The Old Curiosity Shop
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