The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  'Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!' said the delighted

  landlady.

  'I should also,' observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath

  on the stairs, 'I should also,' said the doctor, in the voice of an

  oracle, 'put her feet in hot water, and wrap them up in flannel.

  I should likewise,' said the doctor with increased solemnity, 'give

  her something light for supper--the wing of a roasted fowl now--'

  'Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire

  this instant!' cried the landlady. And so indeed it was, for the

  schoolmaster had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on

  so well that the doctor might have smelt it if he had tried;

  perhaps he did.

  'You may then,' said the doctor, rising gravely, 'give her a glass

  of hot mulled port wine, if she likes wine--'

  'And a toast, Sir?' suggested the landlady.

  'Ay,' said the doctor, in the tone of a man who makes a dignified

  concession. 'And a toast--of bread. But be very particular to

  make it of bread, if you please, ma'am.'

  With which parting injunction, slowly and portentously delivered,

  the doctor departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that

  wisdom which tallied so closely with their own. Everybody said he

  was a very shrewd doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's

  constitutions were; which there appears some reason to suppose he

  did.

  While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing

  sleep, from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready.

  As she evinced extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her

  grandfather was below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at

  the thought of their being apart, he took his supper with her.

  Finding her still very restless on this head, they made him up a

  bed in an inner room, to which he presently retired. The key of

  this chamber happened by good fortune to be on that side of the

  door which was in Nell's room; she turned it on him when the

  landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful

  heart.

  The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the

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  kitchen fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy

  face, on the fortunate chance which had brought him so opportunely

  to the child's assistance, and parrying, as well as in his simple

  way he could, the inquisitive cross-examination of the landlady,

  who had a great curiosity to be made acquainted with every

  particular of Nell's life and history. The poor schoolmaster was

  so open-hearted, and so little versed in the most ordinary cunning

  or deceit, that she could not have failed to succeed in the first

  five minutes, but that he happened to be unacquainted with what she

  wished to know; and so he told her. The landlady, by no means

  satisfied with this assurance, which she considered an ingenious

  evasion of the question, rejoined that he had his reasons of

  course. Heaven forbid that she should wish to pry into the affairs

  of her customers, which indeed were no business of hers, who had so

  many of her own. She had merely asked a civil question, and to be

  sure she knew it would meet with a civil answer. She was quite

  satisfied--quite. She had rather perhaps that he would have said

  at once that he didn't choose to be communicative, because that

  would have been plain and intelligible. However, she had no right

  to be offended of course. He was the best judge, and had a perfect

  right to say what he pleased; nobody could dispute that for a

  moment. Oh dear, no!

  'I assure you, my good lady,' said the mild schoolmaster, 'that I

  have told you the plain truth. As I hope to be saved, I have told

  you the truth.'

  'Why then, I do believe you are in earnest,' rejoined the landlady,

  with ready good-humour, 'and I'm very sorry I have teazed you. But

  curiosity you know is the curse of our sex, and that's the fact.'

  The landlord scratched his head, as if he thought the curse

  sometimes involved the other sex likewise; but he was prevented

  from making any remark to that effect, if he had it in

  contemplation to do so, by the schoolmaster's rejoinder.

  'You should question me for half-a-dozen hours at a sitting, and

  welcome, and I would answer you patiently for the kindness of heart

  you have shown to-night, if I could,' he said. 'As it is, please

  to take care of her in the morning, and let me know early how she

  is; and to understand that I am paymaster for the three.'

  So, parting with them on most friendly terms (not the less cordial

  perhaps for this last direction), the schoolmaster went to his bed,

  and the host and hostess to theirs.

  The report in the morning was, that the child was better, but was

  extremely weak, and would at least require a day's rest, and

  careful nursing, before she could proceed upon her journey. The

  schoolmaster received this communication with perfect cheerfulness,

  observing that he had a day to spare--two days for that matter--

  and could very well afford to wait. As the patient was to sit up

  in the evening, he appointed to visit her in her room at a certain

  hour, and rambling out with his book, did not return until the hour

  arrived.

  Nell could not help weeping when they were left alone; whereat, and

  at sight of her pale face and wasted figure, the simple

  schoolmaster shed a few tears himself, at the same time showing in

  very energetic language how foolish it was to do so, and how very

  easily it could be avoided, if one tried.

