trepidation, 'God bless me, what is this!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Don't be frightened, Sir,' replied the still panting messenger. 'Oh I've
+      run such a way after you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What do you want with me?' said Mr Abel. 'How did you come here?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I got in behind,' replied the Marchioness. 'Oh please drive on, sir&mdash;don't
+      stop&mdash;and go towards the City, will you? And oh do please make haste,
+      because it's of consequence. There's somebody wants to see you there. He
+      sent me to say would you come directly, and that he knowed all about Kit,
+      and could save him yet, and prove his innocence.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What do you tell me, child?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The truth, upon my word and honour I do. But please to drive on&mdash;
+      quick, please! I've been such a time gone, he'll think I'm lost.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward. The pony, impelled by some
+      secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great pace, and neither
+      slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric performances, until they
+      arrived at the door of Mr Swiveller's lodging, where, marvellous to
+      relate, he consented to stop when Mr Abel checked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'See! It's the room up there,' said the Marchioness, pointing to one where
+      there was a faint light. 'Come!'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0468m.jpg" alt="0468m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0468.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Mr Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in
+      existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated; for he had heard of
+      people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and murdered, under
+      circumstances very like the present, and, for anything he knew to the
+      contrary, by guides very like the Marchioness. His regard for Kit,
+      however, overcame every other consideration. So, entrusting Whisker to the
+      charge of a man who was lingering hard by in expectation of the job, he
+      suffered his companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the dark and
+      narrow stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a
+      dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'An't it nice to see him lying there so quiet?' said his guide, in an
+      earnest whisper. 'Oh! you'd say it was, if you had only seen him two or
+      three days ago.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from the
+      bed and very near the door. His guide, who appeared to understand his
+      reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her hand, approached the
+      bed. As she did so, the sleeper started up, and he recognised in the
+      wasted face the features of Richard Swiveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, how is this?' said Mr Abel kindly, as he hurried towards him. 'You
+      have been ill?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very,' replied Dick. 'Nearly dead. You might have chanced to hear of your
+      Richard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to fetch you. Another shake
+      of the hand, Marchioness, if you please. Sit down, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his guide, and
+      took a chair by the bedside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have sent for you, Sir,' said Dick&mdash;'but she told you on what
+      account?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She did. I am quite bewildered by all this. I really don't know what to
+      say or think,' replied Mr Abel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll say that presently,' retorted Dick. 'Marchioness, take a seat on
+      the bed, will you? Now, tell this gentleman all that you told me; and be
+      particular. Don't you speak another word, Sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The story was repeated; it was, in effect, exactly the same as before,
+      without any deviation or omission. Richard Swiveller kept his eyes fixed
+      on his visitor during its narration, and directly it was concluded, took
+      the word again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have heard it all, and you'll not forget it. I'm too giddy and too
+      queer to suggest anything; but you and your friends will know what to do.
+      After this long delay, every minute is an age. If ever you went home fast
+      in your life, go home fast to-night. Don't stop to say one word to me, but
+      go. She will be found here, whenever she's wanted; and as to me, you're
+      pretty sure to find me at home, for a week or two. There are more reasons
+      than one for that. Marchioness, a light! If you lose another minute in
+      looking at me, sir, I'll never forgive you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion. He was gone in an
+      instant; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him down-stairs,
+      reported that the pony, without any preliminary objection whatever, had
+      dashed away at full gallop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's right!' said Dick; 'and hearty of him; and I honour him from this
+      time. But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am sure you must be
+      tired. Do have a mug of beer. It will do me as much good to see you take
+      it as if I might drink it myself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small nurse to
+      indulge in such a luxury. Having eaten and drunk to Mr Swiveller's extreme
+      contentment, given him his drink, and put everything in neat order, she
+      wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug before the
+      fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, 'Strew then, oh
+      strew, a bed of rushes. Here will we stay, till morning blushes. Good
+      night, Marchioness!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap66"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 66
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>n awaking in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by slow
+      degrees, of whispering voices in his room. Looking out between the
+      curtains, he espied Mr Garland, Mr Abel, the notary, and the single
+      gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and talking to her with great
+      earnestness but in very subdued tones&mdash;fearing, no doubt, to disturb
+      him. He lost no time in letting them know that this precaution was
+      unnecessary, and all four gentlemen directly approached his bedside. Old
+      Mr Garland was the first to stretch out his hand, and inquire how he felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as weak as
+      need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside and pressing up
+      to his pillow as if in jealousy of their interference, set his breakfast
+      before him, and insisted on his taking it before he underwent the fatigue
+      of speaking or of being spoken to. Mr Swiveller, who was perfectly
+      ravenous, and had had, all night, amazingly distinct and consistent dreams
+      of mutton chops, double stout, and similar delicacies, felt even the weak
+      tea and dry toast such irresistible temptations, that he consented to eat
+      and drink on one condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And that is,' said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr Garland's hand,
+      'that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit or drop. Is
+      it too late?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For completing the work you began so well last night?' returned the old
+      gentleman. 'No. Set your mind at rest on that point. It is not, I assure
+      you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his food
+      with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest in the
+      eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat. The manner of
+      this meal was this:&mdash;Mr Swiveller, holding the slice of toast or cup
+      of tea in his left hand, and taking a bite or drink, as the case might be,
+      constantly kept, in his right, one palm of the Marchioness tight locked;
+      and to shake, or even to kiss this imprisoned hand, he would stop every
+      now and then, in the very act of swallowing, with perfect seriousness of
+      intention, and the utmost gravity. As often as he put anything into his
+      mouth, whether for eating or drinking, the face of the Marchioness lighted
+      up beyond all description; but whenever he gave her one or other of these
+      tokens of recognition, her countenance became overshadowed, and she began
+      to sob. Now, whether she was in her laughing joy, or in her crying one,
+      the Marchioness could not help turning to the visitors with an appealing
+      look, which seemed to say, 'You see this fellow&mdash;can I help this?'&mdash;and
+      they, being thus made, as it were, parties to the scene, as regularly
+      answered by another look, 'No. Certainly not.' This dumb-show, taking
+      place during the whole time of the invalid's breakfast, and the invalid
+      himself, pale and emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may
+      be fairly questioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was
+      spoken from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in
+      themselves so slight and unimportant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length&mdash;and to say the truth before very long&mdash;Mr Swiveller
+      had despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his recovery it
+      was discreet to let him have. But the cares of the Marchioness did not
+      stop here; for, disappearing for an instant and presently returning with a
+      basin of fair water, she laved his face and hands, brushed his hair, and
+      in short made him as spruce and smart as anybody under such circumstances
+      could be made; and all this, in as brisk and business-like a manner, as if
+      he were a very little boy, and she his grown-up nurse. To these various
+      attentions, Mr Swiveller submitted in a kind of grateful astonishment
+      beyond the reach of language. When they were at last brought to an end,
+      and the Marchioness had withdrawn into a distant corner to take her own
+      poor breakfast (cold enough by that time), he turned his face away for
+      some few moments, and shook hands heartily with the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Gentlemen,' said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and turning round
+      again, 'you'll excuse me. Men who have been brought so low as I have been,
+      are easily fatigued. I am fresh again now, and fit for talking. We're
+      short of chairs here, among other trifles, but if you'll do me the favour
+      to sit upon the bed&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What can we do for you?' said Mr Garland, kindly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real, sober
+      earnest,' returned Dick, 'I'd thank you to get it done off-hand. But as
+      you can't, and as the question is not what you will do for me, but what
+      you will do for somebody else who has a better claim upon you, pray sir
+      let me know what you intend doing.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It's chiefly on that account that we have come just now,' said the single
+      gentleman, 'for you will have another visitor presently. We feared you
+      would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what steps we intended to
+      take, and therefore came to you before we stirred in the matter.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Gentlemen,' returned Dick, 'I thank you. Anybody in the helpless state
+      that you see me in, is naturally anxious. Don't let me interrupt you,
+      sir.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then, you see, my good fellow,' said the single gentleman, 'that while we
+      have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure, which has so
+      providentially come to light&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Meaning hers?' said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;Meaning hers, of course. While we have no doubt of that, or that a
+      proper use of it would procure the poor lad's immediate pardon and
+      liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable us
+      to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany. I should tell you that
+      this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly approaching
+      certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in this short space
+      of time, to take upon the subject. You'll agree with us, that to give him
+      even the most distant chance of escape, if we could help it, would be
+      monstrous. You say with us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be
+      any one but he.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' returned Dick, 'certainly. That is if somebody must&mdash;but upon
+      my word, I'm unwilling that anybody should. Since laws were made for every
+      degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me&mdash;and so forth you
+      know&mdash;doesn't it strike you in that light?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller had put
+      the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to explain
+      that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem in the first instance; and
+      that their design was to endeavour to extort a confession from the gentle
+      Sarah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,' he said, 'and that
+      she is clearly compromised already, we are not without strong hopes that
+      we may be enabled through her means to punish the other two effectually.
+      If we could do that, she might go scot-free for aught I cared.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner, representing
+      with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing, that they would
+      find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to manage than Quilp
+      himself&mdash;that, for any tampering, terrifying, or cajolery, she was a
+      very unpromising and unyielding subject&mdash;that she was of a kind of
+      brass not easily melted or moulded into shape&mdash;in short, that they
+      were no match for her, and would be signally defeated. But it was in vain
+      to urge them to adopt some other course. The single gentleman has been
+      described as explaining their joint intentions, but it should have been
+      written that they all spoke together; that if any one of them by chance
+      held his peace for a moment, he stood gasping and panting for an
+      opportunity to strike in again: in a word, that they had reached that
+      pitch of impatience and anxiety where men can neither be persuaded nor
+      reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to turn the most
+      impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to reconsider their
+      determination. So, after telling Mr Swiveller how they had not lost sight
+      of Kit's mother and the children; how they had never once even lost sight
+      of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in their endeavours to procure a
+      mitigation of his sentence; how they had been perfectly distracted between
+      the strong proofs of his guilt, and their own fading hopes of his
+      innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller, might keep his mind at rest, for
+      everything should be happily adjusted between that time and night;&mdash;after
+      telling him all this, and adding a great many kind and cordial
+      expressions, personal to himself, which it is unnecessary to recite, Mr
+      Garland, the notary, and the single gentleman, took their leaves at a very
+      critical time, or Richard Swiveller must assuredly have been driven into
+      another fever, whereof the results might have been fatal.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0474m.jpg" alt="0474m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0474.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the room
+      door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the setting-down
+      on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a porter, of some
+      giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and made the little physic
+      bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly this sound reached his
+      ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the door, and opened it; and
+      behold! there stood a strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being
+      hauled into the room and presently unpacked, disgorged such treasures as
+      tea, and coffee, and wine, and rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls
+      ready trussed for boiling, and calves'-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and
+      sago, and other delicate restoratives, that the small servant, who had
+      never thought it possible that such things could be, except in shops,
+      stood rooted to the spot in her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering
+      in unison, and her power of speech quite gone. But, not so Mr Abel; or the
+      strong man who emptied the hamper, big as it was, in a twinkling; and not
+      so the nice old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come
+      out of the hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who, bustling about
+      on tiptoe and without noise&mdash;now here, now there, now everywhere at
+      once&mdash;began to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to make chicken
+      broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to cut
+      them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses of
+      wine and choice bits of everything until more substantial meat could be
+      prepared for her refreshment. The whole of which appearances were so
+      unexpected and bewildering, that Mr Swiveller, when he had taken two
+      oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the strong man walk off with the
+      empty basket, plainly leaving all that abundance for his use and benefit,
+      was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer inability to
+      entertain such wonders in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland, repaired to a
+      certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and sent a letter to
+      Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious and brief, to favour
+      an unknown friend who wished to consult her, with her company there, as
+      speedily as possible. The communication performed its errand so well, that
+      within ten minutes of the messenger's return and report of its delivery,
+      Miss Brass herself was announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Pray ma'am,' said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the room,
+      'take a chair.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Brass sat herself down, in a very stiff and frigid state, and seemed&mdash;as
+      indeed she was&mdash;not a little astonished to find that the lodger and
+      her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You did not expect to see me?' said the single gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I didn't think much about it,' returned the beauty. 'I supposed it was
+      business of some kind or other. If it's about the apartments, of course
+      you'll give my brother regular notice, you know&mdash;or money. That's
+      very easily settled. You're a responsible party, and in such a case lawful
+      money and lawful notice are pretty much the same.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am obliged to you for your good opinion,' retorted the single
+      gentleman, 'and quite concur in these sentiments. But that is not the
+      subject on which I wish to speak with you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh!' said Sally. 'Then just state the particulars, will you? I suppose
+      it's professional business?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Very well,' returned Miss Brass. 'My brother and I are just the same. I
+      can take any instructions, or give you any advice.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As there are other parties interested besides myself,' said the single
+      gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, 'we had better
+      confer together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.'
