The Old Curiosity Shop
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