The Old Curiosity Shop
another minute, the carriage was out of sight; and Mr Chuckster
remained alone on the spot where it had lately been, with a vision of
Kit standing up in the rumble waving his hand to Barbara, and of
Barbara in the full light and lustre of his eyes--his
eyes--Chuckster’s--Chuckster the successful--on whom ladies of quality
had looked with favour from phaetons in the parks on Sundays--waving
hers to Kit!
How Mr Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some time
rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was the Prince
of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul of Snobs, and
how he clearly traced this revolting circumstance back to that old
villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose; which is
to track the rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their
cold, bleak journey.
It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them
fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the
trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust. But little cared Kit
for weather. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came
howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome. As it swept
on with its cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and
withered leaves, and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though
some general sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry,
like themselves. The harder the gusts, the better progress they
appeared to make. It was a good thing to go struggling and fighting
forward, vanquishing them one by one; to watch them driving up,
gathering strength and fury as they came along; to bend for a moment,
as they whistled past; and then to look back and see them speed away,
their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering
down before them.
All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and
starlit, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing.
Sometimes--towards the end of a long stage--Kit could not help wishing
it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses, and he
had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying the
old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again
until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and
smarted in his fingers’ ends--then, he felt as if to have it one
degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the
journey: and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry
music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople
in their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road.
Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to sleep,
beguiled the time with conversation. As both were anxious and
expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on
the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and
fears they entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of
the latter few--none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which
is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation.
In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night had
worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more
silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly:
‘Are you a good listener?’
‘Like most other men, I suppose,’ returned Mr Garland, smiling. ‘I can
be, if I am interested; and if not interested, I should still try to
appear so. Why do you ask?’
‘I have a short narrative on my lips,’ rejoined his friend, ‘and will
try you with it. It is very brief.’
Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman’s sleeve,
and proceeded thus:
‘There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly. There was
a disparity in their ages--some twelve years. I am not sure but they
may insensibly have loved each other the better for that reason. Wide
as the interval between them was, however, they became rivals too soon.
The deepest and strongest affection of both their hearts settled upon
one object.
‘The youngest--there were reasons for his being sensitive and
watchful--was the first to find this out. I will not tell you what
misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his mental
struggle was. He had been a sickly child. His brother, patient and
considerate in the midst of his own high health and strength, had many
and many a day denied himself the sports he loved, to sit beside his
couch, telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up with an
unwonted glow; to carry him in his arms to some green spot, where he
could tend the poor pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer
day, and saw all nature healthy but himself; to be, in any way, his
fond and faithful nurse. I may not dwell on all he did, to make the
poor, weak creature love him, or my tale would have no end. But when
the time of trial came, the younger brother’s heart was full of those
old days. Heaven strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of
inconsiderate youth by one of thoughtful manhood. He left his brother
to be happy. The truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the
country, hoping to die abroad.
‘The elder brother married her. She was in Heaven before long, and
left him with an infant daughter.
‘If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will
remember how the same face and figure--often the fairest and slightest
of them all--come upon you in different generations; and how you trace
the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits--never growing
old or changing--the Good Angel of the race--abiding by them in all
reverses--redeeming all their sins--
‘In this daughter the mother lived again. You may judge with what
devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this
girl, her breathing image. She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart
to one who could not know its worth. Well! Her fond father could not
see her pine and droop. He might be more deserving than he thought
him. He surely might become so, with a wife like her. He joined their
hands, and they were married.
‘Through all the misery that followed this union; through all the cold
neglect and undeserved reproach; through all the poverty he brought
upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and
pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, in the deep
devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can.
Her means and substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her
husband’s hand, and the hourly witness (for they lived now under one
roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness,--she never, but for him,
bewailed her fate. Patient, and upheld by strong affection to the
last, she died a widow of some three weeks’ date, leaving to her
father’s care two orphans; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the
other a girl--such another infant child--the same in helplessness, in
age, in form, in feature--as she had been herself when her young mother
died.
‘The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken
man; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the
heavy hand of sorrow. With the wreck of his possessions, he began to
trade--in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had
entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he
had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and precarious
subsistence.
‘The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the girl so like her
mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her
mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his
daughter were a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the
shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste.
The old man and the child dwelt alone together.
‘It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and
dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature; when
her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of
the too early change he had seen in such another--of all the
sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone;
when the young man’s profligate and hardened course drained him of
money as his father’s had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary
privation and distress; it was then that there began to beset him, and
to be ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want. He had no
thought for himself in this. His fear was for the child. It was a
spectre in his house, and haunted him night and day.
‘The younger brother had been a traveller in many countries, and had
made his pilgrimage through life alone. His voluntary banishment had
been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and
slight for doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful
shadow on his path. Apart from this, communication between him and the
elder was difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not
so wholly broken off but that he learnt--with long blanks and gaps
between each interval of information--all that I have told you now.
‘Then, dreams of their young, happy life--happy to him though laden
with pain and early care--visited his pillow yet oftener than before;
and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother’s side. With the
utmost speed he could exert, he settled his affairs; converted into
money all the goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for
both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore
him on, with emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one
evening at his brother’s door!’
The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.
‘The rest,’ said Mr Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, ‘I know.’
‘Yes,’ rejoined his friend, ‘we may spare ourselves the sequel. You
know the poor result of all my search. Even when by dint of such
inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we
found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen--and in time
discovered the men themselves--and in time, the actual place of their
retreat; even then, we were too late. Pray God, we are not too late
again!’
‘We cannot be,’ said Mr Garland. ‘This time we must succeed.’
‘I have believed and hoped so,’ returned the other. ‘I try to believe
and hope so still. But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my
good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to
neither hope nor reason.’
‘That does not surprise me,’ said Mr Garland; ‘it is a natural
consequence of the events you have recalled; of this dreary time and
place; and above all, of this wild and dismal night. A dismal night,
indeed! Hark! how the wind is howling!’
CHAPTER 70
Day broke, and found them still upon their way. Since leaving home,
they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had
frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for
fresh horses. They had made no other stoppages, but the weather
continued rough, and the roads were often steep and heavy. It would be
night again before they reached their place of destination.
Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on manfully; and,
having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to
himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about
him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for thinking of
discomforts. Though his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers,
rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours did not stand still. The
short daylight of winter soon faded away, and it was dark again when
they had yet many miles to travel.