+</p>
+    <p>
+Mr Garland and the Notary
+      walked in, looking very grave; and, drawing up two chairs, one on each
+      side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of fence round the gentle
+      Sarah, and penned her into a corner. Her brother Sampson under such
+      circumstances would certainly have evinced some confusion or anxiety, but
+      she&mdash;all composure&mdash;pulled out the tin box, and calmly took a
+      pinch of snuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Brass,' said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, 'we
+      professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can say
+      what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a runaway servant,
+      the other day?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Well,' returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her
+      features, 'what of that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is found, ma'am,' said the Notary, pulling out his
+      pocket-handkerchief with a flourish. 'She is found.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Who found her?' demanded Sarah hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We did, ma'am&mdash;we three. Only last night, or you would have heard
+      from us before.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And now I have heard from you,' said Miss Brass, folding her arms as
+      though she were about to deny something to the death, 'what have you got
+      to say? Something you have got into your heads about her, of course. Prove
+      it, will you&mdash;that's all. Prove it. You have found her, you say. I
+      can tell you (if you don't know it) that you have found the most artful,
+      lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was ever born.&mdash;Have you
+      got her here?' she added, looking sharply round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, she is not here at present,' returned the Notary. 'But she is quite
+      safe.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ha!' cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as
+      spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the small
+      servant's nose; 'she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I hope so,' replied the Notary. 'Did it occur to you for the first time,
+      when you found she had run away, that there were two keys to your kitchen
+      door?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side, looked at
+      her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but with a
+      cunning aspect of immense expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Two keys,' repeated the Notary; 'one of which gave her the opportunities
+      of roaming through the house at nights when you supposed her fast locked
+      up, and of overhearing confidential consultations&mdash;among others, that
+      particular conference, to be described to-day before a justice, which you
+      will have an opportunity of hearing her relate; that conference which you
+      and Mr Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and
+      innocent young man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of which I
+      will only say that it may be characterised by the epithets which you have
+      applied to this wretched little witness, and by a few stronger ones
+      besides.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sally took another pinch. Although her face was wonderfully composed, it
+      was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise, and that what she had
+      expected to be taxed with, in connection with her small servant, was
+      something very different from this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Come, come, Miss Brass,' said the Notary, 'you have great command of
+      feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never entered your
+      imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of its plotters must be
+      brought to justice. Now, you know the pains and penalties you are liable
+      to, and so I need not dilate upon them, but I have a proposal to make to
+      you. You have the honour of being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels
+      unhung; and, if I may venture to say so to a lady, you are in every
+      respect quite worthy of him. But connected with you two is a third party,
+      a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole diabolical
+      device, who I believe to be worse than either. For his sake, Miss Brass,
+      do us the favour to reveal the whole history of this affair. Let me remind
+      you that your doing so, at our instance, will place you in a safe and
+      comfortable position&mdash;your present one is not desirable&mdash;and
+      cannot injure your brother; for against him and you we have quite
+      sufficient evidence (as you hear) already. I will not say to you that we
+      suggest this course in mercy (for, to tell you the truth, we do not
+      entertain any regard for you), but it is a necessity to which we are
+      reduced, and I recommend it to you as a matter of the very best policy.
+      Time,' said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, 'in a business like this,
+      is exceedingly precious. Favour us with your decision as speedily as
+      possible, ma'am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by turns,
+      Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and having by this
+      time very little left, travelled round and round the box with her
+      forefinger and thumb, scraping up another. Having disposed of this
+      likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket, she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am to accept or reject at once, am I?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' said Mr Witherden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the
+      door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust into
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Excuse me,' said the gentleman hastily. 'Wait a bit!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence
+      occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as
+      servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sarah,' said Brass, 'hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak.
+      Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to see three such
+      men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of sentiment, I think you
+      would hardly believe me. But though I am unfortunate&mdash;nay, gentlemen,
+      criminal, if we are to use harsh expressions in a company like this&mdash;still,
+      I have my feelings like other men. I have heard of a poet, who remarked
+      that feelings were the common lot of all. If he could have been a pig,
+      gentlemen, and have uttered that sentiment, he would still have been
+      immortal.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you're not an idiot,' said Miss Brass harshly, 'hold your peace.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sarah, my dear,' returned her brother, 'thank you. But I know what I am
+      about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing myself
+      accordingly. Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is hanging out of your
+      pocket&mdash;would you allow me to&mdash;,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk from him
+      with an air of disgust. Brass, who over and above his usual prepossessing
+      qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade over one eye, and a hat
+      grievously crushed, stopped short, and looked round with a pitiful smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He shuns me,' said Sampson, 'even when I would, as I may say, heap coals
+      of fire upon his head. Well! Ah! But I am a falling house, and the rats
+      (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a gentleman I respect
+      and love beyond everything) fly from me! Gentlemen&mdash;regarding your
+      conversation just now, I happened to see my sister on her way here, and,
+      wondering where she could be going to, and being&mdash;may I venture to
+      say?&mdash;naturally of a suspicious turn, followed her. Since then, I
+      have been listening.'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0479m.jpg" alt="0479m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0479.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      'If you're not mad,' interposed Miss Sally, 'stop there, and say no more.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sarah, my dear,' rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, 'I thank
+      you kindly, but will still proceed. Mr Witherden, sir, as we have the
+      honour to be members of the same profession&mdash;to say nothing of that
+      other gentleman having been my lodger, and having partaken, as one may
+      say, of the hospitality of my roof&mdash;I think you might have given me
+      the refusal of this offer in the first instance. I do indeed. Now, my dear
+      Sir,' cried Brass, seeing that the Notary was about to interrupt him,
+      'suffer me to speak, I beg.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you will do me the favour,' he said, holding up the green shade, and
+      revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, 'to look at this, you will
+      naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get it. If you look from
+      that, to my face, you will wonder what could have been the cause of all
+      these scratches. And if from them to my hat, how it came into the state in
+      which you see it. Gentlemen,' said Brass, striking the hat fiercely with
+      his clenched hand, 'to all these questions I answer&mdash;Quilp!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I say,' pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he were
+      talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling malignity, in
+      violent contrast to his usual smoothness, 'that I answer to all these
+      questions,&mdash;Quilp&mdash;Quilp, who deludes me into his infernal den,
+      and takes a delight in looking on and chuckling while I scorch, and burn,
+      and bruise, and maim myself&mdash;Quilp, who never once, no never once, in
+      all our communications together, has treated me otherwise than as a dog&mdash;Quilp,
+      whom I have always hated with my whole heart, but never so much as lately.
+      He gives me the cold shoulder on this very matter as if he had had nothing
+      to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it. I can't trust
+      him. In one of his howling, raving, blazing humours, I believe he'd let it
+      out, if it was murder, and never think of himself so long as he could
+      terrify me. Now,' said Brass, picking up his hat again and replacing the
+      shade over his eye, and actually crouching down, in the excess of his
+      servility, 'what does all this lead to?&mdash;what should you say it led
+      me to, gentlemen?&mdash;could you guess at all near the mark?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody spoke. Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he had
+      propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be short with you, then, it leads me to this. If the truth has come
+      out, as it plainly has in a manner that there's no standing up against&mdash;and
+      a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen, in its way, though
+      like other sublime and grand things, such as thunder-storms and that,
+      we're not always over and above glad to see it&mdash;I had better turn
+      upon this man than let this man turn upon me. It's clear to me that I am
+      done for. Therefore, if anybody is to split, I had better be the person
+      and have the advantage of it. Sarah, my dear, comparatively speaking
+      you're safe. I relate these circumstances for my own profit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story; bearing
+      as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making himself out to
+      be rather a saint-like and holy character, though subject&mdash;he
+      acknowledged&mdash;to human weaknesses. He concluded thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves. Being in for a
+      penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound. You must do
+      with me what you please, and take me where you please. If you wish to have
+      this in writing, we'll reduce it into manuscript immediately. You will be
+      tender with me, I am sure. I am quite confident you will be tender with
+      me. You are men of honour, and have feeling hearts. I yielded from
+      necessity to Quilp, for though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers.
+      I yield to you from necessity too; from policy besides; and because of
+      feelings that have been a pretty long time working within me. Punish
+      Quilp, gentlemen. Weigh heavily upon him. Grind him down. Tread him under
+      foot. He has done as much by me, for many and many a day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson checked the
+      current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and smiled as only parasites
+      and cowards can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And this,' said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had hitherto
+      sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to foot with a
+      bitter sneer, 'this is my brother, is it! This is my brother, that I have
+      worked and toiled for, and believed to have had something of the man in
+      him!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sarah, my dear,' returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; 'you disturb
+      our friends. Besides you&mdash;you're disappointed, Sarah, and, not
+      knowing what you say, expose yourself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes, you pitiful dastard,' retorted the lovely damsel, 'I understand you.
+      You feared that I should be beforehand with you. But do you think that I
+      would have been enticed to say a word! I'd have scorned it, if they had
+      tried and tempted me for twenty years.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He he!' simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to
+      have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark
+      of manliness he might have possessed. 'You think so, Sarah, you think so
+      perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good fellow. You
+      will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey&mdash;our revered
+      father, gentlemen&mdash;"Always suspect everybody." That's the maxim to go
+      through life with! If you were not actually about to purchase your own
+      safety when I showed myself, I suspect you'd have done it by this time.
+      And therefore I've done it myself, and spared you the trouble as well as
+      the shame. The shame, gentlemen,' added Brass, allowing himself to be
+      slightly overcome, 'if there is any, is mine. It's better that a female
+      should be spared it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more particularly to
+      the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted, with humility,
+      whether the elevating principle laid down by the latter gentleman, and
+      acted upon by his descendant, is always a prudent one, or attended in
+      practice with the desired results. This is, beyond question, a bold and
+      presumptuous doubt, inasmuch as many distinguished characters, called men
+      of the world, long-headed customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, capital
+      hands at business, and the like, have made, and do daily make, this axiom
+      their polar star and compass. Still, the doubt may be gently insinuated.
+      And in illustration it may be observed, that if Mr Brass, not being
+      over-suspicious, had, without prying and listening, left his sister to
+      manage the conference on their joint behalf, or prying and listening, had
+      not been in such a mighty hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have
+      been, but for his distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found
+      himself much better off in the end. Thus, it will always happen that these
+      men of the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from
+      quite as much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and
+      absurdity of mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of wearing
+      a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments. At the end of
+      their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary pointed to the
+      writing materials on the table, and informed Mr Brass that if he wished to
+      make any statement in writing, he had the opportunity of doing so. At the
+      same time he felt bound to tell him that they would require his
+      attendance, presently, before a justice of the peace, and that in what he
+      did or said, he was guided entirely by his own discretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Gentlemen,' said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in spirit
+      upon the ground before them, 'I will justify the tenderness with which I
+      know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness, I should, now that
+      this discovery has been made, stand in the worst position of the three,
+      you may depend upon it I will make a clean breast. Mr Witherden, sir, a
+      kind of faintness is upon my spirits&mdash;if you would do me the favour
+      to ring the bell and order up a glass of something warm and spicy, I
+      shall, notwithstanding what has passed, have a melancholy pleasure in
+      drinking your good health. I had hoped,' said Brass, looking round with a
+      mournful smile, 'to have seen you three gentlemen, one day or another,
+      with your legs under the mahogany in my humble parlour in the Marks. But
+      hopes are fleeting. Dear me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that he
+      could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived. Having
+      partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state, he sat down
+      to write.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands clasped
+      behind her, paced the room with manly strides while her brother was thus
+      employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her snuff-box and bite the
+      lid. She continued to pace up and down until she was quite tired, and then
+      fell asleep on a chair near the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was a sham
+      or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the dusk of the
+      afternoon. Whether this was an intentional and waking departure, or a
+      somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her sleep, may remain a subject
+      of contention; but, on one point (and indeed the main one) all parties are
+      agreed. In whatever state she walked away, she certainly did not walk back
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be inferred
+      that Mr Brass's task occupied some time in the completion. It was not
+      finished until evening; but, being done at last, that worthy person and
+      the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to the private office of a
+      justice, who, giving Mr Brass a warm reception and detaining him in a
+      secure place that he might insure to himself the pleasure of seeing him on
+      the morrow, dismissed the others with the cheering assurance that a
+      warrant could not fail to be granted next day for the apprehension of Mr
+      Quilp, and that a proper application and statement of all the
+      circumstances to the secretary of state (who was fortunately in town),
+      would no doubt procure Kit's free pardon and liberation without delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp's malignant career was drawing to a
+      close, and that retribution, which often travels slowly&mdash;especially
+      when heaviest&mdash;had tracked his footsteps with a sure and certain
+      scent and was gaining on him fast. Unmindful of her stealthy tread, her
+      victim holds his course in fancied triumph. Still at his heels she comes,
+      and once afoot, is never turned aside!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the lodgings of
+      Mr Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favourably in his recovery as
+      to have been able to sit up for half an hour, and to have conversed with
+      cheerfulness. Mrs Garland had gone home some time since, but Mr Abel was
+      still sitting with him. After telling him all they had done, the two Mr
+      Garlands and the single gentleman, as if by some previous understanding,
+      took their leaves for the night, leaving the invalid alone with the Notary
+      and the small servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As you are so much better,' said Mr Witherden, sitting down at the
+      bedside, 'I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which has
+      come to me professionally.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman connected with
+      legal matters, appeared to afford Richard any-thing but a pleasing
+      anticipation. Perhaps he connected it in his own mind with one or two
+      outstanding accounts, in reference to which he had already received divers
+      threatening letters. His countenance fell as he replied,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Certainly, sir. I hope it's not anything of a very disagreeable nature,
+      though?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I thought it so, I should choose some better time for communicating
+      it,' replied the Notary. 'Let me tell you, first, that my friends who have
+      been here to-day, know nothing of it, and that their kindness to you has
+      been quite spontaneous and with no hope of return. It may do a
+      thoughtless, careless man, good, to know that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have been making some inquiries about you,' said Mr Witherden, 'little
+      thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as those which
+      have brought us together. You are the nephew of Rebecca Swiveller,
+      spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Deceased!' cried Dick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Deceased. If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have come
+      into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to doubt it) of
+      five-and-twenty thousand pounds. As it is, you have fallen into an annuity
+      of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but I think I may congratulate you
+      even upon that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sir,' said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, 'you may. For, please
+      God, we'll make a scholar of the poor Marchioness yet! And she shall walk
+      in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I never rise from this
+      bed again!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap67"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 67
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">U</span>nconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last chapter,
+      and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung beneath him (for, to
+      the end that he should have no warning of the business a-foot, the
+      profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole transaction), Mr Quilp
+      remained shut up in his hermitage, undisturbed by any suspicion, and
+      extremely well satisfied with the result of his machinations. Being
+      engaged in the adjustment of some accounts&mdash;an occupation to which
+      the silence and solitude of his retreat were very favourable&mdash;he had
+      not strayed from his den for two whole days. The third day of his devotion
+      to this pursuit found him still hard at work, and little disposed to stir
+      abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the day next after Mr Brass's confession, and consequently, that
+      which threatened the restriction of Mr Quilp's liberty, and the abrupt
+      communication to him of some very unpleasant and unwelcome facts. Having
+      no intuitive perception of the cloud which lowered upon his house, the
+      dwarf was in his ordinary state of cheerfulness; and, when he found he was
+      becoming too much engrossed by business with a due regard to his health
+      and spirits, he varied its monotonous routine with a little screeching, or
+      howling, or some other innocent relaxation of that nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the fire
+      after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his master's back
+      was turned, imitating his grimaces with a fearful exactness. The
+      figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained in its old place. The
+      face, horribly seared by the frequent application of the red-hot poker,
+      and further ornamented by the insertion, in the tip of the nose, of a
+      tenpenny nail, yet smiled blandly in its less lacerated parts, and seemed,
+      like a sturdy martyr, to provoke its tormentor to the commission of new
+      outrages and insults.
