The Old Curiosity Shop
‘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.