The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

slipping away and hurrying to the stable. The moment he lays his

  hand upon the latch, the pony neighs the loudest pony's greeting;

  before he has crossed the threshold, the pony is capering about his

  loose box (for he brooks not the indignity of a halter), mad to

  give him welcome; and when Kit goes up to caress and pat him, the

  pony rubs his nose against his coat, and fondles him more lovingly

  than ever pony fondled man. It is the crowning circumstance of his

  earnest, heartfelt reception; and Kit fairly puts his arm round

  Whisker's neck and hugs him.

  But how comes Barbara to trip in there? and how smart she is again!

  she has been at her glass since she recovered. How comes Barbara

  in the stable, of all places in the world? Why, since Kit has been

  away, the pony would take his food from nobody but her, and

  Barbara, you see, not dreaming that Christopher was there, and just

  looking in, to see that everything was right, has come upon him

  unawares. Blushing little Barbara!

  It may be that Kit has caressed the pony enough; it may be that

  there are even better things to caress than ponies. He leaves him

  for Barbara at any rate, and hopes she is better. Yes. Barbara is

  a great deal better. She is afraid--and here Barbara looks down

  and blushes more--that he must have thought her very foolish.

  'Not at all,' says Kit. Barbara is glad of that, and coughs--Hem!--

  just the slightest cough possible--not more than that.

  What a discreet pony when he chooses! He is as quiet now as if he

  were of marble. He has a very knowing look, but that he always

  has. 'We have hardly had time to shake hands, Barbara,' says Kit.

  Barbara gives him hers. Why, she is trembling now! Foolish,

  fluttering Barbara!

  Arm's length? The length of an arm is not much. Barbara's was not

  a long arm, by any means, and besides, she didn't hold it out

  straight, but bent a little. Kit was so near her when they shook

  hands, that he could see a small tiny tear, yet trembling on an

  eyelash. It was natural that he should look at it, unknown to

  Barbara. It was natural that Barbara should raise her eyes

  unconsciously, and find him out. Was it natural that at that

  instant, without any previous impulse or design, Kit should kiss

  Barbara? He did it, whether or no. Barbara said 'for shame,' but

  let him do it too--twice. He might have done it thrice, but the

  pony kicked up his heels and shook his head, as if he were suddenly

  taken with convulsions of delight, and Barbara being frightened,

  ran away--not straight to where her mother and Kit's mother were,

  though, lest they should see how red her cheeks were, and should

  ask her why. Sly little Barbara!

  When the first transports of the whole party had subsided, and Kit

  and his mother, and Barbara and her mother, with little Jacob and

  the baby to boot, had had their suppers together--which there was

  no hurrying over, for they were going to stop there all night--Mr

  Garland called Kit to him, and taking him into a room where they

  could be alone, told him that he had something yet to say, which

  would surprise him greatly. Kit looked so anxious and turned so

  pale on hearing this, that the old gentleman hastened to add, he

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  would be agreeably surprised; and asked him if he would be ready

  next morning for a journey.

  'For a journey, sir!' cried Kit.

  'In company with me and my friend in the next room. Can you guess

  its purpose?'

  Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head.

  'Oh yes. I think you do already,' said his master. 'Try.'

  Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he

  plainly pronounced the words 'Miss Nell,' three or four times--

  shaking his head while he did so, as if he would add that there was

  no hope of that.

  But Mr Garland, instead of saying 'Try again,' as Kit had made sure

  he would, told him very seriously, that he had guessed right.

  'The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,' he said, 'at

  last. And that is our journey's end.'

  Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it

  been found, and how long since, and was she well and happy?

  'Happy she is, beyond all doubt,' said Mr Garland. 'And well, I--

  I trust she will be soon. She has been weak and ailing, as I

  learn, but she was better when I heard this morning, and they were

  full of hope. Sit you down, and you shall hear the rest.'

  Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told. Mr

  Garland then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would

  remember to have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when he

  was a young man, hung in the best room), and how this brother lived

  a long way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who had

  been his early friend. How, although they loved each other as

  brothers should, they had not met for many years, but had

  communicated by letter from time to time, always looking forward to

  some period when they would take each other by the hand once more,

  and still letting the Present time steal on, as it was the habit

  for men to do, and suffering the Future to melt into the Past. How

  this brother, whose temper was very mild and quiet and retiring--

  such as Mr Abel's--was greatly beloved by the simple people among

  whom he dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor (for so they called

  him), and had every one experienced his charity and benevolence.

