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TALES FROM DICKENS
By
HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES
Author of
The Castaway, Hearts Courageous
A Furnace of Earth, etc.
With Illustrations by Reginald B. Birch
[Illustration: David Copperfield and his friend, Mr. Micawber
_See page 112_]
Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers
Copyright 1905
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
November
To
GEORGE BAKER ROBBINS, JR.
CONTENTS
CHARLES DICKENS 1
THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
I Little Nell 19
II The Wanderers 26
III The Search 35
OLIVER TWIST
I How Oliver Came to London and What He Found There 49
II Oliver's Adventures 58
III How Everything Turned Out Right for Oliver
in the End 65
BARNABY RUDGE
I Barnaby's Boyhood 77
II The Mysterious Stranger and Who He Was 83
III Barnaby Gets Into Trouble 89
IV Barnaby Prospers at Last 95
DAVID COPPERFIELD
I David's Early Ups and Downs 105
II Little Em'ly 115
III David and His Child-Wife 120
IV David Finds All Well at Last 124
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
I Pip and the Convict 131
II The Queer Miss Havisham 138
III Pip Discovers His Benefactor 147
IV Pip Comes to Himself 152
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY
I Nicholas at Dotheboys Hall 161
II Nicholas Becomes an Actor 167
III Nicholas Comes to Kate's Rescue 171
IV What Happened to Everybody 175
DOMBEY AND SON
I Little Paul 183
II How Florence Lost Her Father 191
III How Florence Reached a Refuge 199
IV How Florence Found Her Father at Last 203
THE PICKWICK PAPERS
I The Pickwickians Begin Their Adventures. They
Meet Mr. Alfred Jingle, and Winkle Is Involved
in a Duel 213
II Tupman Has a Love-Affair With a Spinster, and
the Pickwickians Find Out the Real Character
of Jingle 218
III Mr. Pickwick Has an Interesting Scene With Mrs.
Bardell, His Housekeeper. Further Pursuit of
Jingle Leads to an Adventure at a Young Ladies'
Boarding School 224
IV Sam Weller Meets His Father, and the Pursuit of
Jingle Is Continued. Mr. Pickwick Makes a
Strange Call on a Middle-Aged Lady in Yellow
Curl Papers 230
V The Pickwickians Find Themselves in the Grasp of
the Law. The Final Exposure of Jingle, and a
Christmas Merrymaking 233
VI The Celebrated Case of Bardell Against Pickwick.
Sergeant Buzfuz's Speech and an Unexpected Verdict 238
VII Winkle Has an Exciting Adventure With Mr. Dowler,
and With the Aid of Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller
Discovers the Whereabouts of Miss Arabella Allen 242
VIII Mr. Pickwick's Experiences in the Debtors' Prison,
Where He Finds an Old Enemy and Heaps Coals
of Fire on the Head of Mrs. Bardell 248
IX Snodgrass Gets Into Difficulties, But Wins His
Lady-Love. The Adventures of the Pickwickians Come
to an End 252
LITTLE DORRIT
I How Arthur Came Home from China 261
II The Child of the Marshalsea 266
III What Riches Brought to the Dorrits 274
IV What Happened to Arthur Clennam 280
V "All's Well That Ends Well" 284
MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT
I How Martin Left England 295
II Pecksniff and Old Chuzzlewit 302
III Jonas Gets Rid of an Enemy 308
IV What Came of Martin's Trip to America 313
V Old Chuzzlewit's Plot Succeeds 318
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
I What Happened to John Harmon 325
II Lizzie Hexam and the Dolls' Dressmaker 332
III The Rise and Fall of Silas Wegg 337
IV Bella and the Golden Dustman 343
V The End of the Story 348
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
I How Lucie Found a Father 357
II Darnay Caught in the Net 367
III Sydney Carton's Sacrifice 375
BLEAK HOUSE
I The Court of Chancery 383
II Lady Dedlock's Secret 390
III Little Joe Plays a Part 398
IV Esther Becomes the Mistress of Bleak House 405
HARD TIMES
I Mr. Gradgrind and His "System" 413
II The Robbery of Bounderby's Bank 420
III Harthouse's Plan Fails 427
IV Stephen's Return 432
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
I John Jasper 441
II The Coming of Neville Landless 444
III The Choirmaster's Dinner 449
IV Jasper Shows His Teeth 455
INDEX TO CHARACTERS 463
TALES FROM DICKENS
CHARLES DICKENS
Charles John Huffham Dickens, the master story-teller, was born in
Landport, England, February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in one of
the offices of the Navy, and he was one of eight children.
When he was four years old, his father moved to the town of Chatham,
near the old city of Rochester. Round about are chalk hills, green
lanes, forests and marshes, and amid such scenes the little Charles's
genius first began to show itself.
He did not like the rougher sports of his school-fellows and preferred
to amuse himself in his own way, or to wander about with his older
sister, Fanny, whom he especially loved. They loved to watch the stars
together, and there was one particular star which they used to pretend
was their own. People called him a "very queer small boy" because he was
always thinking or reading instead of playing. The children of the
neighborhood would gather around him to listen while he told them
stories or sang comic songs to them, and when he was only eight years
old he taught them to act in plays which he invented. He was fond of
reading books of travel, and most of all he loved _The Arabian Nights_
and _Robinson Crusoe_.
