The Old Curiosity Shop
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