his station on one side of the curtain which concealed the mover of the
figures, and, putting his hands in his pockets, prepared to reply to all
questions and remarks of Punch, and to make a pretence of being his most
intimate private friend, of believing in him to the fullest and most
unlimited extent, of knowing that Mr. Punch enjoyed day and night a
merry and glorious life in that temple, and that he was at all times
and under every circumstance the same wise and joyful person that all
present then beheld him.
The whole performance was applauded until the old stable rang, and gifts
were showered in with a liberality which testified yet more strongly to
the general delight. Among the laughter none was more loud and frequent
than the old man's. Nell's was unheard, for she, poor child, with her
head drooping on his shoulder, had fallen asleep, and slept too soundly
to be roused by any of his efforts to awaken her to a part in his glee.
The supper was very good, but she was too tired to eat, and yet would
not leave the old man until she had kissed him in his bed. He, happily
insensible to every care and anxiety, sat listening with a vacant smile
and admiring face to all that his new friends said; and it was not until
they retired yawning to their room that he followed the child up-stairs.
She had a little money, but it was very little; and when that was gone
they must begin to beg. There was one piece of gold among it, and a need
might come when its worth to them would be increased a hundred times. It
would be best to hide this coin, and never show it unless their case was
entirely desperate, and nothing else was left them.
Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and
going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.
"And where are you going to-day?" said the little man the following
morning, addressing himself to Nell.
"Indeed I hardly know--we have not made up our minds yet," replied the
child.
"We're going on to the races," said the little man. "If that's your way
and you like to have us for company, let us travel together. If you
prefer going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we sha'n't
trouble you."
"We'll go with you," said the old man. "Nell--with them, with them."
The child thought for a moment, and knowing that she must shortly beg,
and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place than where crowds of
rich ladies and gentlemen were met together for enjoyment, determined to
go with these men so far. She therefore thanked the little man for his
offer, and said, glancing timidly toward his friend, that they would if
there was no objection to their staying with them as far as the
race-town.
And with these men they traveled forward on the following day.
They made two long days' journey with their new companions, passing
through villages and towns, and meeting upon one occasion with two young
people walking upon stilts, who were also going to the races.
And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon
after sunrise the second morning, she stole out, and, rambling into some
fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses and such humble
flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays and offer them to
the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived. Her thoughts were
not idle while she was thus busy; when she returned and was seated
beside the old man, tying her flowers together, while the two men lay
dozing in the corner, she plucked him by the sleeve, and, slightly
glancing toward them, said in a low voice:
"Grandfather, don't look at those I talk of, and don't seem as if I
spoke of anything but what I am about. What was that you told me before
we left the old house? That if they knew what we were going to do, they
would say that you were mad, and part us?"
The old man turned to her with a look of wild terror; but she checked
him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she tied them up,
and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said:
"I know that was what you told me. You needn't speak, dear. I recollect
it very well. It was not likely that I should forget it. Grandfather, I
have heard these men say they think that we have secretly left our
friends, and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us taken
care of and sent back. If you let your hand tremble so, we can never get
away from them, but if you're only quiet now, we shall do so easily."
"How?" muttered the old man. "Dear Nell, how? They will shut me up in a
stone-room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell--flog me
with whips, and never let me see thee more!"
"You're trembling again," said the child. "Keep close to me all day.
Never mind them, don't look at them, but me. I shall find a time when we
can steal away. When I do, mind you come with me, and do not stop or
speak a word. Hush! That's all."
"Halloo! what are you up to, my dear?" said Mr. Codlin, raising his
head, and yawning.
"Making some nosegays," the child replied; "I am going to try to sell
some, these three days of the races. Will you have one--as a present, I
mean?"
Mr. Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried toward
him and placed it in his hand, and he stuck it in his button-hole.
As the morning wore on, the tents at the race-course assumed a gayer and
more brilliant appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling
softly on the turf. Black-eyed gipsy girls, their heads covered with
showy handkerchiefs, came out to tell fortunes, and pale, slender women
with wasted faces followed the footsteps of conjurers, and counted the
sixpences with anxious eyes long before they were gained. As many of the
children as could be kept within bounds were stowed away, with all the
other signs of dirt and poverty, among the donkeys, carts, and horses;
and as many as could not be thus disposed of ran in and out in all
directions, crept between people's legs and carriage wheels, and came
forth unharmed from under horses' hoofs. The dancing-dogs, the stilts,
the little lady and the tall man, and all the other attractions, with
organs out of number and bands innumerable, came out from the holes and
corners in which they had passed the night, and flourished boldly in the
sun.
Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen
trumpet and speaking in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went Thomas
Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on Nell and her
grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. The child bore upon
her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes stopped, with
timid and modest looks, to offer them at some gay carriage; but alas!
there were many bolder beggars there, gipsies who promised husbands, and
others skillful in their trade; and although some ladies smiled gently
as they shook their heads, and others cried to the gentlemen beside
them, "See what a pretty face!" they let the pretty face pass on, and
never thought that it looked tired or hungry.