He had a great affection for Chatham and Rochester, and after he began
to write stories that were printed, he often used to put these places
into them. It was at Chatham that poor little David in the story, _David
Copperfield_, lay down to sleep when he was running away from London to
find his aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood. It was to Rochester that Mr.
Pickwick in _Pickwick Papers_, rode with Jingle. Rochester was really
the "Cloisterham" where the wicked choir master, John Jasper, killed his
nephew, in _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. And it was in those very
marshes near by, that Magwitch, the escaped convict in _Great
Expectations_, so frightened little Pip. It is easy to see that the
young Charles Dickens noted carefully and remembered everything he saw,
and this habit was of great use to him all his life.
These happy years were not to last long. When he was nine years old, his
father became poor and the family was obliged to move to London, where
it lived in a shabby house in a poor suburb. Before another year had
passed, his father was put into prison for debt--the same prison in
which Little Dorrit, in the story of that name, grew up. A very bitter
period followed for the solitary ten-year-old boy--a time in which, he
long afterward wrote, "but for the mercy of God, he might easily have
become, for any care that was taken of him, a little robber or a little
vagabond." The earlier history of David in _David Copperfield_ is really
and truly a history of the real Charles Dickens in London. He was left
to the city streets, or to earn a hard and scanty living in a dirty
warehouse, by pasting labels on pots of blacking. All of this wretched
experience he has written in _David Copperfield_, and the sad scenes of
the debtors' prison he has put into _Pickwick Papers_ and into _Little
Dorrit_. Even Mrs. Pipchin, of whom he told in _Dombey and Son_, and Mr.
Micawber in _David Copperfield_, were real people whom he knew in these
years of poverty and despair. Dickens's life at this time was so
miserable that always afterward he dreaded to speak of it, and never
could bear even to walk in the street where the blacking warehouse of
his boyhood had stood.
Better days, however, came at last. He was able to begin school again,
and though the head-master was ignorant and brutal (just such a one as
Mr. Creakle in _David Copperfield_) yet Dickens profited by such
teaching as he received.
After two or three years of school, he found employment as clerk in a
lawyer's office. This did not content him and he made up his mind to
learn to write shorthand so as to become a reporter, in the Houses of
Parliament, for a newspaper. This was by no means an easy task. But
Dickens had great strength of will and a determination to do well
whatever he did at all, and he succeeded, just as David Copperfield did
in the story.
And like the latter, too, about this time Dickens fell in love. He did
not marry on this occasion, as did David, but how much he was in love
one may see by the story of David's Dora.
The theater had always a great attraction for Dickens. Throughout his
life he loved to act in plays got up and often written, too, by himself
and his friends. Some of his early experiences of this kind he has told
in the adventures of Nicholas Nickleby at Mr. Crummles's theater. But
his acting was for his own amusement, and it is doubtful if he ever
thought seriously of adopting the stage as a profession. If he did, his
success as a reporter soon determined him otherwise.
When he was twenty-one he saw his first printed sketch in a monthly
magazine. He had dropped it into a letter-box with mingled hope and
fear, and read it now through tears of joy and pride. He followed this
with others as successful, signed "Boz"--the child nickname of one of
his younger brothers. This was his beginning. He was soon on the road to
a comfortable fortune, and when at length _Pickwick Papers_ appeared,
Dickens's fame was assured. This was his first long story. It became,
almost at once, the most popular book of its day, perhaps, indeed, the
most popular book ever published in England. Soon after the appearance
of its first chapters, Dickens married Miss Catherine Hogarth, daughter
of the editor of one of the London newspapers, who had helped him in his
career.
Many have tried to explain the marvelous popularity of _Pickwick
Papers_. Certainly its honest fun, its merriment, its quaintness, good
humor and charity appealed to every reader. More than all, it made
people acquainted with a new company of characters, none of whom had
ever existed, or could ever exist, and yet whose manners and appearance
were pictured so really that they seemed to be actual persons whom one
might meet and laugh with anywhere.
With such a success, and the money it brought him, Dickens had leisure
to begin the wonderful series of stories which endeared him to the whole
English-speaking world, and made him the most famous author of his day.
_Oliver Twist_ came first, and it was followed by _Nicholas Nickleby_
and _The Old Curiosity Shop_.