+</p>
+    <p>
+The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of
+      the town, was damp, dark, cold and gloomy. In that low and marshy spot,
+      the fog filled every nook and corner with a thick dense cloud. Every
+      object was obscure at one or two yards' distance. The warning lights and
+      fires upon the river were powerless beneath this pall, and, but for a raw
+      and piercing chillness in the air, and now and then the cry of some
+      bewildered boatman as he rested on his oars and tried to make out where he
+      was, the river itself might have been miles away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly searching
+      kind. No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out. It seemed to
+      penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking wayfarers, and to rack them
+      with cold and pains. Everything was wet and clammy to the touch. The warm
+      blaze alone defied it, and leaped and sparkled merrily. It was a day to be
+      at home, crowding about the fire, telling stories of travellers who had
+      lost their way in such weather on heaths and moors; and to love a warm
+      hearth more than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dwarf's humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself; and
+      when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone. By no means
+      insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he ordered Tom Scott to
+      pile the little stove with coals, and, dismissing his work for that day,
+      determined to be jovial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on the fire;
+      and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself in somewhat of a
+      savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great bowl of hot punch, lighted
+      his pipe, and sat down to spend the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his attention.
+      When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly opened the little
+      window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who was there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only me, Quilp,' replied a woman's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Only you!' cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better view
+      of his visitor. 'And what brings you here, you jade? How dare you approach
+      the ogre's castle, eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have come with some news,' rejoined his spouse. 'Don't be angry with
+      me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap his
+      fingers?' said the dwarf. 'Is the dear old lady dead?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I don't know what news it is, or whether it's good or bad,' rejoined his
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then she's alive,' said Quilp, 'and there's nothing the matter with her.
+      Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home!'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'I have brought a letter,'
+      cried the meek little woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,' said Quilp,
+      interrupting her, 'or I'll come out and scratch you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, but please, Quilp&mdash;do hear me speak,' urged his submissive wife,
+      in tears. 'Please do!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Speak then,' growled the dwarf with a malicious grin. 'Be quick and short
+      about it. Speak, will you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It was left at our house this afternoon,' said Mrs Quilp, trembling, 'by
+      a boy who said he didn't know from whom it came, but that it was given to
+      him to leave, and that he was told to say it must be brought on to you
+      directly, for it was of the very greatest consequence.&mdash;But please,'
+      she added, as her husband stretched out his hand for it, 'please let me
+      in. You don't know how wet and cold I am, or how many times I have lost my
+      way in coming here through this thick fog. Let me dry myself at the fire
+      for five minutes. I'll go away directly you tell me to, Quilp. Upon my
+      word I will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments; but, bethinking himself
+      that the letter might require some answer, of which she could be the
+      bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade her enter. Mrs Quilp
+      obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down before the fire to warm her
+      hands, delivered into his a little packet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'm glad you're wet,' said Quilp, snatching it, and squinting at her.
+      'I'm glad you're cold. I'm glad you lost your way. I'm glad your eyes are
+      red with crying. It does my heart good to see your little nose so pinched
+      and frosty.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh Quilp!' sobbed his wife. 'How cruel it is of you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Did she think I was dead?' said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a most
+      extraordinary series of grimaces. 'Did she think she was going to have all
+      the money, and to marry somebody she liked? Ha ha ha! Did she?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who remained on
+      her knees, warming her hands, and sobbing, to Mr Quilp's great delight.
+      But, just as he was contemplating her, and chuckling excessively, he
+      happened to observe that Tom Scott was delighted too; wherefore, that he
+      might have no presumptuous partner in his glee, the dwarf instantly
+      collared him, dragged him to the door, and after a short scuffle, kicked
+      him into the yard. In return for this mark of attention, Tom immediately
+      walked upon his hands to the window, and&mdash;if the expression be
+      allowable&mdash;looked in with his shoes: besides rattling his feet upon
+      the glass like a Banshee upside down. As a matter of course, Mr Quilp lost
+      no time in resorting to the infallible poker, with which, after some
+      dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his young friend one or two such
+      unequivocal compliments that he vanished precipitately, and left him in
+      quiet possession of the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'So! That little job being disposed of,' said the dwarf, coolly, 'I'll
+      read my letter. Humph!' he muttered, looking at the direction. 'I ought to
+      know this writing. Beautiful Sally!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence. It has all come
+      out. You had better not be in the way, for strangers are going to call
+      upon you. They have been very quiet as yet, because they mean to surprise
+      you. Don't lose time. I didn't. I am not to be found anywhere. If I was
+      you, I wouldn't either. S. B., late of B. M.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To describe the changes that passed over Quilp's face, as he read this
+      letter half-a-dozen times, would require some new language: such, for
+      power of expression, as was never written, read, or spoken. For a long
+      time he did not utter one word; but, after a considerable interval, during
+      which Mrs Quilp was almost paralysed with the alarm his looks engendered,
+      he contrived to gasp out,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I had him here. If I only had him here&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh Quilp!' said his wife, 'what's the matter? Who are you angry with?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '&mdash;I should drown him,' said the dwarf, not heeding her. 'Too easy a
+      death, too short, too quick&mdash;but the river runs close at hand. Oh! if
+      I had him here! just to take him to the brink coaxingly and pleasantly,&mdash;holding
+      him by the button-hole&mdash;joking with him,&mdash;and, with a sudden
+      push, to send him splashing down! Drowning men come to the surface three
+      times they say. Ah! To see him those three times, and mock him as his face
+      came bobbing up,&mdash;oh, what a rich treat that would be!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Quilp!' stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch him on
+      the shoulder: 'what has gone wrong?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this pleasure to
+      himself that she could scarcely make herself intelligible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Such a bloodless cur!' said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly, and
+      pressing them tight together. 'I thought his cowardice and servility were
+      the best guarantee for his keeping silence. Oh Brass, Brass&mdash;my dear,
+      good, affectionate, faithful, complimentary, charming friend&mdash;if I
+      only had you here!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these
+      mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak, when
+      he hurried to the door, and called Tom Scott, who, remembering his late
+      gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There!' said the dwarf, pulling him in. 'Take her home. Don't come here
+      to-morrow, for this place will be shut up. Come back no more till you hear
+      from me or see me. Do you mind?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs Quilp to lead the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As for you,' said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, 'ask no questions
+      about me, make no search for me, say nothing concerning me. I shall not be
+      dead, mistress, and that'll comfort you. He'll take care of you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But, Quilp? What is the matter? Where are you going? Do say something
+      more?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I'll say that,' said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, 'and do that too,
+      which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you go directly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Has anything happened?' cried his wife. 'Oh! Do tell me that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' snarled the dwarf. 'No. What matter which? I have told you what to
+      do. Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me by a hair's
+      breadth. Will you go!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am going, I'll go directly; but,' faltered his wife, 'answer me one
+      question first. Has this letter any connexion with dear little Nell? I
+      must ask you that&mdash;I must indeed, Quilp. You cannot think what days
+      and nights of sorrow I have had through having once deceived that child. I
+      don't know what harm I may have brought about, but, great or little, I did
+      it for you, Quilp. My conscience misgave me when I did it. Do answer me
+      this question, if you please?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and caught up
+      his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott dragged his charge
+      away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could. It was well he did so,
+      for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage, pursued them to the neighbouring
+      lane, and might have prolonged the chase but for the dense mist which
+      obscured them from his view and appeared to thicken every moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,' he said, as he
+      returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run. 'Stay. We may
+      look better here. This is too hospitable and free.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By a great exertion of strength, he closed the two old gates, which were
+      deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam. That done, he
+      shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried them.&mdash;Strong
+      and fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,' said the
+      dwarf, when he had taken these precautions. 'There's a back lane, too,
+      from there. That shall be my way out. A man need know his road well, to
+      find it in this lovely place to-night. I need fear no unwelcome visitors
+      while this lasts, I think.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands (it had
+      grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he returned to his lair;
+      and, after musing for some time over the fire, busied himself in
+      preparations for a speedy departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into his
+      pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low voice, or
+      unclenched his teeth, which he had ground together on finishing Miss
+      Brass's note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh Sampson!' he muttered, 'good worthy creature&mdash;if I could but hug
+      you! If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your ribs, as I
+      <i>could </i>squeeze them if I once had you tight&mdash;what a meeting there
+      would be between us! If we ever do cross each other again, Sampson, we'll
+      have a greeting not easily to be forgotten, trust me. This time, Sampson,
+      this moment when all had gone on so well, was so nicely chosen! It was so
+      thoughtful of you, so penitent, so good. Oh, if we were face to face in
+      this room again, my white-livered man of law, how well contented one of us
+      would be!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There he stopped; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank a long
+      deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his parched mouth.
+      Setting it down abruptly, and resuming his preparations, he went on with
+      his soliloquy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There's Sally,' he said, with flashing eyes; 'the woman has spirit,
+      determination, purpose&mdash;was she asleep, or petrified? She could have
+      stabbed him&mdash;poisoned him safely. She might have seen this coming on.
+      Why does she give me notice when it's too late? When he sat there,&mdash;yonder
+      there, over there,&mdash;with his white face, and red head, and sickly
+      smile, why didn't I know what was passing in his heart? It should have
+      stopped beating, that night, if I had been in his secret, or there are no
+      drugs to lull a man to sleep, or no fire to burn him!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another draught from the bowl; and, cowering over the fire with a
+      ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late times,
+      springs from that old dotard and his darling child&mdash;two wretched
+      feeble wanderers! I'll be their evil genius yet. And you, sweet Kit,
+      honest Kit, virtuous, innocent Kit, look to yourself. Where I hate, I
+      bite. I hate you, my darling fellow, with good cause, and proud as you are
+      to-night, I'll have my turn.&mdash;&mdash;What's that?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A knocking at the gate he had closed. A loud and violent knocking. Then, a
+      pause; as if those who knocked had stopped to listen. Then, the noise
+      again, more clamorous and importunate than before.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'So soon!' said the
+      dwarf. 'And so eager! I am afraid I shall disappoint you. It's well I'm
+      quite prepared. Sally, I thank you!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, he extinguished the candle. In his impetuous attempts to
+      subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which came
+      tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning embers it had
+      shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy darkness. The noise
+      at the gate still continuing, he felt his way to the door, and stepped
+      into the open air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the knocking ceased. It was about eight o'clock; but the
+      dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in comparison with
+      the thick cloud which then rested upon the earth, and shrouded everything
+      from view. He darted forward for a few paces, as if into the mouth of some
+      dim, yawning cavern; then, thinking he had gone wrong, changed the
+      direction of his steps; then stood still, not knowing where to turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If they would knock again,' said Quilp, trying to peer into the gloom by
+      which he was surrounded, 'the sound might guide me! Come! Batter the gate
+      once more!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed. Nothing was to
+      be heard in that deserted place, but, at intervals, the distant barkings
+      of dogs. The sound was far away&mdash;now in one quarter, now answered in
+      another&mdash;nor was it any guide, for it often came from shipboard, as
+      he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If I could find a wall or fence,' said the dwarf, stretching out his
+      arms, and walking slowly on, 'I should know which way to turn. A good,
+      black, devil's night this, to have my dear friend here! If I had but that
+      wish, it might, for anything I cared, never be day again.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell&mdash;and next moment
+      was fighting with the cold dark water!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the
+      knocking at the gate again&mdash;could hear a shout that followed it&mdash;could
+      recognise the voice. For all his struggling and plashing, he could
+      understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered back to the
+      point from which they started; that they were all but looking on, while he
+      was drowned; that they were close at hand, but could not make an effort to
+      save him; that he himself had shut and barred them out. He answered the
+      shout&mdash;with a yell, which seemed to make the hundred fires that
+      danced before his eyes tremble and flicker, as if a gust of wind had
+      stirred them. It was of no avail. The strong tide filled his throat, and
+      bore him on, upon its rapid current.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water with his
+      hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that showed him some
+      black object he was drifting close upon. The hull of a ship! He could
+      touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand. One loud cry, now&mdash;but
+      the resistless water bore him down before he could give it utterance, and,
+      driving him under it, carried away a corpse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against the
+      slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging it
+      heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its own
+      element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of the ugly
+      plaything, it flung it on a swamp&mdash;a dismal place where pirates had
+      swung in chains through many a wintry night&mdash;and left it there to
+      bleach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there it lay alone. The sky was red with flame, and the water that
+      bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light as it flowed along.
+      The place the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was now
+      a blazing ruin. There was something of the glare upon its face. The hair,
+      stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of death&mdash;such
+      a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted in when alive&mdash;about
+      its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night wind.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0492m.jpg" alt="0492m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0492.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap68"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 68
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>ighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad voices,
+      words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of happiness&mdash;what
+      a change is this! But it is to such delights that Kit is hastening. They
+      are awaiting him, he knows. He fears he will die of joy, before he gets
+      among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They have prepared him for this, all day. He is not to be carried off
+      to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first. By degrees they let him know
+      that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be made, and perhaps he may
+      be pardoned after all. At last, the evening being come, they bring him to
+      a room where some gentlemen are assembled. Foremost among them is his good
+      old master, who comes and takes him by the hand. He hears that his
+      innocence is established, and that he is pardoned. He cannot see the
+      speaker, but he turns towards the voice, and in trying to answer, falls
+      down insensible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear this
+      like a man. Somebody says he must think of his poor mother. It is because
+      he does think of her so much, that the happy news had overpowered him.
