The Old Curiosity Shop
‘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