In the first two of these stories one may see most clearly the principle
that underlay almost all of Dickens's work. He was never content merely
to tell an interesting story. He wrote with a purpose. In _Oliver Twist_
that purpose was, first, to better the poorhouse system, and second, to
show that even in the lowest and wickedest paths of life (the life
wherein lived Fagin with his pupils in crime and Bill Sikes the brutal
burglar) there could yet be found, as in the case of poor Nancy, real
kindness and sacrifice. In _Nicholas Nickleby_ the purpose was to show
what terrible wrongs were done to children in country schools, numbers
of which at that time were managed by men almost as cruel and inhuman as
was Squeers in the story. It is good to learn that, as a result of this
novel, an end was made of many such boys' schools. True artist as he
was, Dickens seldom wrote without having in his mind the thought of
showing some defect in the law, or some wrong condition of affairs which
might be righted. No one could read _Pickwick Papers_ or _Little Dorrit_
without realizing how much wrong and misery was caused by the law which
made it possible to throw a man into prison for debt. Nor can one read
_Bleak House_ without seeing that the legal system which robbed quaint
Miss Flite of her mind and kept poor Richard Carstone from his fortune
till the fortune itself had disappeared, was a very wrong legal system
indeed. Often, too, Dickens's stories are, in a sense, sermons against
very human sins. In _The Old Curiosity Shop_ it is the sin of gambling
which brings about the death of Little Nell. In _Great Expectations_ it
is the sin of pride which Pip has to fight. In _Martin Chuzzlewit_ the
evil and folly of selfishness is what Dickens had in mind.
With his increasing wealth, Dickens had, of course, changed his manner
of life. He lived part of the time in the country near London, in
Brighton, in Dover, and in France and Italy. He liked best, however, a
little English watering place called Broadstairs--a tiny fishing
village, built on a cliff, with the sea rolling and dashing beneath it.
In such a place he felt that he could write best, but he greatly missed
his London friends. He used to say that being without them was "like
losing his arms and legs."
The first great grief of his life came to him at this time, in the death
of his wife's sister, Mary Hogarth, a gentle, lovable girl of seventeen.
No sorrow ever touched him as this did. "After she died," he wrote years
afterward, "I dreamed of her every night for many weeks, and always with
a kind of quiet happiness, so that I never lay down at night without a
hope of the vision coming back." Hers was the character he drew in
Little Nell in _The Old Curiosity Shop_. When he came to the part of the
story which tells of Little Nell's death, he could scarcely write the
chapter. When he ended it he said, "It seems as though dear Mary died
but yesterday."
When he was less than thirty, Dickens was invited to visit Scotland, and
there he received his first great national tribute. A public banquet was
given him in Edinburgh, and he was much sought after and entertained. Up
to this time he had never seen the United States; he decided now to
visit this country and meet his American readers face to face.
He landed at Boston accompanied by his wife, in 1842, and visited many
of the greater cities of the Eastern states. Everywhere he was counted
the guest of the nation, and the four months of his stay were one
continual welcome. Unfortunately, however, Dickens had taken a dislike
to American ways, and this dislike appeared in many things he wrote
after his return to England. The pictures he drew of American life in
_Martin Chuzzlewit_ were both unjust and untrue, and made him for a time
lose a large part of the good opinion which American readers had had for
him. Dickens soon came to regret the writing of these chapters, and
when, twenty-five years later, he visited the United States a second
time, he did all in his power to show his kindly feeling, and America
admired and loved him so much that it gradually forgot the incident in
the great pleasure with which it read his stories.
Dickens was a very active man, and his life was simple and full of work
and exercise. He rose early and almost every day might have been seen
tramping for miles along the country roads, or riding horseback with his
dogs racing after him. He liked best to wander along the cliffs or
across the downs by the sea. When he was in London he often walked the
streets half the night, thinking out his stories, or searching for the
odd characters which he put in them. This natural activity and
restlessness even led him sometimes to make political speeches, and
finally to the establishment of a new London newspaper--the _Daily
News_--of which he was the first editor. Before this, he had started a
weekly journal, in which several of his stories had appeared, but it had
not been very successful. It was not long before he withdrew also from
this second venture.
In the meantime he had met with both joy and sorrow. Several children
had been born to him. His much loved sister, his father, and his own
little daughter, the youngest of his family, had died. These sorrows
made him throw himself into his work with greater earnestness. He even
found leisure to organize a theatrical company (in which he himself
acted with a number of other famous writers of the time), which gave
several plays for the benefit of charity. One of these was performed
before Queen Victoria.
People have often wondered how Dickens found time to accomplish so many
different things. One of the secrets of this, no doubt, was his love of
order. He was the most systematic of men. Everything he did "went like
clockwork," and he prided himself on his punctuality. He could not work
in a room unless everything in it was in its proper place. As a
consequence of this habit of regularity, he never wasted time.
The work of editorship was very pleasant to Dickens, and scarcely three
years after his leaving the _Daily News_ he began the publication of a
new magazine which he called _Household Words_. His aim was to make it
cheerful, useful and at the same time cheap, so that the poor could
afford to buy it as well as the rich. His own story, _Hard Times_, first
appeared in this, with the earliest work of more than one writer who
later became celebrated. Dickens loved to encourage young writers, and
would just as quickly accept a good story or poem from an unknown author
as from the most famous.
It was while engaged in this work that Dickens wrote the best one of all
his tales--_David Copperfield_, the one which is in so large a part the
history of his own early life.
This book brought Dickens to the height of his career. He was now both
famous and rich. He bought a house on Gad's Hill--a place near Chatham,
where he had spent the happiest part of his childhood--and settled down
to a life of comfort and labor. When he was a little boy his father had
pointed out this fine house to him, and told him he might even come to
live there some day, if he were very persevering and worked hard. And
so, indeed, it had proved.