+      They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth has gone abroad, and
+      that all the town and country ring with sympathy for his misfortunes. He
+      has no ears for this. His thoughts, as yet, have no wider range than home.
+      Does she know it? what did she say? who told her? He can speak of nothing
+      else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a while,
+      until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them. He is free to
+      go. Mr Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is time they went away. The
+      gentlemen cluster round him, and shake hands with him. He feels very
+      grateful to them for the interest they have in him, and for the kind
+      promises they make; but the power of speech is gone again, and he has much
+      ado to keep his feet, even though leaning on his master's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail who
+      are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on his
+      release. The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is not quite
+      hearty&mdash;there is something of surliness in his compliments. He looks
+      upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has obtained admission to that place
+      on false pretences, who has enjoyed a privilege without being duly
+      qualified. He may be a very good sort of young man, he thinks, but he has
+      no business there, and the sooner he is gone, the better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last door shuts behind them. They have passed the outer wall, and
+      stand in the open air&mdash;in the street he has so often pictured to
+      himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been in all his
+      dreams. It seems wider and more busy than it used to be. The night is bad,
+      and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes! One of the gentlemen, in taking
+      leave of him, pressed some money into his hand. He has not counted it; but
+      when they have gone a few paces beyond the box for poor Prisoners, he
+      hastily returns and drops it in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Garland has a coach waiting in a neighbouring street, and, taking Kit
+      inside with him, bids the man drive home. At first, they can only travel
+      at a foot pace, and then with torches going on before, because of the
+      heavy fog. But, as they get farther from the river, and leave the closer
+      portions of the town behind, they are able to dispense with this
+      precaution and to proceed at a brisker rate. On the road, hard galloping
+      would be too slow for Kit; but, when they are drawing near their journey's
+      end, he begs they may go more slowly, and, when the house appears in
+      sight, that they may stop&mdash;only for a minute or two, to give him time
+      to breathe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly to
+      him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the garden-gate.
+      Next minute, they are at the door. There is a noise of tongues, and tread
+      of feet, inside. It opens. Kit rushes in, and finds his mother clinging
+      round his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara's mother, still holding the
+      baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day when they little
+      hoped to have such joy as this&mdash;there she is, Heaven bless her,
+      crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman sobbed before; and there
+      is little Barbara&mdash;poor little Barbara, so much thinner and so much
+      paler, and yet so very pretty&mdash;trembling like a leaf and supporting
+      herself against the wall; and there is Mrs Garland, neater and nicer than
+      ever, fainting away stone dead with nobody to help her; and there is Mr
+      Abel, violently blowing his nose, and wanting to embrace everybody; and
+      there is the single gentleman hovering round them all, and constant to
+      nothing for an instant; and there is that good, dear, thoughtful little
+      Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on the bottom stair, with his hands on
+      his knees like an old man, roaring fearfully without giving any trouble to
+      anybody; and each and all of them are for the time clean out of their
+      wits, and do jointly and severally commit all manner of follies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves again, and
+      can find words and smiles, Barbara&mdash;that soft-hearted, gentle,
+      foolish little Barbara&mdash;is suddenly missed, and found to be in a
+      swoon by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she falls into
+      hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again, and is, indeed, so
+      bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar and cold water she is
+      hardly a bit better at last than she was at first. Then, Kit's mother
+      comes in and says, will he come and speak to her; and Kit says 'Yes,' and
+      goes; and he says in a kind voice 'Barbara!' and Barbara's mother tells
+      her that 'it's only Kit;' and Barbara says (with her eyes closed all the
+      time) 'Oh! but is it him indeed?' and Barbara's mother says 'To be sure it
+      is, my dear; there's nothing the matter now.' And in further assurance
+      that he's safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again; and then Barbara goes
+      off into another fit of laughter, and then into another fit of crying; and
+      then Barbara's mother and Kit's mother nod to each other and pretend to
+      scold her&mdash;but only to bring her to herself the faster, bless you!&mdash;and
+      being experienced matrons, and acute at perceiving the first dawning
+      symptoms of recovery, they comfort Kit with the assurance that 'she'll do
+      now,' and so dismiss him to the place from whence he came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well! In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters of wine,
+      and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and his friends
+      were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob, walking, as the
+      popular phrase is, into a home-made plum-cake, at a most surprising pace,
+      and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges which are to follow, and
+      making the best use of his time, you may believe. Kit no sooner comes in,
+      than that single gentleman (never was such a busy gentleman) charges all
+      the glasses&mdash;bumpers&mdash;and drinks his health, and tells him he
+      shall never want a friend while he lives; and so does Mr Garland, and so
+      does Mrs Garland, and so does Mr Abel. But even this honour and
+      distinction is not all, for the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of
+      his pocket a massive silver watch&mdash;going hard, and right to half a
+      second&mdash;and upon the back of this watch is engraved Kit's name, with
+      flourishes all over; and in short it is Kit's watch, bought expressly for
+      him, and presented to him on the spot. You may rest assured that Mr and
+      Mrs Garland can't help hinting about their present, in store, and that Mr
+      Abel tells outright that he has his; and that Kit is the happiest of the
+      happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be conveniently
+      introduced into the family circle, by reason of his being an iron-shod
+      quadruped, Kit takes the first opportunity of slipping away and hurrying
+      to the stable. The moment he lays his hand upon the latch, the pony neighs
+      the loudest pony's greeting; before he has crossed the threshold, the pony
+      is capering about his loose box (for he brooks not the indignity of a
+      halter), mad to give him welcome; and when Kit goes up to caress and pat
+      him, the pony rubs his nose against his coat, and fondles him more
+      lovingly than ever pony fondled man. It is the crowning circumstance of
+      his earnest, heartfelt reception; and Kit fairly puts his arm round
+      Whisker's neck and hugs him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how comes Barbara to trip in there? and how smart she is again! she
+      has been at her glass since she recovered. How comes Barbara in the
+      stable, of all places in the world? Why, since Kit has been away, the pony
+      would take his food from nobody but her, and Barbara, you see, not
+      dreaming that Christopher was there, and just looking in, to see that
+      everything was right, has come upon him unawares. Blushing little Barbara!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be that Kit has caressed the pony enough; it may be that there are
+      even better things to caress than ponies. He leaves him for Barbara at any
+      rate, and hopes she is better. Yes. Barbara is a great deal better. She is
+      afraid&mdash;and here Barbara looks down and blushes more&mdash;that he
+      must have thought her very foolish. 'Not at all,' says Kit. Barbara is
+      glad of that, and coughs&mdash;Hem!&mdash;just the slightest cough
+      possible&mdash;not more than that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a discreet pony when he chooses! He is as quiet now as if he were of
+      marble. He has a very knowing look, but that he always has. 'We have
+      hardly had time to shake hands, Barbara,' says Kit. Barbara gives him
+      hers. Why, she is trembling now! Foolish, fluttering Barbara!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arm's length? The length of an arm is not much. Barbara's was not a long
+      arm, by any means, and besides, she didn't hold it out straight, but bent
+      a little. Kit was so near her when they shook hands, that he could see a
+      small tiny tear, yet trembling on an eyelash. It was natural that he
+      should look at it, unknown to Barbara. It was natural that Barbara should
+      raise her eyes unconsciously, and find him out. Was it natural that at
+      that instant, without any previous impulse or design, Kit should kiss
+      Barbara? He did it, whether or no. Barbara said 'for shame,' but let him
+      do it too&mdash;twice. He might have done it thrice, but the pony kicked
+      up his heels and shook his head, as if he were suddenly taken with
+      convulsions of delight, and Barbara being frightened, ran away&mdash;not
+      straight to where her mother and Kit's mother were, though, lest they
+      should see how red her cheeks were, and should ask her why. Sly little
+      Barbara!
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0496m.jpg" alt="0496m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0496.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      When the first transports of the whole party had subsided, and Kit and his
+      mother, and Barbara and her mother, with little Jacob and the baby to
+      boot, had had their suppers together&mdash;which there was no hurrying
+      over, for they were going to stop there all night&mdash;Mr Garland called
+      Kit to him, and taking him into a room where they could be alone, told him
+      that he had something yet to say, which would surprise him greatly. Kit
+      looked so anxious and turned so pale on hearing this, that the old
+      gentleman hastened to add, he would be agreeably surprised; and asked him
+      if he would be ready next morning for a journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'For a journey, sir!' cried Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In company with me and my friend in the next room. Can you guess its
+      purpose?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Oh yes. I think you do already,' said his master. 'Try.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he plainly
+      pronounced the words 'Miss Nell,' three or four times&mdash;shaking his
+      head while he did so, as if he would add that there was no hope of that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Mr Garland, instead of saying 'Try again,' as Kit had made sure he
+      would, told him very seriously, that he had guessed right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,' he said, 'at last. And
+      that is our journey's end.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it been
+      found, and how long since, and was she well and happy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Happy she is, beyond all doubt,' said Mr Garland. 'And well, I&mdash;I
+      trust she will be soon. She has been weak and ailing, as I learn, but she
+      was better when I heard this morning, and they were full of hope. Sit you
+      down, and you shall hear the rest.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told. Mr Garland
+      then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would remember to
+      have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when he was a young man,
+      hung in the best room), and how this brother lived a long way off, in a
+      country-place, with an old clergyman who had been his early friend. How,
+      although they loved each other as brothers should, they had not met for
+      many years, but had communicated by letter from time to time, always
+      looking forward to some period when they would take each other by the hand
+      once more, and still letting the Present time steal on, as it was the
+      habit for men to do, and suffering the Future to melt into the Past. How
+      this brother, whose temper was very mild and quiet and retiring&mdash;such
+      as Mr Abel's&mdash;was greatly beloved by the simple people among whom he
+      dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor (for so they called him), and had
+      every one experienced his charity and benevolence. How even those slight
+      circumstances had come to his knowledge, very slowly and in course of
+      years, for the Bachelor was one of those whose goodness shuns the light,
+      and who have more pleasure in discovering and extolling the good deeds of
+      others, than in trumpeting their own, be they never so commendable. How,
+      for that reason, he seldom told them of his village friends; but how, for
+      all that, his mind had become so full of two among them&mdash;a child and
+      an old man, to whom he had been very kind&mdash;that, in a letter received
+      a few days before, he had dwelt upon them from first to last, and had told
+      such a tale of their wandering, and mutual love, that few could read it
+      without being moved to tears. How he, the recipient of that letter, was
+      directly led to the belief that these must be the very wanderers for whom
+      so much search had been made, and whom Heaven had directed to his
+      brother's care. How he had written for such further information as would
+      put the fact beyond all doubt; how it had that morning arrived; had
+      confirmed his first impression into a certainty; and was the immediate
+      cause of that journey being planned, which they were to take to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In the meantime,' said the old gentleman rising, and laying his hand on
+      Kit's shoulder, 'you have a great need of rest; for such a day as this
+      would wear out the strongest man. Good night, and Heaven send our journey
+      may have a prosperous ending!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap69"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 69
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>it was no sluggard next morning, but, springing from his bed some time
+      before day, began to prepare for his welcome expedition. The hurry of
+      spirits consequent upon the events of yesterday, and the unexpected
+      intelligence he had heard at night, had troubled his sleep through the
+      long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams about his pillow that it
+      was rest to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, had it been the beginning of some great labour with the same end in
+      view&mdash;had it been the commencement of a long journey, to be performed
+      on foot in that inclement season of the year, to be pursued under very
+      privation and difficulty, and to be achieved only with great distress,
+      fatigue, and suffering&mdash;had it been the dawn of some painful
+      enterprise, certain to task his utmost powers of resolution and endurance,
+      and to need his utmost fortitude, but only likely to end, if happily
+      achieved, in good fortune and delight to Nell&mdash;Kit's cheerful zeal
+      would have been as highly roused: Kit's ardour and impatience would have
+      been, at least, the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor was he alone excited and eager. Before he had been up a quarter of an
+      hour the whole house were astir and busy. Everybody hurried to do
+      something towards facilitating the preparations. The single gentleman, it
+      is true, could do nothing himself, but he overlooked everybody else and
+      was more locomotive than anybody. The work of packing and making ready
+      went briskly on, and by daybreak every preparation for the journey was
+      completed. Then Kit began to wish they had not been quite so nimble; for
+      the travelling-carriage which had been hired for the occasion was not to
+      arrive until nine o'clock, and there was nothing but breakfast to fill up
+      the intervening blank of one hour and a half. Yes there was, though. There
+      was Barbara. Barbara was busy, to be sure, but so much the better&mdash;Kit
+      could help her, and that would pass away the time better than any means
+      that could be devised. Barbara had no objection to this arrangement, and
+      Kit, tracking out the idea which had come upon him so suddenly overnight,
+      began to think that surely Barbara was fond of him, and surely he was fond
+      of Barbara.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Barbara, if the truth must be told&mdash;as it must and ought to be&mdash;Barbara
+      seemed, of all the little household, to take least pleasure in the bustle
+      of the occasion; and when Kit, in the openness of his heart, told her how
+      glad and overjoyed it made him, Barbara became more downcast still, and
+      seemed to have even less pleasure in it than before!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You have not been home so long, Christopher,' said Barbara&mdash;and it
+      is impossible to tell how carelessly she said it&mdash;'You have not been
+      home so long, that you need to be glad to go away again, I should think.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But for such a purpose,' returned Kit. 'To bring back Miss Nell! To see
+      her again! Only think of that! I am so pleased too, to think that you will
+      see her, Barbara, at last.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barbara did not absolutely say that she felt no gratification on this
+      point, but she expressed the sentiment so plainly by one little toss of
+      her head, that Kit was quite disconcerted, and wondered, in his
+      simplicity, why she was so cool about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You'll say she has the sweetest and beautifullest face you ever saw, I
+      know,' said Kit, rubbing his hands. 'I'm sure you'll say that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barbara tossed her head again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What's the matter, Barbara?' said Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nothing,' cried Barbara. And Barbara pouted&mdash;not sulkily, or in an
+      ugly manner, but just enough to make her look more cherry-lipped than
+      ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no school in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in which Kit
+      became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss. He saw what Barbara meant
+      now&mdash;he had his lesson by heart all at once&mdash;she was the book&mdash;there
+      it was before him, as plain as print.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Barbara,' said Kit, 'you're not cross with me?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh dear no! Why should Barbara be cross? And what right had she to be
+      cross? And what did it matter whether she was cross or not? Who minded
+      her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why, I do,' said Kit. 'Of course I do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barbara didn't see why it was of course, at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit was sure she must. Would she think again?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly, Barbara would think again. No, she didn't see why it was of
+      course. She didn't understand what Christopher meant. And besides she was
+      sure they wanted her up stairs by this time, and she must go, indeed&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, but Barbara,' said Kit, detaining her gently, 'let us part friends. I
+      was always thinking of you, in my troubles. I should have been a great
+      deal more miserable than I was, if it hadn't been for you.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goodness gracious, how pretty Barbara was when she coloured&mdash;and when
+      she trembled, like a little shrinking bird!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am telling you the truth, Barbara, upon my word, but not half so strong
+      as I could wish,' said Kit. 'When I want you to be pleased to see Miss
+      Nell, it's only because I like you to be pleased with what pleases me&mdash;that's
+      all. As to her, Barbara, I think I could almost die to do her service, but
+      you would think so too, if you knew her as I do. I am sure you would.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barbara was touched, and sorry to have appeared indifferent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have been used, you see,' said Kit, 'to talk and think of her, almost
+      as if she was an angel. When I look forward to meeting her again, I think
+      of her smiling as she used to do, and being glad to see me, and putting
+      out her hand and saying, "It's my own old Kit," or some such words as
+      those&mdash;like what she used to say. I think of seeing her happy, and
+      with friends about her, and brought up as she deserves, and as she ought
+      to be. When I think of myself, it's as her old servant, and one that loved
+      her dearly, as his kind, good, gentle mistress; and who would have gone&mdash;yes,
+      and still would go&mdash;through any harm to serve her. Once, I couldn't
+      help being afraid that if she came back with friends about her she might
+      forget, or be ashamed of having known, a humble lad like me, and so might
+      speak coldly, which would have cut me, Barbara, deeper than I can tell.