  'It makes me unhappy even in the midst of all this kindness' said

  the child, 'to think that we should be a burden upon you. How can

  I ever thank you? If I had not met you so far from home, I must

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  have died, and he would have been left alone.'

  'We'll not talk about dying,' said the schoolmaster; 'and as to

  burdens, I have made my fortune since you slept at my cottage.'

  'Indeed!' cried the child joyfully.

  'Oh yes,' returned her friend. 'I have been appointed clerk and

  schoolmaster to a village a long way from here--and a long way

  from the old one as you may suppose--at five-and-thirty pounds a

  year. Five-and-thirty pounds!'

  'I am very glad,' said the child, 'so very, very glad.'

  'I am on my way there now,' resumed the schoolmaster. 'They

  allowed me the stage-coach-hire--outside stage-coach-hire all the

  way. Bless you, they grudge me nothing. But as the time at which

  I am expected there, left me ample leisure, I determined to walk

  instead. How glad I am, to think I did so!'

  'How glad should we be!'

  'Yes, yes,' said the schoolmaster, moving restlessly in his chair,

  'certainly, that's very true. But you--where are you going, where

  are you coming from, what have you been doing since you left me,

  what had you been doing before? Now, tell me--do tell me. I know

  very little of the world, and perhaps you are better f
itted to

  advise me in its affairs than I am qualified to give advice to you;

  but I am very sincere, and I have a reason (you have not forgotten

  it) for loving you. I have felt since that time as if my love for

  him who died, had been transferred to you who stood beside his bed.

  If this,' he added, looking upwards, 'is the beautiful creation

  that springs from ashes, let its peace prosper with me, as I deal

  tenderly and compassionately by this young child!'

  The plain, frank kindness of the honest schoolmaster, the

  affectionate earnestness of his speech and manner, the truth which

  was stamped upon his every word and look, gave the child a

  confidence in him, which the utmost arts of treachery and

  dissimulation could never have awakened in her breast. She told

  him all--that they had no friend or relative--that she had fled

  with the old man, to save him from a madhouse and all the miseries

  he dreaded--that she was flying now, to save him from himself--

  and that she sought an asylum in some remote and primitive place,

  where the temptation before which he fell would never enter, and

  her late sorrows and distresses could have no place.

  The schoolmaster heard her with astonishment. 'This child!'--he

  thought--'Has this child heroically persevered under all doubts

  and dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and

  sustained by strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude

  alone! And yet the world is full of such heroism. Have I yet to

  learn that the hardest and best-borne trials are those which are

  never chronicled in any earthly record, and are suffered every day!

  And should I be surprised to hear the story of this child!'

  What more he thought or said, matters not. It was concluded that

  Nell and her grandfather should accompany him to the village

  whither he was bound, and that he should endeavour to find them

  some humble occupation by which they could subsist. 'We shall be

  sure to succeed,' said the schoolmaster, heartily. 'The cause is

  too good a one to fail.'

  They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a

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  stage-waggon, which travelled for some distance on the same road as

  they must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and the

  driver for a small gratuity would give Nell a place inside. A

  bargain was soon struck when the waggon came; and in due time it

  rolled away; with the child comfortably bestowed among the softer

  packages, her grandfather and the schoolmaster walking on beside

  the driver, and the landlady and all the good folks of the inn

  screaming out their good wishes and farewells.

  What a soothing, luxurious, drowsy way of travelling, to lie inside

  that slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling of the

  horses' bells, the occasional smacking of the carter's whip, the

  smooth rolling of the great broad wheels, the rattle of the

  harness, the cheery good-nights of passing travellers jogging past

  on little short-stepped horses--all made pleasantly indistinct by

  the thick awning, which seemed made for lazy listening under, till

  one fell asleep! The very going to sleep, still with an indistinct

  idea, as the head jogged to and fro upon the pillow, of moving

  onward with no trouble or fatigue, and hearing all these sounds

  like dreamy music, lulling to the senses--and the slow waking up,

  and finding one's self staring out through the breezy curtain

  half-opened in the front, far up into the cold bright sky with its

  countless stars, and downward at the driver's lantern dancing on

  like its namesake Jack of the swamps and marshes, and sideways at

  the dark grim trees, and forward at the long bare road rising up,

  up, up, until it stopped abruptly at a sharp high ridge as if there

  were no more road, and all beyond was sky--and the stopping at the

  inn to bait, and being helped out, and going into a room with fire

  and candles, and winking very much, and being agreeably reminded

  that the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort's sake to

  think it colder than it was!--What a delicious journey was that

  journey in the waggon.