Perhaps it is in connection with this house on Gad's Hill that the world
oftenest remembers Dickens now. Everyone, old and young throughout the
neighborhood, liked him. Children, dogs and horses were his friends. His
hand was open for charity, and he was always the champion of the poor,
the helpless and the outcast. Everyone, he thought, had some good in
him, and in all he met he was on the lookout to find it. The great
purpose underneath all his writings was after all to teach that every
man and woman, however degraded, has his or her better side. So earnest
was he in this that he was not pleased at all when a person praised one
of his stories, unless the other showed that he had grasped the lesson
that lay beneath it. The text of Dickens's whole life and work is best
expressed in his own words: "I hope to do some solid good, and I mean to
be as cheery and pleasant as I can." The wrongs and sufferings of the
young especially appealed to him, and perhaps the most beautiful speech
he ever made was one asking for money for the support of the London
Hospital for Sick Children. He spoke often in behalf of workingmen, and
once he spoke for the benefit of a company of poor actors, when, unknown
to him, a little child of his own was lying dead at home.
With such a tender heart for all the world, he was more than an
affectionate father to his own children, and gave much thought to their
happiness and education. In order that they should properly learn of
their own country, he went to the labor of preparing a _Child's History
of England_ for them, and at another time he wrote out the story of the
Gospels, to help them in their study of the New Testament. As the years
went by, his letters to his oldest son told of his own work and plans.
When his youngest son sailed away to live in Australia, he wrote: "Poor
Plorn is gone. It was a hard parting at the last. He seemed to me to
become once more my youngest and favorite child as the day drew near,
and I did not think I could have been so shaken."
When he moved to Gad's Hill it seemed as though Dickens had gained
almost all of the things men strive most for. But he was not to be happy
there--nor, perhaps, was he ever again to be really happy anywhere. He
and his wife were very different in all their tastes and habits, and had
never loved each other as well as people should when they marry.
Perhaps, after all, it would have been better if in his youth he had
married his Dora--the one whom he had pictured in the love-story of
David Copperfield and his child-wife. But, however this may be, Dickens
and his wife had not lived happily together, and now decided to part,
and from that time, though they wrote to each other, he never saw her
again. It is sad to reflect that he who has painted so beautifully for
others the joys and sorrows of perfect love and home, was himself
destined to know neither.
The years that followed this separation were years of constant labor for
Dickens. His restlessness, perhaps also his lack of happiness, drove him
to work without rest. He wrote to a friend: "I am quite confident I
should rust, break and die if I spared myself. Much better to die
doing." The idea of giving public readings from his stories suggested
itself to him, and he was soon engaged in preparation. "I must do
_something_," he wrote, "or I shall wear my heart away." That heart his
physician had declared out of order, and this effort was destined to
wear it away in quite another sense, though for some time Dickens felt
no ill effects.
He gave readings, not only in England, but also in Scotland and Ireland,
and everywhere he met with enormous success. The first series was hardly
over, when he was at work on a new story, and this was scarcely
completed when he was planning more readings. The strain of several
seasons of such work told on his health. A serious illness followed, and
afterward he was troubled with an increasing lameness--the first real
warning of the end.
In spite of his weakness, he decided on another trip to America, and
here, in 1867, he began a series of readings which left him in a far
worse condition. Often at the close of an evening he would become so
faint that he would have to lie down. He was unable to sleep and his
appetite entirely failed him. Yet his wonderful determination and energy
made him able to complete the task. A great banquet of farewell was
given to him in New York and he returned to England bearing the
admiration and love of the whole American people.
Before leaving England he had promised to give one other course of
readings there, and this promise, after a summer's quiet at home, he
attempted to fulfil. But he was too ill. He found himself for the first
time in his life feeling, as he said, "giddy, jarred, shaken, faint,
uncertain of voice and sight, and tread and touch, and dull of spirit."
He was obliged to discontinue the course and to rest.
This summer of 1869--the last summer of his life--was a contented and
even a happy one. At home, at first in London, and later in the house on
Gad's Hill, surrounded by his children and by the friends he loved best,
Dickens lived quietly, working at his last story which his death was to
leave for ever unfinished--The _Mystery of Edwin Drood_. He attempted
one more series of readings, and with their close bade farewell for ever
to his English audience.
He was seen in public but a few times more--once at the last dinner
party he ever attended, to meet the Prince of Wales and the King of the
Belgians, and once when the Queen invited him to Buckingham Palace. Soon
after, the end came.
One day as he entered the house at Gad's Hill, he seemed tired and
silent. As he sat down to dinner all present noticed that he looked very
ill. They begged him to lie down. "Yes, on the ground," he said--these
were the last words he ever uttered--and as he spoke he slipped down
upon the floor.
He never fully recovered consciousness, and next day, June 9, 1870,
Charles Dickens breathed his last. Five days later he was laid to rest
in Westminster Abbey, where are buried so many of the greatest of
England's dead. For days, thousands came to visit the spot, and rich and
poor alike looked upon his grave with tears.
HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES.
THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
Published 1840
_Scene_: London and Neighboring Towns
_Time_: 1840
CHARACTERS
"Little Nell" An orphan girl
Mr. Trent Her aged grandfather
Proprietor of "The Old Curiosity Shop"
"The Stranger" Mr. Trent's brother
Christopher Nubbles Little Nell's friend and protector
Known as "Kit"
Quilp A dwarf
Mrs. Quilp His wife
Mrs. Jarley Proprietress of "Jarley's Waxwork"
Brass A dishonest lawyer
Sally Brass His sister
Dick Swiveller Brass's clerk
THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
I
LITTLE NELL
In a narrow side street in London there once stood a shabby building
called The Old Curiosity Shop, because all sorts of curious things were
kept for sale there--such as rusty swords, china figures, quaint
carvings and old-fashioned furniture.
A little old man named Trent owned the shop, and he looked as old as
anything in it. He was thin and bent, with long gray hair and bright
blue eyes, and his face was wrinkled and full of care. He had an orphan
grandchild who lived with him--a pretty little golden-haired girl whom
every one called Little Nell, who kept the shop clean and neat and
cooked the meals just as a grown woman would have done. She slept in a
back room in a bed so small it might almost have been a fairy's. She
lived a very lonely life, but she kept a cheerful face and did not
complain.
She had only one protector besides her grandfather, and that was a big,
awkward boy named Christopher Nubbles, called Kit for short. He had a
very large mouth and a turned-up nose, and when he spoke he had a habit
of standing sidewise and twisting his head back over his shoulder.
Everything he did seemed funny, and little Nell laughed at him all the
while, though she loved him almost as much as she did her grandfather.
He ran errands for them, and in the long winter evenings she used to
teach him to read and write.
Kit liked to be taught and even liked to be laughed at, and always ended
by laughing himself, with his mouth wide open and his eyes shut. He was
the best-natured lad in the world, and would have given his life to make
little Nell happy.
She was not as happy as she seemed to her grandfather's eyes. There was
some mystery about the old man that she could not understand. Almost
every night he left her to go to bed all alone in the shop, and went
away and did not come back till sunrise, when the door-bell woke her and
she let him in.
And, too, he always talked of the great fortune she was to have
sometime--if only some mysterious plan he was working on turned out
right--the carriages and fine frocks and jewels. But the plan seemed
always to go wrong, and the poor old man grew sadder and sadder as he
grew more feeble.
Often at night little Nell sat at the upper window, watching for him,
crying, and fearing that he might die or lose his mind; she never knew
that Kit used to stand in the shadow of an archway opposite and watch
to see that no harm came to her, till she vanished and he knew she had
gone to bed.
What troubled little Nell most of all was a strange visitor her
grandfather used to have. This was a hideous man named Quilp, with the
body of a dwarf and the head of a giant. His black eyes were sharp and
cunning, his face was always covered with a stubby beard and he had a
cruel smile that made him look like a panting dog. He had grizzled,
tangled hair, crooked finger nails, and wore a dirty handkerchief tied
around his neck, instead of a collar. He used to bring money to her
grandfather, and little Nell more than once saw him look at her and at
the contents of the shop in a gloating way that made her shiver.
Indeed, everybody who ever met Quilp was afraid of him, and most afraid
of all was his wife. He had a habit of drinking scalding tea and of
eating boiled eggs, shell and all, that quite terrified her. Besides, he
treated the poor woman cruelly. Sometimes, for instance, when she
displeased him, he made her sit bolt upright in a chair all night,
without moving or going to bed, while he sat smoking and making faces at
her.
Little Nell often had to carry messages from her grandfather to the
dwarf, and came to know that he had somehow fallen into Quilp's power.
The fact was that the old man had been borrowing money from the dwarf
for a long time, and had spent it on the great plan, which he had
thought sure to succeed, and he now owed the other much more than all
the shop and everything in it was worth.
Quilp had loaned the money because he thought when the wonderful plan
succeeded he would make the grandfather give him back very much more
than he had loaned him. But when the old man continually wanted to
borrow more money and yet paid none back, the dwarf grew suspicious and
tried hard to find out what the great plan was. To do this he used to
question little Nell and try to persuade her to tell how her grandfather
passed the time.
She would never tell him anything, but one day, when she had brought a
message to his house, the dwarf hid in a closet and listened while the
child told his wife how her grandfather, every night after Quilp had
brought him money, went out and did not come home till daybreak, and
always sadly then. You see, little Nell was in such trouble that she had
to tell somebody about it and ask advice, and the dwarf's wife had
always been very kind to her.
When Quilp heard the story he guessed the secret--that her grandfather,
hoping to win more for little Nell, had gambled away all the money. He
was full of rage and sent word that he would loan no more.
The old man was in great grief at this. His mind had not been strong for
a long time, or this foolish and wrong plan would never have misled
him, and now, at the thought that he would have no more chance to win
the fortune for his grandchild, he fell ill. The child did her best to
comfort him, but he told her that if Quilp deserted them they would be
no better than beggars.
"Let us be beggars then, and be happy," said little Nell, putting her
arms around his neck. "I would rather beg than live as we do now. If you
are sorrowful now, let me know it. If you are weaker, let me be your
nurse. It breaks my heart to see you so and not to know why. Let us
leave this place and sleep in the fields in the country and never think
of money again, and I will beg for us both."