+      But when I came to think again, I felt sure that I was doing her wrong in
+      this; and so I went on, as I did at first, hoping to see her once more,
+      just as she used to be. Hoping this, and remembering what she was, has
+      made me feel as if I would always try to please her, and always be what I
+      should like to seem to her if I was still her servant. If I'm the better
+      for that&mdash;and I don't think I'm the worse&mdash;I am grateful to her
+      for it, and love and honour her the more. That's the plain honest truth,
+      dear Barbara, upon my word it is!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Barbara was not of a wayward or capricious nature, and, being full
+      of remorse, melted into tears. To what more conversation this might have
+      led, we need not stop to inquire; for the wheels of the carriage were
+      heard at that moment, and, being followed by a smart ring at the garden
+      gate, caused the bustle in the house, which had laid dormant for a short
+      time, to burst again into tenfold life and vigour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Simultaneously with the travelling equipage, arrived Mr Chuckster in a
+      hackney cab, with certain papers and supplies of money for the single
+      gentleman, into whose hands he delivered them. This duty discharged, he
+      subsided into the bosom of the family; and, entertaining himself with a
+      strolling or peripatetic breakfast, watched, with genteel indifference,
+      the process of loading the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Snobby's in this, I see, Sir?' he said to Mr Abel Garland. 'I thought he
+      wasn't in the last trip because it was expected that his presence wouldn't
+      be acceptable to the ancient buffalo.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To whom, Sir?' demanded Mr Abel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To the old gentleman,' returned Mr Chuckster, slightly abashed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Our client prefers to take him now,' said Mr Abel, drily. 'There is no
+      longer any need for that precaution, as my father's relationship to a
+      gentleman in whom the objects of his search have full confidence, will be
+      a sufficient guarantee for the friendly nature of their errand.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ah!' thought Mr Chuckster, looking out of window, 'anybody but me! Snobby
+      before me, of course. He didn't happen to take that particular five-pound
+      note, but I have not the smallest doubt that he's always up to something
+      of that sort. I always said it, long before this came out. Devilish pretty
+      girl that! 'Pon my soul, an amazing little creature!'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0502m.jpg" alt="502m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0502.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      Barbara was the subject of Mr Chuckster's commendations; and as she was
+      lingering near the carriage (all being now ready for its departure), that
+      gentleman was suddenly seized with a strong interest in the proceedings,
+      which impelled him to swagger down the garden, and take up his position at
+      a convenient ogling distance. Having had great experience of the sex, and
+      being perfectly acquainted with all those little artifices which find the
+      readiest road to their hearts, Mr Chuckster, on taking his ground, planted
+      one hand on his hip, and with the other adjusted his flowing hair. This is
+      a favourite attitude in the polite circles, and, accompanied with a
+      graceful whistling, has been known to do immense execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such, however, is the difference between town and country, that nobody
+      took the smallest notice of this insinuating figure; the wretches being
+      wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell, in kissing hands to
+      each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like tame and vulgar practices.
+      For now the single gentleman and Mr Garland were in the carriage, and the
+      post-boy was in the saddle, and Kit, well wrapped and muffled up, was in
+      the rumble behind; and Mrs Garland was there, and Mr Abel was there, and
+      Kit's mother was there, and little Jacob was there, and Barbara's mother
+      was visible in remote perspective, nursing the ever-wakeful baby; and all
+      were nodding, beckoning, curtseying, or crying out, 'Good bye!' with all
+      the energy they could express. In another minute, the carriage was out of
+      sight; and Mr Chuckster remained alone on the spot where it had lately
+      been, with a vision of Kit standing up in the rumble waving his hand to
+      Barbara, and of Barbara in the full light and lustre of his eyes&mdash;his
+      eyes&mdash;Chuckster's&mdash;Chuckster the successful&mdash;on whom ladies
+      of quality had looked with favour from phaetons in the parks on Sundays&mdash;waving
+      hers to Kit!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some time
+      rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was the Prince of
+      felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul of Snobs, and how he
+      clearly traced this revolting circumstance back to that old villany of the
+      shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose; which is to track the
+      rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their cold, bleak
+      journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them
+      fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the
+      trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust. But little cared Kit for
+      weather. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came howling
+      by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome. As it swept on with its
+      cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and withered leaves,
+      and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though some general
+      sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry, like themselves.
+      The harder the gusts, the better progress they appeared to make. It was a
+      good thing to go struggling and fighting forward, vanquishing them one by
+      one; to watch them driving up, gathering strength and fury as they came
+      along; to bend for a moment, as they whistled past; and then to look back
+      and see them speed away, their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the
+      stout trees cowering down before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and
+      starlight, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing.
+      Sometimes&mdash;towards the end of a long stage&mdash;Kit could not help
+      wishing it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses,
+      and he had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying
+      the old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again
+      until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and
+      smarted in his fingers' ends&mdash;then, he felt as if to have it one
+      degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the
+      journey: and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry
+      music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople in
+      their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to sleep,
+      beguiled the time with conversation. As both were anxious and expectant,
+      it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on the manner in
+      which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and fears they
+      entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of the latter few&mdash;none
+      perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which is inseparable from
+      suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night had worn
+      away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more silent
+      and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Are you a good listener?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Like most other men, I suppose,' returned Mr Garland, smiling. 'I can be,
+      if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still try to appear
+      so. Why do you ask?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have a short narrative on my lips,' rejoined his friend, 'and will try
+      you with it. It is very brief.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman's sleeve, and
+      proceeded thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly. There was a
+      disparity in their ages&mdash;some twelve years. I am not sure but they
+      may insensibly have loved each other the better for that reason. Wide as
+      the interval between them was, however, they became rivals too soon. The
+      deepest and strongest affection of both their hearts settled upon one
+      object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The youngest&mdash;there were reasons for his being sensitive and
+      watchful&mdash;was the first to find this out. I will not tell you what
+      misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his mental
+      struggle was. He had been a sickly child. His brother, patient and
+      considerate in the midst of his own high health and strength, had many and
+      many a day denied himself the sports he loved, to sit beside his couch,
+      telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up with an unwonted
+      glow; to carry him in his arms to some green spot, where he could tend the
+      poor pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer day, and saw all
+      nature healthy but himself; to be, in any way, his fond and faithful
+      nurse. I may not dwell on all he did, to make the poor, weak creature love
+      him, or my tale would have no end. But when the time of trial came, the
+      younger brother's heart was full of those old days. Heaven strengthened it
+      to repay the sacrifices of inconsiderate youth by one of thoughtful
+      manhood. He left his brother to be happy. The truth never passed his lips,
+      and he quitted the country, hoping to die abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The elder brother married her. She was in Heaven before long, and left
+      him with an infant daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will
+      remember how the same face and figure&mdash;often the fairest and
+      slightest of them all&mdash;come upon you in different generations; and
+      how you trace the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits&mdash;never
+      growing old or changing&mdash;the Good Angel of the race&mdash;abiding by
+      them in all reverses&mdash;redeeming all their sins&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In this daughter the mother lived again. You may judge with what devotion
+      he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this girl, her
+      breathing image. She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart to one who
+      could not know its worth. Well! Her fond father could not see her pine and
+      droop. He might be more deserving than he thought him. He surely might
+      become so, with a wife like her. He joined their hands, and they were
+      married.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the cold
+      neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he brought upon
+      her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and pitiful
+      to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, in the deep devotion of
+      her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can. Her means and
+      substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her husband's hand, and
+      the hourly witness (for they lived now under one roof) of her ill-usage
+      and unhappiness,&mdash;she never, but for him, bewailed her fate. Patient,
+      and upheld by strong affection to the last, she died a widow of some three
+      weeks' date, leaving to her father's care two orphans; one a son of ten or
+      twelve years old; the other a girl&mdash;such another infant child&mdash;the
+      same in helplessness, in age, in form, in feature&mdash;as she had been
+      herself when her young mother died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken
+      man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the heavy
+      hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to trade&mdash;in
+      pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had entertained a
+      fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated
+      were now to yield him an anxious and precarious subsistence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her
+      mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her
+      mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his
+      daughter were a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the
+      shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste.
+      The old man and the child dwelt alone together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and
+      dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature; when
+      her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of the
+      too early change he had seen in such another&mdash;of all the sufferings
+      he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone; when the young
+      man's profligate and hardened course drained him of money as his father's
+      had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary privation and distress;
+      it was then that there began to beset him, and to be ever in his mind, a
+      gloomy dread of poverty and want. He had no thought for himself in this.
+      His fear was for the child. It was a spectre in his house, and haunted him
+      night and day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and had made
+      his pilgrimage through life alone. His voluntary banishment had been
+      misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and slight for
+      doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful shadow on his
+      path. Apart from this, communication between him and the elder was
+      difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not so wholly
+      broken off but that he learnt&mdash;with long blanks and gaps between each
+      interval of information&mdash;all that I have told you now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Then, dreams of their young, happy life&mdash;happy to him though laden
+      with pain and early care&mdash;visited his pillow yet oftener than before;
+      and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother's side. With the
+      utmost speed he could exert, he settled his affairs; converted into money
+      all the goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for both, with
+      open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore him on, with
+      emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one evening at his
+      brother's door!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The rest,' said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, 'I know.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Yes,' rejoined his friend, 'we may spare ourselves the sequel. You know
+      the poor result of all my search. Even when by dint of such inquiries as
+      the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we found they had
+      been seen with two poor travelling showmen&mdash;and in time discovered
+      the men themselves&mdash;and in time, the actual place of their retreat;
+      even then, we were too late. Pray God, we are not too late again!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We cannot be,' said Mr Garland. 'This time we must succeed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I have believed and hoped so,' returned the other. 'I try to believe and
+      hope so still. But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my good
+      friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to neither hope
+      nor reason.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That does not surprise me,' said Mr Garland; 'it is a natural consequence
+      of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time and place; and above
+      all, of this wild and dismal night. A dismal night, indeed! Hark! how the
+      wind is howling!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap70"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 70
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>ay broke, and found them still upon their way. Since leaving home, they
+      had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had frequently
+      been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for fresh horses.
+      They had made no other stoppages, but the weather continued rough, and the
+      roads were often steep and heavy. It would be night again before they
+      reached their place of destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and, having
+      enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to himself the
+      happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about him and be amazed
+      at everything, had little spare time for thinking of discomforts. Though
+      his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers, rapidly increased as
+      the day waned, the hours did not stand still. The short daylight of winter
+      soon faded away, and it was dark again when they had yet many miles to
+      travel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it grew dusk, the wind fell; its distant moanings were more low and
+      mournful; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling covertly
+      among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some great phantom
+      for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled as it stalked along.
+      By degrees it lulled and died away, and then it came on to snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some inches deep,
+      and spreading abroad a solemn stillness. The rolling wheels were
+      noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the horses' hoofs, became a
+      dull, muffled tramp. The life of their progress seemed to be slowly
+      hushed, and something death-like to usurp its place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes and
+      obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse of
+      twinkling lights, denoting their approach to some not distant town. He
+      could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly. Now, a tall
+      church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a
+      shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps. Now, there
+      were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, or meeting
+      them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them, turned to
+      shadows too. A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise up in the
+      road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be the road
+      itself. Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of water, appeared to
+      start up here and there, making the way doubtful and uncertain; and yet
+      they were on the same bare road, and these things, like the others, as
+      they were passed, turned into dim illusions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He descended slowly from his seat&mdash;for his limbs were numbed&mdash;when
+      they arrived at a lone posting-house, and inquired how far they had to go
+      to reach their journey's end. It was a late hour in such by-places, and
+      the people were abed; but a voice answered from an upper window, Ten
+      miles. The ten minutes that ensued appeared an hour; but at the end of
+      that time, a shivering figure led out the horses they required, and after
+      another brief delay they were again in motion.