  How even those slight circumstances had come to his knowledge, very

  slowly and in course of years, for the Bachelor was one of those

  whose goodness shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in

  discovering and extolling the good deeds of others, than in

  trumpeting their own, be they never so commendable. How, for that

  reason, he seldom told them of his village friends; but how, for

  all that, his mind had become so full of two among them--a child

  and an old man, to whom he had been very kind--that, in a letter

  received a few days before, he had dwelt upon them from first to

  last, and had told such a tale of their wandering, and mutual love,

  that few could read it without being moved to tears. How he, the

  recipient of that letter, was directly led to the belief that these

  must be the very wanderers for whom so much search had been made,

  and whom Heaven had directed to his brother's care. How he had

  written for such further information as would put the fact beyond

  all doubt; how it had that morning arrived; had confirmed his first

  impression into a certainty; and was the immediate cause of that

  journey being planned, which they were to take to-morrow.

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  'In the meantime,' said the old gentleman rising, and laying his

  hand on Kit's shoulder, 'you have a great need of rest; for such a

  day as this would wear out the strongest man. Good night, and

  Heaven send our journey may have a prosperous ending!'

  CHAPTER 69

  Kit was no sluggard next morning
, but, springing from his bed some

  time before day, began to prepare for his welcome expedition. The

  hurry of spirits consequent upon the events of yesterday, and the

  unexpected intelligence he had heard at night, had troubled his

  sleep through the long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams

  about his pillow that it was rest to rise.

  But, had it been the beginning of some great labour with the same

  end in view--had it been the commencement of a long journey, to be

  performed on foot in that inclement season of the year, to be

  pursued under very privation and difficulty, and to be achieved

  only with great distress, fatigue, and suffering--had it been the

  dawn of some painful enterprise, certain to task his utmost powers

  of resolution and endurance, and to need his utmost fortitude, but

  only likely to end, if happily achieved, in good fortune and

  delight to Nell--Kit's cheerful zeal would have been as highly

  roused: Kit's ardour and impatience would have been, at least, the

  same.

  Nor was he alone excited and eager. Before he had been up a

  quarter of an hour the whole house were astir and busy. Everybody

  hurried to do something towards facilitating the preparations. The

  single gentleman, it is true, could do nothing himself, but he

  overlooked everybody else and was more locomotive than anybody.

  The work of packing and making ready went briskly on, and by

  daybreak every preparation for the journey was completed. Then Kit

  began to wish they had not been quite so nimble; for the

  travelling-carriage which had been hired for the occasion was not

  to arrive until nine o'clock, and there was nothing but breakfast

  to fill up the intervening blank of one hour and a half.

  Yes there was, though. There was Barbara. Barbara was busy, to be

  sure, but so much the better--Kit could help her, and that would

  pass away the time better than any means that could be devised.

  Barbara had no objection to this arrangement, and Kit, tracking out

  the idea which had come upon him so suddenly overnight, began to

  think that surely Barbara was fond of him, and surely he was fond

  of Barbara.

  Now, Barbara, if the truth must.be told--as it must and ought to

  be--Barbara seemed, of all the little household, to take least

  pleasure in the bustle of the occasion; and when Kit, in the

  openness of his heart, told her how glad and overjoyed it made him,

  Barbara became more downcast still, and seemed to have even less

  pleasure in it than before!

  'You have not been home so long, Christopher,' said Barbara--and

  it is impossible to tell how carelessly she said it--'You have not

  been home so long, that you need to be glad to go away again, I

  should think.'

  'But for such a purpose,' returned Kit. 'To bring back Miss Nell!

  To see her again! Only think of that! I am so pleased too, to

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  think that you will see her, Barbara, at last.'

  Barbara did not absolutely say that she felt no gratification on

  this point, but she expressed the sentiment so plainly by one

  little toss of her head, that Kit was quite disconcerted, and

  wondered, in his simplicity, why she was so cool about it.

  'You'll say she has the sweetest and beautifullest face you ever

  saw, I know,' said Kit, rubbing his hands. 'I'm sure you'll say

  that.'

  Barbara tossed her head again.

  'What's the matter, Barbara?' said Kit.

  'Nothing,' cried Barbara. And Barbara pouted--not sulkily, or in

  an ugly manner, but just enough to make her look more cherry-lipped

  than ever.

  There is no school in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in

  which Kit became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss. He saw

  what Barbara meant now--he had his lesson by heart all at once--

  she was the book--there it was before him, as plain as print.

  'Barbara,' said Kit, 'you're not cross with me?'

  Oh dear no! Why should Barbara be cross? And what right had she

  to be cross? And what did it matter whether she was cross or not?

  Who minded her!

  'Why, I do,' said Kit. 'Of course I do.'