  Then the going on again--so fresh at first, and shortly afterwards

  so sleepy. The waking from a sound nap as the mail came dashing

  past like a highway comet, with gleaming lamps and rattling hoofs,

  and visions of a guard behind, standing up to keep his feet warm,

  and of a gentleman in a fur cap opening his eyes and looking wild

  and stupefied--the stopping at the turnpike where the man was gone

  to bed, and knocking at the door until he answered with a smothered

  shout from under the bed-clothes in the little room above, where

  the faint light was burning, and presently came down, night-capped

  and shivering, to throw the gate wide open, and wish all waggons

  off the road except by day. The cold sharp interval between night

  and morning--the distant streak of light widening and spreading,

  and turning from grey to white, and from white to yellow, and from

  yellow to burning red--the presence of day, with all its

  cheerfulness and life--men and horses at the plough--birds in the

  trees and hedges, and boys in solitary fields, frightening them

  away with rattles. The coming to a town--people busy in the

  markets; light carts and chaises round the tavern yard; tradesmen

  standing at their doors; men running horses up and down the street

  for sale; pigs plunging and grunting in the dirty distance, getting

  off with long strings at their legs, running into clean chemists'

  shops and being dislodged with brooms by 'prentices; the night

  coach changing horses--the passengers cheerless, cold, ugly, and

  discontented, with three months' growth of hair in one night--the

  coachman fresh as from a band-box, and exquisitely beautiful by

  contrast:--so much bustle, so many things in motion, such a

  variety of incidents--when was there a journey with so many

  delights as that journey in the waggon!

  Sometimes walking for a mile or two while her grandfather rode

  inside, and sometimes even prevailing upon the schoolmaster to take

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  her place and lie down to rest, Nell travelled on very happily

  until they came to a large town, where the waggon stopped, and

  where they spent a night. They passed a large church; and in the

  streets were a number of old houses, built of a kind of earth or

  plaster, crossed and re-crossed in a great many directions with

  black beams, which gave them a remarkable and very ancient look.

  The doors, too, were arched and low, some with oaken portals and

  quaint benches, where the former inhabitants had sat on summer

  evenings. The windows were latticed in little diamond panes, that

  seemed to wink and blink upon the passengers as if they were dim of

  sight. They had long since got clear of the smoke and furnaces,

  except in one or two solitary instances, where a factory planted

  among fields withered the space about it, like a burning mountain.<
br />
  When they had passed through this town, they entered again upon the

  country, and began to draw near their place of destination.

  It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon

  the road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity,

  but that the schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles

  of his village, had a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new

  clerk, and was unwilling to make his entry in dusty shoes, and

  travel-disordered dress. It was a fine, clear, autumn morning,

  when they came upon the scene of his promotion, and stopped to

  contemplate its beauties.

  'See--here's the church!' cried the delighted schoolmaster in a

  low voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the schoolhouse,

  I'll be sworn. Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this

  beautiful place!'

  They admired everything--the old grey porch, the mullioned

  windows, the venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard,

  the ancient tower, the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs

  of cottage, barn, and homestead, peeping from among the trees; the

  stream that rippled by the distant water-mill; the blue Welsh

  mountains far away. It was for such a spot the child had wearied

  in the dense, dark, miserable haunts of labour. Upon her bed of

  ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through which they had forced

  their way, visions of such scenes--beautiful indeed, but not more

  beautiful than this sweet reality--had been always present to her

  mind. They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy distance, as the

  prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter; but, as they

  receded, she had loved and panted for them more.

  'I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,' said the

  schoolmaster, at length breaking the silence into which they had

  fallen in their gladness. 'I have a letter to present, and

  inquiries to make, you know. Where shall I take you? To the

  little inn yonder?'

  'Let us wait here,' rejoined Nell. 'The gate is open. We will sit

  in the church porch till you come back.'

  'A good place too,' said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards

  it, disencumbering himself of his portmanteau, and placing it on

  the stone seat. 'Be sure that I come back with good news, and am

  not long gone!'

  So, the happy schoolmaster put on a bran-new pair of gloves which