+</p>
+    <p>
+It was a cross-country
+      road, full, after the first three or four miles, of holes and cart-ruts,
+      which, being covered by the snow, were so many pitfalls to the trembling
+      horses, and obliged them to keep a footpace. As it was next to impossible
+      for men so much agitated as they were by this time, to sit still and move
+      so slowly, all three got out and plodded on behind the carriage. The
+      distance seemed interminable, and the walk was most laborious. As each was
+      thinking within himself that the driver must have lost his way, a church
+      bell, close at hand, struck the hour of midnight, and the carriage
+      stopped. It had moved softly enough, but when it ceased to crunch the
+      snow, the silence was as startling as if some great noise had been
+      replaced by perfect stillness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is the place, gentlemen,' said the driver, dismounting from his
+      horse, and knocking at the door of a little inn. 'Halloa! Past twelve
+      o'clock is the dead of night here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the drowsy inmates.
+      All continued dark and silent as before. They fell back a little, and
+      looked up at the windows, which were mere black patches in the whitened
+      house front. No light appeared. The house might have been deserted, or the
+      sleepers dead, for any air of life it had about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whispers; unwilling
+      to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now raised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let us go on,' said the younger brother, 'and leave this good fellow to
+      wake them, if he can. I cannot rest until I know that we are not too late.
+      Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as the
+      house afforded, and to renew his knocking. Kit accompanied them with a
+      little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home, and
+      had not forgotten since&mdash;the bird in his old cage&mdash;just as she
+      had left him. She would be glad to see her bird, he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of the
+      church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village clustering
+      round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in that stillness
+      they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the man would forbear,
+      or that they had told him not to break the silence until they returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again
+      rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A
+      venerable building&mdash;grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape.
+      An ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the
+      snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself seemed
+      to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace the
+      melancholy night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path across
+      the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take, they came to
+      a stand again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The village street&mdash;if street that could be called which was an
+      irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with
+      their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards the
+      road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the path&mdash;was
+      close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window not far off,
+      and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently appeared
+      at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a protection
+      from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that unseasonable hour,
+      wanting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ''Tis hard weather this,' he grumbled, 'and not a night to call me up in.
+      My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The business
+      on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this season. What do
+      you want?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,' said
+      Kit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Old!' repeated the other peevishly. 'How do you know I am old? Not so old
+      as you think, friend, perhaps. As to being ill, you will find many young
+      people in worse case than I am. More's the pity that it should be so&mdash;not
+      that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I mean, but that they
+      should be weak and tender. I ask your pardon though,' said the old man,
+      'if I spoke rather rough at first. My eyes are not good at night&mdash;that's
+      neither age nor illness; they never were&mdash;and I didn't see you were a
+      stranger.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am sorry to call you from your bed,' said Kit, 'but those gentlemen you
+      may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just arrived
+      from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house. You can direct us?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I should be able to,' answered the old man, in a trembling voice, 'for,
+      come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years. The right
+      hand path, friend, is the road.&mdash;There is no ill news for our good
+      gentleman, I hope?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative; he was
+      turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child.
+      Looking up, he saw a very little creature at a neighbouring window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What is that?' cried the child, earnestly. 'Has my dream come true? Pray
+      speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Poor boy!' said the sexton, before Kit could answer, 'how goes it,
+      darling?'
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Has my dream come true?' exclaimed the child again, in a voice
+      so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener. 'But
+      no, that can never be! How could it be&mdash;Oh! how could it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I guess his meaning,' said the sexton. 'To bed again, poor boy!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Ay!' cried the child, in a burst of despair. 'I knew it could never be, I
+      felt too sure of that, before I asked! But, all to-night, and last night
+      too, it was the same. I never fall asleep, but that cruel dream comes
+      back.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Try to sleep again,' said the old man, soothingly. 'It will go in time.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No no, I would rather that it staid&mdash;cruel as it is, I would rather
+      that it staid,' rejoined the child. 'I am not afraid to have it in my
+      sleep, but I am so sad&mdash;so very, very sad.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit
+      was again alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child's
+      manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from him.
+      They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived before the
+      parsonage wall. Turning round to look about them when they had got thus
+      far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance, one single
+      solitary light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being
+      surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like a star.
+      Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads, lonely and
+      motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with the eternal lamps
+      of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What light is that!' said the younger brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is surely,' said Mr Garland, 'in the ruin where they live. I see no
+      other ruin hereabouts.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They cannot,' returned the brother hastily, 'be waking at this late hour&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang and waited at
+      the gate, they would let him make his way to where this light was shining,
+      and try to ascertain if any people were about. Obtaining the permission he
+      desired, he darted off with breathless eagerness, and, still carrying the
+      birdcage in his hand, made straight towards the spot.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0512m.jpg" alt="0512m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0512.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another time he
+      might have gone more slowly, or round by the path. Unmindful of all
+      obstacles, however, he pressed forward without slackening his speed, and
+      soon arrived within a few yards of the window. He approached as softly as
+      he could, and advancing so near the wall as to brush the whitened ivy with
+      his dress, listened. There was no sound inside. The church itself was not
+      more quiet. Touching the glass with his cheek, he listened again. No. And
+      yet there was such a silence all around, that he felt sure he could have
+      heard even the breathing of a sleeper, if there had been one there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A strange circumstance, a light in such a place at that time of night,
+      with no one near it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he could
+      not see into the room. But there was no shadow thrown upon it from within.
+      To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to look in from above,
+      would have been attended with some danger&mdash;certainly with some noise,
+      and the chance of terrifying the child, if that really were her
+      habitation. Again and again he listened; again and again the same
+      wearisome blank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the ruin for a
+      few paces, he came at length to a door. He knocked. No answer. But there
+      was a curious noise inside. It was difficult to determine what it was. It
+      bore a resemblance to the low moaning of one in pain, but it was not that,
+      being far too regular and constant. Now it seemed a kind of song, now a
+      wail&mdash;seemed, that is, to his changing fancy, for the sound itself
+      was never changed or checked. It was unlike anything he had ever heard;
+      and in its tone there was something fearful, chilling, and unearthly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The listener's blood ran colder now than ever it had done in frost and
+      snow, but he knocked again. There was no answer, and the sound went on
+      without any interruption. He laid his hand softly upon the latch, and put
+      his knee against the door. It was secured on the inside, but yielded to
+      the pressure, and turned upon its hinges. He saw the glimmering of a fire
+      upon the old walls, and entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap71"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 71
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he dull, red glow of a wood fire&mdash;for no lamp or candle burnt within
+      the room&mdash;showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with its back
+      towards him, bending over the fitful light. The attitude was that of one
+      who sought the heat. It was, and yet was not. The stooping posture and the
+      cowering form were there, but no hands were stretched out to meet the
+      grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver compared its luxury with the piercing
+      cold outside. With limbs huddled together, head bowed down, arms crossed
+      upon the breast, and fingers tightly clenched, it rocked to and fro upon
+      its seat without a moment's pause, accompanying the action with the
+      mournful sound he had heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash that
+      made him start. The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look, nor gave in
+      any other way the faintest sign of having heard the noise. The form was
+      that of an old man, his white head akin in colour to the mouldering embers
+      upon which he gazed. He, and the failing light and dying fire, the
+      time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all in
+      fellowship. Ashes, and dust, and ruin!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they were he
+      scarcely knew. Still the same terrible low cry went on&mdash;still the
+      same rocking in the chair&mdash;the same stricken figure was there,
+      unchanged and heedless of his presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form&mdash;distinctly
+      seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed up&mdash;arrested
+      it. He returned to where he had stood before&mdash;advanced a pace&mdash;another&mdash;another
+      still. Another, and he saw the face. Yes! Changed as it was, he knew it
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Master!' he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand. 'Dear
+      master. Speak to me!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow voice,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This is another!&mdash;How many of these spirits there have been
+      to-night!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No spirit, master. No one but your old servant. You know me now, I am
+      sure? Miss Nell&mdash;where is she&mdash;where is she?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'They all say that!' cried the old man. 'They all ask the same question. A
+      spirit!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where is she?' demanded Kit. 'Oh tell me but that,&mdash;but that, dear
+      master!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is asleep&mdash;yonder&mdash;in there.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Thank God!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye! Thank God!' returned the old man. 'I have prayed to Him, many, and
+      many, and many a livelong night, when she has been asleep, He knows. Hark!
+      Did she call?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I heard no voice.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You did. You hear her now. Do you tell me that you don't hear <i>that</i>?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He started up, and listened again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Nor that?' he cried, with a triumphant smile, 'Can any body know that
+      voice so well as I? Hush! Hush!'
+</p>
+    <p>
+Motioning to him to be silent, he stole
+      away into another chamber. After a short absence (during which he could be
+      heard to speak in a softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his
+      hand a lamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is still asleep,' he whispered. 'You were right. She did not call&mdash;unless
+      she did so in her slumber. She has called to me in her sleep before now,
+      sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen her lips move, and have
+      known, though no sound came from them, that she spoke of me. I feared the
+      light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I brought it here.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put the
+      lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some momentary
+      recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face. Then, as if
+      forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned away and put it down
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is sleeping soundly,' he said; 'but no wonder. Angel hands have
+      strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be
+      lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. She
+      used to feed them, Sir. Though never so cold and hungry, the timid things
+      would fly from us. They never flew from her!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a
+      long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out some
+      clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to smooth
+      and brush them with his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,' he murmured, 'when there are
+      bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them! Why dost
+      thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping to the door,
+      crying "where is Nell&mdash;sweet Nell?"&mdash;and sob, and weep, because
+      they do not see thee. She was always gentle with children. The wildest
+      would do her bidding&mdash;she had a tender way with them, indeed she
+      had!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Her little homely dress,&mdash;her favourite!' cried the old man,
+      pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand. 'She
+      will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall
+      have it&mdash;she shall have it. I would not vex my darling, for the wide
+      world's riches. See here&mdash;these shoes&mdash;how worn they are&mdash;she
+      kept them to remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little
+      feet went bare upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the stones
+      had cut and bruised them. She never told me that. No, no, God bless her!
+      and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might not
+      see how lame she was&mdash;but yet she had my hand in hers, and seemed to
+      lead me still.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back again,
+      went on communing with himself&mdash;looking wistfully from time to time
+      towards the chamber he had lately visited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then. We must have
+      patience. When she is well again, she will rise early, as she used to do,
+      and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time. I often tried to track the
+      way she had gone, but her small footstep left no print upon the dewy
+      ground, to guide me. Who is that? Shut the door. Quick!&mdash;Have we not
+      enough to do to drive away that marble cold, and keep her warm!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his friend,
+      accompanied by two other persons. These were the schoolmaster, and the
+      bachelor. The former held a light in his hand. He had, it seemed, but gone
+      to his own cottage to replenish the exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit
+      came up and found the old man alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside the
+      angry manner&mdash;if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can be
+      applied&mdash;in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed his
+      former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old action, and
+      the old, dull, wandering sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever. He had seen them, but appeared
+      quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The younger brother stood apart.
+      The bachelor drew a chair towards the old man, and sat down close beside
+      him. After a long silence, he ventured to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Another night, and not in bed!' he said softly; 'I hoped you would be
+      more mindful of your promise to me. Why do you not take some rest?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Sleep has left me,' returned the old man. 'It is all with her!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,' said
+      the bachelor. 'You would not give her pain?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her. She has slept so
+      very long. And yet I am rash to say so. It is a good and happy sleep&mdash;eh?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Indeed it is,' returned the bachelor. 'Indeed, indeed, it is!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That's well!&mdash;and the waking&mdash;' faltered the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Happy too. Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man conceive.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other chamber where
+      the lamp had been replaced. They listened as he spoke again within its
+      silent walls. They looked into the faces of each other, and no man's cheek
+      was free from tears. He came back, whispering that she was still asleep,
+      but that he thought she had moved. It was her hand, he said&mdash;a little&mdash;a
+      very, very little&mdash;but he was pretty sure she had moved it&mdash;perhaps
+      in seeking his. He had known her do that, before now, though in the
+      deepest sleep the while. And when he had said this, he dropped into his
+      chair again, and clasping his hands above his head, uttered a cry never to
+      be forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come on the
+      other side, and speak to him. They gently unlocked his fingers, which he
+      had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He will hear me,' said the schoolmaster, 'I am sure. He will hear either
+      me or you if we beseech him. She would, at all times.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I will hear any voice she liked to hear,' cried the old man. 'I love all
+      she loved!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I know you do,' returned the schoolmaster. 'I am certain of it. Think of
+      her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have shared together; of
+      all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures, you have jointly known.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I do. I do. I think of nothing else.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I would have you think of nothing else to-night&mdash;of nothing but
+      those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it to old
+      affections and old times. It is so that she would speak to you herself,
+      and in her name it is that I speak now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You do well to speak softly,' said the old man. 'We will not wake her. I
+      should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile. There is a
+      smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and changeless. I would
+      have it come and go. That shall be in Heaven's good time. We will not wake
+      her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when you were
+      journeying together, far away&mdash;as she was at home, in the old house
+      from which you fled together&mdash;as she was, in the old cheerful time,'
+      said the schoolmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She was always cheerful&mdash;very cheerful,' cried the old man, looking
+      steadfastly at him. 'There was ever something mild and quiet about her, I
+      remember, from the first; but she was of a happy nature.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We have heard you say,' pursued the schoolmaster, 'that in this and in
+      all goodness, she was like her mother. You can think of, and remember
+      her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Or even one before her,' said the bachelor. 'It is many years ago, and
+      affliction makes the time longer, but you have not forgotten her whose
+      death contributed to make this child so dear to you, even before you knew
+      her worth or could read her heart? Say, that you could carry back your
+      thoughts to very distant days&mdash;to the time of your early life&mdash;when,
+      unlike this fair flower, you did not pass your youth alone. Say, that you
+      could remember, long ago, another child who loved you dearly, you being
+      but a child yourself. Say, that you had a brother, long forgotten, long
+      unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, in your utmost need
+      came back to comfort and console you&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To be to you what you were once to him,' cried the younger, falling on
+      his knee before him; 'to repay your old affection, brother dear, by
+      constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at your right hand, what he
+      has never ceased to be when oceans rolled between us; to call to witness
+      his unchanging truth and mindfulness of bygone days, whole years of
+      desolation. Give me but one word of recognition, brother&mdash;and never&mdash;no
+      never, in the brightest moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly
+      boys, we thought to pass our lives together&mdash;have we been half as
+      dear and precious to each other as we shall be from this time hence!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no sound
+      came from them in reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If we were knit together then,' pursued the younger brother, 'what will
+      be the bond between us now! Our love and fellowship began in childhood,
+      when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we have proved it,
+      and are but children at the last. As many restless spirits, who have
+      hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the world, retire in their
+      decline to where they first drew breath, vainly seeking to be children
+      once again before they die, so we, less fortunate than they in early life,
+      but happier in its closing scenes, will set up our rest again among our
+      boyish haunts, and going home with no hope realised, that had its growth
+      in manhood&mdash;carrying back nothing that we brought away, but our old
+      yearnings to each other&mdash;saving no fragment from the wreck of life,
+      but that which first endeared it&mdash;may be, indeed, but children as at
+      first. And even,' he added in an altered voice, 'even if what I dread to
+      name has come to pass&mdash;even if that be so, or is to be (which Heaven
+      forbid and spare us!)&mdash;still, dear brother, we are not apart, and
+      have that comfort in our great affliction.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner
+      chamber, while these words were spoken. He pointed there, as he replied,
+      with trembling lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You never will do that&mdash;never
+      while I have life. I have no relative or friend but her&mdash;I never had&mdash;I
+      never will have. She is all in all to me. It is too late to part us now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he
+      stole into the room. They who were left behind, drew close together, and
+      after a few whispered words&mdash;not unbroken by emotion, or easily
+      uttered&mdash;followed him. They moved so gently, that their footsteps
+      made no noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of
+      grief and mourning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn
+      stillness was no marvel now.