Neither had heard the dwarf, who had stolen into the shop behind them.
Little Nell shrieked when she saw him, and her grandfather sent her into
her own room.
"So that is the way all the money I have loaned you has gone!" sneered
Quilp. "Your precious scheme to make a fortune was the gaming-table!"
The old man cried out at this, trembling, that he had done it all for
little Nell; that he had never staked a single penny for himself, or
without praying that it might win for her good. He told how he had begun
gambling months before, knowing he must soon die, hoping thus to leave
her enough to live on; how, after losing all his own savings, he had
borrowed and lost all that, too. And he begged the dwarf to loan him a
little more so that he might tempt luck again.
Any one but Quilp would have pitied the poor old man, but not he. He
refused, and thinking of a lie which would make the other yet more
miserable, he told him as he left that it was Kit who had told him where
the money was going.
The first Kit knew of this was that night when little Nell came to tell
him her grandfather was very ill, and that he raved continually against
Kit so that he must never come to the shop again. Kit was stupefied at
this, but there was no help for it, so little Nell went sorrowfully back
alone.
The Old Curiosity Shop belonged to the dwarf now and he at once moved
into the parlor. He took little Nell's own bed for himself and she had
to sleep on a pallet on the floor up stairs. She was busy nursing her
grandfather, for he was very ill for some time, and she scarcely ever
came down because she was so afraid of the dwarf.
Quilp was waiting for the old man to die, thinking that then he would
have the shop for his own, and meantime he did a hundred disagreeable
things, such as filling the house with strong tobacco smoke from a big
pipe he used all the time and driving every one away who came to ask how
the sick man was. He even drove off Kit when he came below the window to
beg little Nell to come and bring her grandfather to live at his own
mother's house.
The old man would certainly have died if little Nell had not nursed him
so faithfully, all alone, till he grew better and at length was able to
sit up.
But it was a bitter thing to live as they did, and one day little Nell
begged her grandfather to come away with her--to wander anywhere in the
world, only so it was under God's sky and away from every one that
pursued them--and he agreed.
So that night they dressed and stole down stairs very quietly in order
not to waken the dwarf who was snoring frightfully in the back room, and
went through the shop to the front door. The bolts were rusty and
creaked loudly, and, worst of all, they found the key was not in the
lock. Little Nell had to take off her shoes and creep into the back room
to get it out of the dwarf's pocket.
She was terribly frightened at the sight of Quilp, for he was having a
bad dream, and was hanging so far out of bed that he was almost standing
on his head; his ugly mouth was wide open, and his breath came in a sort
of growl. But she found the key at last, and they unlocked the door and
came safely into the dark street.
The old man did not know where to go, but little Nell took his hand and
led him gently away.
II
THE WANDERERS
It was a bright June morning. They walked through many city streets,
then through more scattered suburbs, and at last came to the open
country. That night they slept at a cottage where the people were kind
to them, and all the next day they walked on and on.
At sunset they stopped to rest in a churchyard, where two men were
sitting patching a Punch-and-Judy show booth, while the figures of
Punch, the doctor, the executioner and the devil were lying on the grass
waiting to be mended.
The men were mending the dolls very badly, so little Nell took a needle
and sewed them all neatly. They were delighted at this, and took the
pair to the inn where they were to show the Punch-and-Judy, and there
they found them a place to sleep in an empty loft.
The next day the wanderers went on with the showmen. Whenever they came
to a village, the booth was pitched and the show took place, and they
never left a town without a pack of ragged children at their heels. The
Punch-and-Judy show grew tiresome, but the company seemed better than
none. Little Nell was weary with walking, but she tried to hide it from
her grandfather.
The inn at which they lodged the next night was full of showmen with
trained dogs, conjurers and others, hurrying to a town where there was
to be a fair with horse-races, to which the Punch-and-Judy partners were
bound, and little Nell began to distrust their company.
To tell the truth, the others believed the child and the old man were
running away from their friends, and that a reward might be obtained for
giving them up. The way in which the men watched them frightened little
Nell, and when they reached the scene of the fair she had determined to
escape.
It was the second day of the races before a chance came, and then, while
the showmen's backs were turned, they slipped away in the crowd to the
open fields again.
These alarms and the exposure had begun to affect the old man. He seemed
to understand that he was not wholly in his right mind. He was full of
the fear that he would be taken from her and chained in a dungeon, and
little Nell had great trouble in cheering him.
At evening when they were both worn out, they came to a village where
stood a cottage with the sign SCHOOL in big letters in its window. The
pale old schoolmaster sat smoking in the garden. He was a sad, solitary
man, and loved little Nell when he first saw her, because she was like a
favorite pupil he once had. He made them sleep in the school-room that
night, and he begged them to stay longer next day, but little Nell was
anxious to get as far as possible from London and from the dwarf, who
she was all the time in fear might find them. So they bade the
schoolmaster good-by and walked on.
Another day's journey left them so exhausted they could scarcely keep
moving. They had almost reached another village when they came to a tiny
painted house on wheels with horses to draw it. At its door sat a stout
lady wearing a large bonnet, taking tea with a big drum for a table.