  Barbara didn't see why it was of course, at all.

  Kit was sure she must. Would she think again?

  Certainly, Barbara would think again. No, she didn't see why it

  was of course. She didn't understand what Christopher meant. And

  besides she was sure they wanted her up stairs by this time, and

  she must go, indeed--

  'No, but Barbara,' said Kit, detaining her gently, 'let us part

  friends. I was always thinking of you, in my troubles. I should

  have been a great deal more miserable than I was, if it hadn't been

  for you.'

  Goodness gracious, how pretty Barbara was when she coloured--and

  when she trembled, like a little shrinking bird!

  'I am telling you the truth, Barbara, upon my word, but not half so

  strong as I could wish,' said Kit. 'When I want you to be pleased

  to see Miss Nell, it's only because I like you to be pleased with

  what pleases me--that's all. As to her, Barbara, I think I could

  almost die to do her service, but you would think so too, if you

  knew her as I do. I am sure you would.'

  Barbara was touched, and sorry to have appeared indifferent.

  'I have been used, you see,' said Kit, 'to talk and think of her,

  almost as if she was an angel. When I look forward to meeting her

  again, I think of her smiling as she used to do, and being glad to

  see me, and putting out her hand and saying, "It's my own old Kit,"

  or some such words as those--like what she used to say. I think

  of seeing her happy, and with friends about her, and brought up as

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  she deserves, and as she ought to be. When I think of myself, it's

  as her old servant, and one that loved her dearly, as his kind,

  good, gentle mistress; and who would have gone--yes, and still

  would go--through any harm to serve her. Once, I couldn't help

  being afraid that if she came back with friends about her she might

  forget, or be ashamed of having known, a humble lad like me, and so

  might speak coldly, which would have cut me, Barbara, deeper than

  I can tell. But when I came to think again, I felt sure that I was

  doing her wrong in this; and so I went on, as I did at first,

  hoping to see her once more, just as she used to be. Hoping this,

  and remembering what she was, has made me feel as if I would always

  try to please her, and always be what I should like to seem to her

  if I was still her servant. If I'm the better for that--and I

  don't think I'm the worse--I am grateful to her for it, and love

  and honour her the more. That's the plain honest truth, dear

  Barbara, upon my word it is!'

  Little Barbara was not of a wayward or capricious nature, and,

  being full of remorse, melted into tears. To what more

  conversation this might have led, we need not stop to inquire; for

  the wheels of the carriage were heard at that moment, and, being

  followed by a
smart ring at the garden gate, caused the bustle in

  the house, which had laid dormant for a short time, to burst again

  into tenfold life and vigour.

  Simultaneously with the travelling equipage, arrived Mr Chuckster

  in a hackney cab, with certain papers and supplies of money for the

  single gentleman, into whose hands he delivered them. This duty

  discharged, he subsided into the bosom of the family; and,

  entertaining himself with a strolling or peripatetic breakfast,

  watched, with genteel indifference, the process of loading the

  carriage.

  'Snobby's in this, I see, Sir?' he said to Mr Abel Garland. 'I

  thought he wasn't in the last trip because it was expected that his

  presence wouldn't be acceptable to the ancient buffalo.'

  'To whom, Sir?' demanded Mr Abel.

  'To the old gentleman,' returned Mr Chuckster, slightly abashed.

  'Our client prefers to take him now,' said Mr Abel, drily. 'There

  is no longer any need for that precaution, as my father's

  relationship to a gentleman in whom the objects of his search have

  full confidence, will be a sufficient guarantee for the friendly

  nature of their errand.'

  'Ah!' thought Mr Chuckster, looking out of window, 'anybody but me!

  Snobby before me, of course. He didn't happen to take that

  particular five-pound note, but I have not the smallest doubt that

  he's always up to something of that sort. I always said it, long

  before this came out. Devilish pretty girl that! 'Pon my soul, an

  amazing little creature!'

  Barbara was the subject of Mr Chuckster's commendations; and as she

  was lingering near the carriage (all being now ready for its

  departure), that gentleman was suddenly seized with a strong

  interest in the proceedings, which impelled him to swagger down the

  garden, and take up his position at a convenient ogling distance.

  Having had great experience of the sex, and being perfectly

  acquainted with all those little artifices which find the readiest

  road to their hearts, Mr Chuckster, on taking his ground, planted

  one hand on his hip, and with the other adjusted his flowing hair.

  This is a favourite attitude in the polite circles, and, accompanied

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  with a graceful whistling, has been known to do immense execution.

  Such, however, is the difference between town and country, that

  nobody took the smallest notice of this insinuating figure; the