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0520m.jpg" alt="0520m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0520.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain,
+      so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God,
+      and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green
+      leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour. 'When I die, put
+      near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it
+      always.' Those were her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird&mdash;a
+      poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed&mdash;was
+      stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child mistress
+      was mute and motionless for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues?
+      All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness
+      were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. The
+      old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed, like a
+      dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor
+      schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold
+      wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same
+      mild lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty, after
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight
+      folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to
+      him with her last smile&mdash;the hand that had led him on, through all
+      their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it
+      to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and, as he said it,
+      he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if imploring them to
+      help her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had
+      seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast&mdash;the
+      garden she had tended&mdash;the eyes she had gladdened&mdash;the noiseless
+      haunts of many a thoughtful hour&mdash;the paths she had trodden as it
+      were but yesterday&mdash;could know her never more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is not,' said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the
+      cheek, and gave his tears free vent, 'it is not on earth that Heaven's
+      justice ends. Think what earth is, compared with the World to which her
+      young spirit has winged its early flight; and say, if one deliberate wish
+      expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her back to life,
+      which of us would utter it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap72"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 72
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of
+      their grief, they heard how her life had closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, knowing
+      that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read
+      and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but as the hours
+      crept on, she sunk to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered
+      in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man; they
+      were of no painful scenes, but of people who had helped and used them
+      kindly, for she often said 'God bless you!' with great fervour. Waking,
+      she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music
+      which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they
+      would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a
+      lovely smile upon her face&mdash;such, they said, as they had never seen,
+      and never could forget&mdash;and clung with both her arms about his neck.
+      They did not know that she was dead, at first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were like
+      dear friends to her. She wished they could be told how much she thought
+      about them, and how she had watched them as they walked together, by the
+      river side at night. She would like to see poor Kit, she had often said of
+      late. She wished there was somebody to take her love to Kit. And, even
+      then, she never thought or spoke about him, but with something of her old,
+      clear, merry laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a quiet mind,
+      and manner quite unaltered&mdash;save that she every day became more
+      earnest and more grateful to them&mdash;faded like the light upon a
+      summer's evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon as it
+      was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged them to lay
+      upon her breast. It was he who had come to the window overnight and spoken
+      to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces of small feet, where he had
+      been lingering near the room in which she lay, before he went to bed. He
+      had a fancy, it seemed, that they had left her there alone; and could not
+      bear the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being restored to
+      them, just as she used to be. He begged hard to see her, saying that he
+      would be very quiet, and that they need not fear his being alarmed, for he
+      had sat alone by his young brother all day long when he was dead, and had
+      felt glad to be so near him. They let him have his wish; and indeed he
+      kept his word, and was, in his childish way, a lesson to them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once&mdash;except to her&mdash;or
+      stirred from the bedside. But, when he saw her little favourite, he was
+      moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as though he would have him
+      come nearer. Then, pointing to the bed, he burst into tears for the first
+      time, and they who stood by, knowing that the sight of this child had done
+      him good, left them alone together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuaded him to take
+      some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him. And when the
+      day came on, which must remove her in her earthly shape from earthly eyes
+      for ever, he led him away, that he might not know when she was taken from
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed. It was Sunday&mdash;a
+      bright, clear, wintry afternoon&mdash;and as they traversed the village
+      street, those who were walking in their path drew back to make way for
+      them, and gave them a softened greeting. Some shook the old man kindly by
+      the hand, some stood uncovered while he tottered by, and many cried 'God
+      help him!' as he passed along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Neighbour!' said the old man, stopping at the cottage where his young
+      guide's mother dwelt, 'how is it that the folks are nearly all in black
+      to-day? I have seen a mourning ribbon or a piece of crape on almost every
+      one.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not tell, the woman said.
+</p>
+    <p>
+'Why, you yourself&mdash;you wear the
+      colour too?' he said. 'Windows are closed that never used to be by day.
+      What does this mean?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the woman said she could not tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'We must go back,' said the old man, hurriedly. 'We must see what this
+      is.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no,' cried the child, detaining him. 'Remember what you promised. Our
+      way is to the old green lane, where she and I so often were, and where you
+      found us, more than once, making those garlands for her garden. Do not
+      turn back!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Where is she now?' said the old man. 'Tell me that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you not know?' returned the child. 'Did we not leave her, but just
+      now?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'True. True. It was her we left&mdash;was it?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if
+      impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the sexton's
+      house. He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the fire. Both rose
+      up, on seeing who it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand. It was the action of an
+      instant, but that, and the old man's look, were quite enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Do you&mdash;do you bury any one to-day?' he said, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'No, no! Who should we bury, Sir?' returned the sexton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Aye, who indeed! I say with you, who indeed!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It is a holiday with us, good Sir,' returned the sexton mildly. 'We have
+      no work to do to-day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Why then, I'll go where you will,' said the old man, turning to the
+      child. 'You're sure of what you tell me? You would not deceive me? I am
+      changed, even in the little time since you last saw me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Go thy ways with him, Sir,' cried the sexton, 'and Heaven be with ye
+      both!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I am quite ready,' said the old man, meekly. 'Come, boy, come&mdash;' and
+      so submitted to be led away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the bell&mdash;the bell she had so often heard, by night and day,
+      and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice&mdash;rung
+      its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit
+      age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy, poured
+      forth&mdash;on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full
+      blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life&mdash;to gather round her tomb.
+      Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing&mdash;grandmothers,
+      who might have died ten years ago, and still been old&mdash;the deaf, the
+      blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to
+      see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in,
+      to that which still could crawl and creep above it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen snow
+      that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting. Under the porch,
+      where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that peaceful
+      spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its quiet
+      shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a time sat
+      musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light streamed
+      on it through the coloured window&mdash;a window, where the boughs of
+      trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly
+      all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among those branches
+      in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light, would fall upon her
+      grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! Many a young hand dropped in
+      its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some&mdash;and they were
+      not a few&mdash;knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in their sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed round
+      to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be replaced. One
+      called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very spot, and how her
+      book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a pensive face upon
+      the sky. Another told, how he had wondered much that one so delicate as
+      she, should be so bold; how she had never feared to enter the church alone
+      at night, but had loved to linger there when all was quiet, and even to
+      climb the tower stair, with no more light than that of the moon rays
+      stealing through the loopholes in the thick old wall. A whisper went about
+      among the oldest, that she had seen and talked with angels; and when they
+      called to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her early death, some
+      thought it might be so, indeed. Thus, coming to the grave in little knots,
+      and glancing down, and giving place to others, and falling off in
+      whispering groups of three or four, the church was cleared in time, of all
+      but the sexton and the mourning friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down. Then, when the dusk
+      of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of
+      the place&mdash;when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and
+      monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it seemed to them)
+      upon her quiet grave&mdash;in that calm time, when outward things and
+      inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and
+      fears are humbled in the dust before them&mdash;then, with tranquil and
+      submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach,
+      but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a
+      mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young,
+      for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a
+      hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the
+      world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such
+      green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the
+      Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power,
+      and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late when the old man came home. The boy had led him to his own
+      dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back; and, rendered drowsy by
+      his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into a deep sleep by
+      the fireside. He was perfectly exhausted, and they were careful not to
+      rouse him. The slumber held him a long time, and when he at length awoke
+      the moon was shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching at the
+      door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with his little
+      guide. He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging the old man to lean
+      upon his arm, conducted him with slow and trembling steps towards the
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He repaired to her chamber, straight. Not finding what he had left there,
+      he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they were
+      assembled. From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster's cottage, calling
+      her name. They followed close upon him, and when he had vainly searched
+      it, brought him home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest, they
+      prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should tell him.
+      Then endeavouring by every little artifice to prepare his mind for what
+      must come, and dwelling with many fervent words upon the happy lot to
+      which she had been removed, they told him, at last, the truth. The moment
+      it had passed their lips, he fell down among them like a murdered man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is
+      strong, and he recovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there be any who have never known the blank that follows death&mdash;the
+      weary void&mdash;the sense of desolation that will come upon the strongest
+      minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at every turn&mdash;the
+      connection between inanimate and senseless things, and the object of
+      recollection, when every household god becomes a monument and every room a
+      grave&mdash;if there be any who have not known this, and proved it by
+      their own experience, they can never faintly guess how, for many days, the
+      old man pined and moped away the time, and wandered here and there as
+      seeking something, and had no comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up in her.
+      He never understood, or seemed to care to understand, about his brother.
+      To every endearment and attention he continued listless. If they spoke to
+      him on this, or any other theme&mdash;save one&mdash;he would hear them
+      patiently for awhile, then turn away, and go on seeking as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, it was impossible
+      to touch. Dead! He could not hear or bear the word. The slightest hint of
+      it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that he had had when it was first
+      spoken. In what hope he lived, no man could tell; but that he had some
+      hope of finding her again&mdash;some faint and shadowy hope, deferred from
+      day to day, and making him from day to day more sick and sore at heart&mdash;was
+      plain to all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last sorrow; of
+      trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him. His brother
+      sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful in such matters, and
+      they came and saw him. Some of the number staid upon the spot, conversed
+      with him when he would converse, and watched him as he wandered up and
+      down, alone and silent. Move him where they might, they said, he would
+      ever seek to get back there. His mind would run upon that spot. If they
+      confined him closely, and kept a strict guard upon him, they might hold
+      him prisoner, but if he could by any means escape, he would surely wander
+      back to that place, or die upon the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy, to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any influence
+      with him. At times he would suffer the child to walk by his side, or would
+      even take such notice of his presence as giving him his hand, or would
+      stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the head. At other times, he would
+      entreat him&mdash;not unkindly&mdash;to be gone, and would not brook him
+      near. But, whether alone, or with this pliant friend, or with those who
+      would have given him, at any cost or sacrifice, some consolation or some
+      peace of mind, if happily the means could have been devised; he was at all
+      times the same&mdash;with no love or care for anything in life&mdash;a
+      broken-hearted man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with his
+      knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and little
+      basket full of such things as she had been used to carry, was gone. As
+      they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a frightened schoolboy
+      came who had seen him, but a moment before, sitting in the church&mdash;upon
+      her grave, he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in the
+      attitude of one who waited patiently. They did not disturb him then, but
+      kept a watch upon him all that day. When it grew quite dark, he rose and
+      returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to himself, 'She will come
+      to-morrow!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night; and still at
+      night he laid him down to rest, and murmured, 'She will come to-morrow!'