The lady, as it happened, had seen them at the fair, and had wondered
then to see them in company with a Punch-and-Judy show. Noticing how
tired they were, she gave them tea and then took them into the wagon
with her to help them on their way.
The inside of the wagon was like a cozy room. It had a little bed in one
end, and a kitchen in the other, and had two curtained windows. As the
wheels rattled on the old man fell asleep, and the stout lady made
little Nell sit by her and talk. In the wagon was a big canvas sign that
read:
__________________________
| |
| JARLEY'S WAXWORK |
| ONE HUNDRED FIGURES |
| THE FULL SIZE OF LIFE |
| NOW EXHIBITED WITHIN |
|__________________________|
"I am Mrs. Jarley," the woman said, "and my waxwork is gone to the next
town, where it is to be exhibited." She thought little Nell and her
grandfather were in the show business, too, and when she found they were
not, that they had no home, and did not even know where they were going,
she held up her hands in astonishment.
But it was easy to see that they were not ordinary beggars, and she was
kind-hearted and wanted to help them. So, after much thought, she asked
little Nell if they would take a situation with her. She explained that
the child's duty would be to point out the wax figures to the visitors
and tell their names, while her grandfather could help dust them.
They accepted this offer very thankfully (for almost all the money they
had brought was now spent), and when the wagon arrived at the place of
exhibition and the waxwork had been set up, Mrs. Jarley put a long wand
in little Nell's hand and taught her to point out each figure and
describe it:
"This, ladies and gentlemen," little Nell learned to say, "is Jasper
Packlemerton, who murdered fourteen wives by tickling the soles of their
feet," or, "this is Queen Elizabeth's maid of honor, who died from
pricking her finger while sewing on Sunday."
She was quick to learn and soon became a great favorite with the
visitors. Mrs. Jarley was kind, and but for the fact that her
grandfather's mind failed more and more every day little Nell would have
been quite happy.
One evening the two walked into the country beyond the town and a sudden
thunder-storm arose. They took shelter at an inn on the highroad, and
while they waited there some rough men began a noisy game of cards
behind a screen.
The talk and the chink of the money roused the old man's failing senses.
He imagined himself still gambling to win the old fortune for little
Nell. He made her give him the money she had earned from the waxwork,
joined the gamblers and in a few hours had lost it all. His insanity had
made him forget the presence of the child he so loved, and when the game
was done it was too late to leave the inn that night.
Little Nell had now only one piece of money left, a gold piece sewed in
her dress. This she had to change into silver and to pay a part for
their lodging. When she was abed she could not sleep for fear of the
wicked men she had seen gambling.
When at last she fell asleep she waked suddenly to see a figure in the
room. She was too frightened to scream, and lay very still and trembled.
The robber searched her clothing, took the rest of the money and went
out. She was dreadfully afraid he might return to harm her. If she could
get to her grandfather, she thought, she would be safe.
She opened the door softly, and in the moonlight saw the figure
entering the old man's room. She caught a view of his face and then she
knew that the figure was her own grandfather, and that, crazed by the
gambling scene, he himself had robbed her!
All that night little Nell lay and cried. She knew, to be sure, that her
grandfather was not a thief and that he did not know what he was doing
when he stole her money; but she knew, too, that if people found out he
was crazy they would take him away from her and shut him up where she
could not be with him, and of this she could not bear to think.
The next day, when they had gone back to the waxwork, she was in even
greater terror for fear he should rob Mrs. Jarley, their benefactress.
So, to lessen the chance of this, each day she gave him every penny she
earned. This, she soon knew, he gambled away, for often he was out all
night, and even seemed to shun her; so she was sad and took many long
walks alone through the fields.
One evening it happened that she passed a meadow where, beside a hedge,
a fire was burning, with three men sitting and lying around it. She was
in the shadow and they did not see her. One, she saw, was her
grandfather, and the others were the gamblers with whom he had played at
the inn on the night of the storm.
Little Nell crept close. They were tempting the poor daft old man to
steal the money from Mrs. Jarley's strong box, and while she listened
he consented.
She ran home in terrible grief. She tried to sleep, but could not. At
last she could bear it no longer. She went to the old man's room and
wakened him.
"I have had a dreadful dream," she told him, "a dream of an old
gray-haired man like you robbing people of their gold. I can not stay! I
can not leave you here. We must go."
To the crazy old man she seemed an angel. He dressed himself in fear,
and with her little basket on her arm she led him out of the house, on,
away from the town, into the country, far away from Mrs. Jarley, who had
been so kind to them, and from the new home they had found.
They climbed a high hill just as the sun was rising, and far behind them
little Nell caught a last view of the village. As she looked back and
thought how contented they had been there at first, and of the further
wandering that lay before them now, poor little Nell burst into tears.
But at length she bravely dried her tears lest they sadden her
grandfather, and they went on. When the sun grew warm they fell asleep
on the bank of the canal, and when they awoke in the afternoon some
rough canal men took them aboard their dirty craft as far as the next
town.
The men were well-meaning enough and meant the travelers no harm, but
after a while they began to drink and quarreled and fought among
themselves, and little Nell sat all night, wet with the rain, and sang
to them to quiet them.