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0528m.jpg" alt="0528m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0528.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her grave, for
+      her. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of
+      resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and
+      woods, and paths not often trodden&mdash;how many tones of that one
+      well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering
+      dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind&mdash;how many visions of
+      what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be&mdash;rose up before him,
+      in the old, dull, silent church! He never told them what he thought, or
+      where he went. He would sit with them at night, pondering with a secret
+      satisfaction, they could see, upon the flight that he and she would take
+      before night came again; and still they would hear him whisper in his
+      prayers, 'Lord! Let her come to-morrow!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last time was on a genial day in spring. He did not return at the
+      usual hour, and they went to seek him. He was lying dead upon the stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in the
+      church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered hand in hand,
+      the child and the old man slept together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="chap73"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER 73
+    </h3>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler thus far,
+      now slackens in its pace, and stops. It lies before the goal; the pursuit
+      is at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have borne
+      us company upon the road, and so to close the journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm, claim our
+      polite attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the
+      justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to protract his
+      stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under his protection for a
+      considerable time, during which the great attention of his entertainer
+      kept him so extremely close, that he was quite lost to society, and never
+      even went abroad for exercise saving into a small paved yard. So well,
+      indeed, was his modest and retiring temper understood by those with whom
+      he had to deal, and so jealous were they of his absence, that they
+      required a kind of friendly bond to be entered into by two substantial
+      housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds a-piece, before they
+      would suffer him to quit their hospitable roof&mdash;doubting, it
+      appeared, that he would return, if once let loose, on any other terms. Mr
+      Brass, struck with the humour of this jest, and carrying out its spirit to
+      the utmost, sought from his wide connection a pair of friends whose joint
+      possessions fell some halfpence short of fifteen pence, and proffered them
+      as bail&mdash;for that was the merry word agreed upon both sides. These
+      gentlemen being rejected after twenty-four hours' pleasantry, Mr Brass
+      consented to remain, and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called
+      a Grand Jury (who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve
+      other wags for perjury and fraud, who in their turn found him guilty with
+      a most facetious joy,&mdash;nay, the very populace entered into the whim,
+      and when Mr Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the building where
+      these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs and carcases of
+      kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into shreds, which greatly
+      increased the comicality of the thing, and made him relish it the more, no
+      doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To work this sportive vein still further, Mr Brass, by his counsel, moved
+      in arrest of judgment that he had been led to criminate himself, by
+      assurances of safety and promises of pardon, and claimed the leniency
+      which the law extends to such confiding natures as are thus deluded. After
+      solemn argument, this point (with others of a technical nature, whose
+      humorous extravagance it would be difficult to exaggerate) was referred to
+      the judges for their decision, Sampson being meantime removed to his
+      former quarters. Finally, some of the points were given in Sampson's
+      favour, and some against him; and the upshot was, that, instead of being
+      desired to travel for a time in foreign parts, he was permitted to grace
+      the mother country under certain insignificant restrictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a spacious
+      mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and boarded at the
+      public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of grey turned up with
+      yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and chiefly lived on gruel and
+      light soup. It was also required of him that he should partake of their
+      exercise of constantly ascending an endless flight of stairs; and, lest
+      his legs, unused to such exertion, should be weakened by it, that he
+      should wear upon one ankle an amulet or charm of iron. These conditions
+      being arranged, he was removed one evening to his new abode, and enjoyed,
+      in common with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the privilege of
+      being taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty's own carriages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and blotted
+      out from the roll of attorneys; which erasure has been always held in
+      these latter times to be a great degradation and reproach, and to imply
+      the commission of some amazing villany&mdash;as indeed it would seem to be
+      the case, when so many worthless names remain among its better records,
+      unmolested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumours went abroad. Some said with confidence
+      that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and had become a
+      female sailor; others darkly whispered that she had enlisted as a private
+      in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and had been seen in uniform, and
+      on duty, to wit, leaning on her musket and looking out of a sentry-box in
+      St James's Park, one evening. There were many such whispers as these in
+      circulation; but the truth appears to be that, after the lapse of some
+      five years (during which there is no direct evidence of her having been
+      seen at all), two wretched people were more than once observed to crawl at
+      dusk from the inmost recesses of St Giles's, and to take their way along
+      the streets, with shuffling steps and cowering shivering forms, looking
+      into the roads and kennels as they went in search of refuse food or
+      disregarded offal. These forms were never beheld but in those nights of
+      cold and gloom, when the terrible spectres, who lie at all other times in
+      the obscene hiding-places of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars,
+      venture to creep into the streets; the embodied spirits of Disease, and
+      Vice, and Famine. It was whispered by those who should have known, that
+      these were Sampson and his sister Sally; and to this day, it is said, they
+      sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome guise, close at the
+      elbow of the shrinking passenger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The body of Quilp being found&mdash;though not until some days had elapsed&mdash;an
+      inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been washed ashore. The
+      general supposition was that he had committed suicide, and, this appearing
+      to be favoured by all the circumstances of his death, the verdict was to
+      that effect. He was left to be buried with a stake through his heart in
+      the centre of four lonely roads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was rumoured afterwards that this horrible and barbarous ceremony had
+      been dispensed with, and that the remains had been secretly given up to
+      Tom Scott. But even here, opinion was divided; for some said Tom dug them
+      up at midnight, and carried them to a place indicated to him by the widow.
+      It is probable that both these stories may have had their origin in the
+      simple fact of Tom's shedding tears upon the inquest&mdash;which he
+      certainly did, extraordinary as it may appear. He manifested, besides, a
+      strong desire to assault the jury; and being restrained and conducted out
+      of court, darkened its only window by standing on his head upon the sill,
+      until he was dexterously tilted upon his feet again by a cautious beadle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being cast upon the world by his master's death, he determined to go
+      through it upon his head and hands, and accordingly began to tumble for
+      his bread. Finding, however, his English birth an insurmountable obstacle
+      to his advancement in this pursuit (notwithstanding that his art was in
+      high repute and favour), he assumed the name of an Italian image lad, with
+      whom he had become acquainted; and afterwards tumbled with extraordinary
+      success, and to overflowing audiences.
+</p>
+    <p>
+Little Mrs Quilp never quite
+      forgave herself the one deceit that lay so heavy on her conscience, and
+      never spoke or thought of it but with bitter tears. Her husband had no
+      relations, and she was rich. He had made no will, or she would probably
+      have been poor. Having married the first time at her mother's instigation,
+      she consulted in her second choice nobody but herself. It fell upon a
+      smart young fellow enough; and as he made it a preliminary condition that
+      Mrs Jiniwin should be thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together
+      after marriage with no more than the average amount of quarrelling, and
+      led a merry life upon the dead dwarf's money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr and Mrs Garland, and Mr Abel, went out as usual (except that there was
+      a change in their household, as will be seen presently), and in due time
+      the latter went into partnership with his friend the notary, on which
+      occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and great extent of dissipation.
+      Unto this ball there happened to be invited the most bashful young lady
+      that was ever seen, with whom Mr Abel happened to fall in love. HOW it
+      happened, or how they found it out, or which of them first communicated
+      the discovery to the other, nobody knows. But certain it is that in course
+      of time they were married; and equally certain it is that they were the
+      happiest of the happy; and no less certain it is that they deserved to be
+      so. And it is pleasant to write down that they reared a family; because
+      any propagation of goodness and benevolence is no small addition to the
+      aristocracy of nature, and no small subject of rejoicing for mankind at
+      large.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to
+      the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and caused
+      him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. He often
+      went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr Garland's and his
+      son's, and, as the old people and the young were frequently together, had
+      a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which he would walk of
+      himself with surprising dignity. He condescended to play with the
+      children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would
+      run up and down the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he
+      relaxed so far, and allowed them such small freedoms as caresses, or even
+      to look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted any one
+      among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that even their
+      familiarity must have its limits, and that there were points between them
+      far too serious for trifling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for when
+      the good bachelor came to live with Mr Garland upon the clergyman's
+      decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and amiably submitted to
+      be driven by his hands without the least resistance. He did no work for
+      two or three years before he died, but lived in clover; and his last act
+      (like a choleric old gentleman) was to kick his doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering into
+      the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Marchioness a handsome stock of
+      clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in redemption of the vow he had
+      made upon his fevered bed. After casting about for some time for a name
+      which should be worthy of her, he decided in favour of Sophronia Sphynx,
+      as being euphonious and genteel, and furthermore indicative of mystery.
+      Under this title the Marchioness repaired, in tears, to the school of his
+      selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she was
+      removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher grade. It is
+      but bare justice to Mr Swiveller to say, that, although the expenses of
+      her education kept him in straitened circumstances for half a dozen years,
+      he never slackened in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently
+      repaid by the accounts he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement,
+      on his monthly visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary
+      gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in
+      quotation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a word, Mr Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment until
+      she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age&mdash;
+      good-looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider
+      seriously what was to be done next. On one of his periodical visits, while
+      he was revolving this question in his mind, the Marchioness came down to
+      him, alone, looking more smiling and more fresh than ever. Then, it
+      occurred to him, but not for the first time, that if she would marry him,
+      how comfortable they might be! So Richard asked her; whatever she said, it
+      wasn't No; and they were married in good earnest that day week. Which gave
+      Mr Swiveller frequent occasion to remark at divers subsequent periods that
+      there had been a young lady saving up for him after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden a
+      smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to become its
+      tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon its occupation.
+      To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly every Sunday to spend the
+      day&mdash;usually beginning with breakfast&mdash;and here he was the great
+      purveyor of general news and fashionable intelligence. For some years he
+      continued a deadly foe to Kit, protesting that he had a better opinion of
+      him when he was supposed to have stolen the five-pound note, than when he
+      was shown to be perfectly free of the crime; inasmuch as his guilt would
+      have had in it something daring and bold, whereas his innocence was but
+      another proof of a sneaking and crafty disposition. By slow degrees,
+      however, he was reconciled to him in the end; and even went so far as to
+      honour him with his patronage, as one who had in some measure reformed,
+      and was therefore to be forgiven. But he never forgot or pardoned that
+      circumstance of the shilling; holding that if he had come back to get
+      another he would have done well enough, but that his returning to work out
+      the former gift was a stain upon his moral character which no penitence or
+      contrition could ever wash away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic and
+      reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the
+      smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his own mind
+      the mysterious question of Sophronia's parentage. Sophronia herself
+      supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller, putting various slight
+      circumstances together, often thought Miss Brass must know better than
+      that; and, having heard from his wife of her strange interview with Quilp,
+      entertained sundry misgivings whether that person, in his lifetime, might
+      not also have been able to solve the riddle, had he chosen. These
+      speculations, however, gave him no uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a
+      most cheerful, affectionate, and provident wife to him; and Dick
+      (excepting for an occasional outbreak with Mr Chuckster, which she had the
+      good sense rather to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and
+      domesticated husband. And they played many hundred thousand games of
+      cribbage together. And let it be added, to Dick's honour, that, though we
+      have called her Sophronia, he called her the Marchioness from first to
+      last; and that upon every anniversary of the day on which he found her in
+      his sick room, Mr Chuckster came to dinner, and there was great
+      glorification.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr James
+      Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with varying success,
+      until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the way of their profession,
+      dispersed them in various directions, and caused their career to receive a
+      sudden check from the long and strong arm of the law. This defeat had its
+      origin in the untoward detection of a new associate&mdash;young Frederick
+      Trent&mdash;who thus became the unconscious instrument of their punishment
+      and his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by
+      his wits&mdash;which means by the abuse of every faculty that worthily
+      employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far below
+      them. It was not long before his body was recognised by a stranger, who
+      chanced to visit that hospital in Paris where the drowned are laid out to
+      be owned; despite the bruises and disfigurements which were said to have
+      been occasioned by some previous scuffle. But the stranger kept his own
+      counsel until he returned home, and it was never claimed or cared for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger brother, or the single gentleman, for that designation is more
+      familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his lone retreat,
+      and made him his companion and friend. But the humble village teacher was
+      timid of venturing into the noisy world, and had become fond of his
+      dwelling in the old churchyard. Calmly happy in his school, and in the
+      spot, and in the attachment of Her little mourner, he pursued his quiet
+      course in peace; and was, through the righteous gratitude of his friend&mdash;let
+      this brief mention suffice for that&mdash;a POOR school-master no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That friend&mdash;single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will&mdash;had
+      at his heart a heavy sorrow; but it bred in him no misanthropy or monastic
+      gloom. He went forth into the world, a lover of his kind. For a long, long
+      time, it was his chief delight to travel in the steps of the old man and
+      the child (so far as he could trace them from her last narrative), to halt
+      where they had halted, sympathise where they had suffered, and rejoice
+      where they had been made glad. Those who had been kind to them, did not
+      escape his search. The sisters at the school&mdash;they who were her
+      friends, because themselves so friendless&mdash;Mrs Jarley of the
+      wax-work, Codlin, Short&mdash;he found them all; and trust me, the man who
+      fed the furnace fire was not forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kit's story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and many
+      offers of provision for his future life. He had no idea at first of ever
+      quitting Mr Garland's service; but, after serious remonstrance and advice
+      from that gentleman, began to contemplate the possibility of such a change
+      being brought about in time. A good post was procured for him, with a
+      rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the gentlemen who had
+      believed him guilty of the offence laid to his charge, and who had acted
+      upon that belief. Through the same kind agency, his mother was secured
+      from want, and made quite happy. Thus, as Kit often said, his great
+      misfortune turned out to be the source of all his subsequent prosperity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did Kit live a single man all his days, or did he marry? Of course he
+      married, and who should be his wife but Barbara? And the best of it was,
+      he married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle, before the calves of
+      his legs, already mentioned in this history, had ever been encased in
+      broadcloth pantaloons,&mdash;though that was not quite the best either,
+      for of necessity the baby was an uncle too. The delight of Kit's mother
+      and of Barbara's mother upon the great occasion is past all telling;
+      finding they agreed so well on that, and on all other subjects, they took
+      up their abode together, and were a most harmonious pair of friends from
+      that time forth. And hadn't Astley's cause to bless itself for their all
+      going together once a quarter&mdash;to the pit&mdash;and didn't Kit's
+      mother always say, when they painted the outside, that Kit's last treat
+      had helped to that, and wonder what the manager would feel if he but knew
+      it as they passed his house!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara among
+      them, and a pretty Barbara she was. Nor was there wanting an exact
+      facsimile and copy of little Jacob, as he appeared in those remote times
+      when they taught him what oysters meant. Of course there was an Abel, own
+      godson to the Mr Garland of that name; and there was a Dick, whom Mr
+      Swiveller did especially favour. The little group would often gather round
+      him of a night and beg him to tell again that story of good Miss Nell who
+      died. This, Kit would do; and when they cried to hear it, wishing it
+      longer too, he would teach them how she had gone to Heaven, as all good
+      people did; and how, if they were good, like her, they might hope to be
+      there too, one day, and to see and know her as he had done when he was
+      quite a boy. Then, he would relate to them how needy he used to be, and
+      how she had taught him what he was otherwise too poor to learn, and how
+      the old man had been used to say 'she always laughs at Kit;' at which they
+      would brush away their tears, and laugh themselves to think that she had
+      done so, and be again quite merry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived; but new
+      improvements had altered it so much, it was not like the same. The old
+      house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its
+      place. At first he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground to
+      show them where it used to stand. But he soon became uncertain of the
+      spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he thought, and these
+      alterations were confusing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things pass
+      away, like a tale that is told!
+    </p>
+<div class="fig" style="width:65%">
+      <img src="images/0536m.jpg" alt="0536m " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h5>
+      <a href="images/0536.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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