The place to which they finally came was a town of wretched workmen who
toiled all day in iron furnaces for little wages, and were almost as
miserable and hungry as the wanderers themselves. No one gave them
anything, and they lived for three days with only two penny loaves to
eat (for all their money was now gone), and slept at night in the ashes
of some poor laborer's hut.
The fourth day they dragged themselves into the country again. Little
Nell's shoes were worn through to the bare ground, her feet were
bleeding, her limbs ached and she was deadly faint. They begged, but no
one would help them.
The child's strength was almost gone, when they met a traveler who was
reading in a book as he walked along. He looked up as they came near. It
was the kind old schoolmaster in whose school they had slept before they
met Mrs. Jarley in her house on wheels. When she saw him little Nell
shrieked and fell unconscious at his feet.
The schoolmaster carried her to an inn near by, where she was put to bed
and doctored under his care, for she was very weak. She told him all the
story of their wanderings, and he heard it with astonishment and wonder
to find such a great heart and heroism in a child.
He had been appointed schoolmaster, he told her, in another town, to
which he was then on his way, and he declared they should go with him
and he would care for them. He hired a farm wagon to carry little Nell,
and he and the old man walked beside it, and so they came to their new
place.
Next door to the school-house was the church. A very old woman, nearly a
hundred years old, had lived in a tenement near by to keep the keys and
open the church for services. The old woman was now dead, and the
schoolmaster went to the clergyman and asked that her place be given to
the grandfather, so that he and little Nell could live in the house next
to his own dwelling.
The child sewed the tattered curtains and mended the worn carpet and the
schoolmaster trimmed the long grass and trained the ivy before the door.
In the evening a bright fire was kindled and they all three took their
supper together, and then the schoolmaster said a prayer before they
went gladly to bed.
They were very happy in this new home. The old man lost the insane
thirst for gaming and the mad look faded from his eyes, but poor little
Nell grew paler and more fragile every day. The long days of hunger and
nights of exposure had sowed the seeds of illness.
The whole village soon grew to love her. Many came to visit her and the
schoolmaster read to her each day, so that she was content even when
she could no longer walk abroad as she had always done.
As she lay looking out at the peaceful churchyard, where so many whose
lives were over lay sleeping, it seemed to her that the painful past was
only an ugly vision. And at night she often dreamed of the roof opening
and a column of bright faces, rising far into the sky, looking down on
her asleep. The quiet spot outside remained the same, save that the air
was full of music and a sound of angels' wings.
So the weeks passed into winter, and though she came soon to know that
she was not long for earth, she thought of death without regret and of
heaven with joy.
III
THE SEARCH
It is not to be supposed, of course, that the flight of little Nell and
her grandfather from the Old Curiosity Shop was not noticed. All the
time, while they were wandering about homeless and wretched, more than
one went searching everywhere for them without success.
One of these was Quilp, the ugly dwarf. He had loaned the grandfather
more money than the shop would bring, and he made up his mind now that
the old man had a secret hoard somewhere, which might be his if he could
find it. He soon learned that if Kit knew anything about it he would
not tell, so he and his lawyer (a sleek, oily rascal named Brass) made
many plans for finding them. But for a long time Quilp could get no
trace.
Another who tried to find them was a curious lodger who roomed in
Brass's house. He seemed to have plenty of money but was very eccentric.
Nobody knew even his name and so they called him The Stranger.
He kept in his room a big box-like trunk, in which was a silver stove
that he used to cook his meals. The stove had a lot of little openings.
In one he would put an egg, in another some coffee, in another a piece
of meat and in the fourth some water. Then he would light a lamp that
stood under it, and in five minutes the egg would be cooked, the coffee
boiled and the meat done--all ready to eat.
He was the queerest sort of boarder! The strangest habit he had was
this: He seemed to be very fond of Punch-and-Judy shows, and whenever he
heard one on the street he would run out without his hat, make the
showmen perform in front of the house and then invite them to his rooms,
where he would question them for a long time. This habit used to puzzle
both Brass and Quilp, the dwarf, and they never could guess why he did
it.
The truth was, the mysterious Stranger was a long-missing brother of
little Nell's grandfather. A misunderstanding had come between them many
years before when both were young men. The younger had become a traveler
in many countries and had never seen his brother since. But he dreamed
often of the days when they had been children and at last he forgot the
thing that had driven them apart. He had come back now to England, a
rich man, to find the other had vanished with little Nell, his
grandchild. He had soon learned the story of their misfortune and how
the fear of Quilp had driven them away. After much inquiry he had
discovered they had been seen with a Punch-and-Judy show and now he was
trying to find the showmen. And finally, in this way, he did find the
very same pair the wanderers had met!
He learned from them all they could tell him--that the child and the old
man had disappeared at the fair, and that since then (so they had heard)
a pair resembling them had been seen with the Jarley waxwork exhibition.
The Stranger easily discovered where Mrs. Jarley was, and determined to
set out to her at once. But he remembered that his brother, little
Nell's grandfather, could not be expected to know him after all the
years he had been gone, and as for little Nell herself, she had never
seen him, and he was afraid if they heard a strange man had come for
them they would take fright and run away again. So he tried to find some
one they had loved to go with him to show that he intended only
kindness.