There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she was
one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men in dashing
clothes, who had just stepped out from it, talked and laughed loudly at
a little distance, appearing to forget her, quite. There were many
ladies all around, but they turned their backs, or looked another way,
or at the two young men (not unfavorably at _them_), and left her to
herself. The lady motioned away a gipsy woman, eager to tell her
fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some years,
but called the child toward her, and, taking her flowers, put money into
her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at home.
Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing
everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rung to clear the
course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not coming
out again until the heat was over. Many a time, too, was Punch displayed
in the full glory of his humor; but all this while the eye of Thomas
Codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice was almost
impossible.
At length, late in the day, Mr. Codlin pitched the show in a spot right
in the middle of the crowd, and the Punch and Judy were surrounded by
people who were watching the performance.
Short was moving the images, and knocking them in the fury of the combat
against the sides of the show, the people were looking on with laughing
faces, and Mr. Codlin's face showed a grim smile as his roving eye
detected the hands of thieves in the crowd going into waistcoat pockets.
If Nell and her grandfather were ever to get away unseen, that was the
very moment. They seized it, and fled.
They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of people, and
never once stopped to look behind. The bell was ringing, and the course
was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but they dashed across
it, paying no attention to the shouts and screeching that assailed them
for breaking in it, and, creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick
pace, made for the open fields. At last they were free from Codlin and
Short.
That night they reached a little village in a woody hollow. The village
schoolmaster, a good and gentle man, pitying their weariness, and
attracted by the child's sweetness and modesty, gave them a lodging for
the night; nor would he let them leave him until two days more had
passed.
They journeyed on, when the time came that they must wander forth again,
by pleasant country lanes; and as they passed, watching the birds that
perched and twittered in the branches overhead, or listening to the
songs that broke the happy silence, their hearts were peaceful and free
from care. But by-and-by they came to a long winding road which
lengthened out far into the distance, and though they still kept on, it
was at a much slower pace, for they were now very weary.
The afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they arrived
at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck across a common.
On the border of this common, and close to the hedge which divided it
from the cultivated fields, a caravan was drawn up to rest; upon which
they came so suddenly that they could not have avoided it if they would.
Do you know what a "caravan" is? It is a sort of gipsy house on wheels
in which people live, while the house moves from place to place.
It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house with
white dimity curtains hung over the windows, and window-shutters of
green picked out with panels of a staring red, in which
happily-contrasted colors the whole house shone brilliant. Neither was
it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or feeble old horse, for a
pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from the shafts
and grazing on the frouzy grass. Neither was it a gipsy caravan, for at
the open door (graced with a bright brass knocker) sat a Christian lady,
stout and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet trembling
with bows. And that it was not a caravan of poor people was clear from
what this lady was doing; for she was taking her tea. The tea-things,
including a bottle of rather suspicious looks and a cold knuckle of ham,
were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and there, as
if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat this roving
lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect.
It happened at that moment that the lady of the caravan had her cup
(which, that everything about her might be of a stout and comfortable
kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having her eyes lifted
to the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavor of her tea, it happened
that, being thus agreeably engaged, she did not see the travelers when
they first came up. It was not until she was in the act of setting down
the cup, and drawing a long breath after the exertion of swallowing its
contents, that the lady of the caravan beheld an old man and a young
child walking slowly by, and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of
modest, but hungry admiration.
"Hey!" cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her lap
and swallowing the same before wiping her lips. "Yes, to be
sure------Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?"
"Won what, ma'am?" asked Nell.
"The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child--the plate that was run
for on the second day."
"On the second day, ma'am?"
"Second day! Yes, second day," repeated the lady, with an air of
impatience. "Can't you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when you're
asked the question civilly?"
"I don't know, ma'am."
"Don't know!" repeated the lady of the caravan; "why, you were there. I
saw you with my own eyes."
Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady
might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin; but
what followed tended to put her at her ease.
"And very sorry I was," said the lady of the caravan, "to see you in
company with a Punch--a low, common, vulgar wretch, that people should
scorn to look at."
"I was not there by choice," returned the child; "we didn't know our
way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them.
Do you--do you know them, ma'am?"
"Know 'em, child?" cried the lady of the caravan, in a sort of shriek.
"Know _them_! But you're young and ignorant, and that's your excuse for
asking sich a question. Do I look as if I know'd 'em? does the caravan
look as if _it_ know'd 'em?"
"No, ma'am, no," said the child, fearing she had committed some grievous
fault. "I beg your pardon."
The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea things
together preparing to clear the table, but noting the child's anxious
manner, she hesitated and stopped. The child courtesied, and, giving her
hand to the old man, had already got some fifty yards or so away, when
the lady of the caravan called to her to return.
"Come nearer, nearer still," said she, beckoning to her to ascend the
steps. "Are you hungry, child?"
"Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it _is_ a long way------"
"Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea," rejoined her new
acquaintance. "I suppose you are agreeable to that old gentleman?"
The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. The lady of
the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum
proving an inconvenient table for two, they went down again, and sat
upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread
and butter, and the knuckle of ham.
"Set 'em out near the hind wheels child, that's the best place," said
their friend, superintending the arrangement from above. "Now hand up
the tea-pot for a little more hot water and a pinch of fresh tea, and
then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare
anything; that's all I ask of you."
The mistress of the caravan, saying the girl and her grandfather could
not be very heavy, invited them to go along with them for a while, for
which Nell thanked her with all her heart.
When they had traveled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell
ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more closely.
One-half of it--that part in which the comfortable proprietress was then
seated--was carpeted, and so divided the farther end as to form a
sleeping-place, made after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which
was shaded, like the little windows, with fair white curtains, and
looked comfortable enough, though by what kind of gymnastic exercise the
lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it was a mystery. The
other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose
small chimney passed through the roof.
The mistress sat looking at the child for a long time in silence, and
then, getting up, brought out from a corner a large roll of canvas about
a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor and spread open with her
foot until it nearly reached from one end of the caravan to the other.
"There, child," she said, "read that."
Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the
inscription, "JARLEY'S WAX-WORK."
"Read it again," said the lady, complacently.
"Jarley's Wax-work," repeated Nell.
"That's me," said the lady. "I am Mrs. Jarley."
Giving the child an encouraging look, the lady of the caravan unfolded
another scroll, whereon was the inscription, "One hundred figures the
full size of life;" and then another scroll, on which was written, "The
only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the world;" and then
several smaller scrolls, with such inscriptions as "Now exhibiting
within"--"The genuine and only Jarley"--"Jarley's unrivaled
collection"--"Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and Gentry"--"The
Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley." When she had exhibited these
large painted signs to the astonished child, she brought forth specimens
of the lesser notices in the shape of hand-bills, some of which were
printed in the form of verses on popular times, as "Believe me if all
Jarley's wax-work so rare"--"I saw thy show in youthful prime"--"Over
the water to Jarley;" while, to satisfy all tastes, others were composed
with a view to the lighter and merrier spirits, as a verse on the
favorite air of "If I had a donkey," beginning
If I know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go
To see Mrs. Jarley's wax-work show,
Do you think I'd own him?
Oh no, no!
Then run to Jarley's------
besides several compositions in prose, pretending to be dialogues
between the Emperor of China and an oyster.
"I never saw any wax-work, ma'am," said Nell. "Is it funnier than
Punch?"
"Funnier!" said Mrs. Jarley in a shrill voice. "It is not funny at all."
"Oh!" said Nell, with all possible humility.
"It isn't funny at all," repeated Mrs. Jarley. "It's calm and--what's
that word again--critical?--no--classical, that's it--it's calm and
classical. No low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and
squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the same, with a
constantly unchanging air of coldness and dignity; and so like life
that, if wax-work only spoke and walked about you'd hardly know the
difference. I won't go so far as to say that, as it is, I've seen
wax-work quite like life, but I've certainly seen some life that was
exactly like wax-work."
This conference at length concluded, she beckoned Nell to sit down.
"And the old gentleman, too," said Mrs. Jarley; "for I want to have a
word with him. Do you want a good place for your granddaughter, master?
If you do, I can put her in the way of getting one. What do you say?"
"I can't leave her," answered the old man. "We can't separate. What
would become of me without her?"
"If you're really ready to employ yourself," said Mrs. Jarley, "there
would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust the figures,
and take the checks, and so forth. What I want your granddaughter for is
to point 'em out to the company; they would be soon learned and she has
a way with her that people wouldn't think unpleasant, though she _does_
come after me; for I've been always accustomed to go round with visitors
myself, which I should keep on doing now, only that my spirits make a
little rest absolutely necessary. It's not a common offer, bear in
mind," said the lady, rising into the tone and manner in which she was
accustomed to address her audiences; "it's Jarley's wax-work, remember.
The duty's very light and genteel, the company particularly select, the
exhibition takes place in assembly-rooms, town-halls, large rooms at
inns, or auction galleries. There is none of your open-air wondering at
Jarley's, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley's,
remember. Every promise made in the hand-bills is kept to the utmost,
and the whole forms an effect of splendor hitherto unknown in this
kingdom. Remember that the price of admission is only sixpence, and that
this is an opportunity which may never occur again!"
"We are very much obliged to you, ma'am," said Nell, "and thankfully
accept your offer."
"And you'll never be sorry for it," returned Mrs. Jarley. "I'm pretty
sure of that. So as that's all settled, let us have a bit of supper."
Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at
the place of exhibition, where Nell came down from the wagon among an
admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an
important part of the curiosities, and were almost ready to believe that
her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out
of the van for the figures with all haste, and taken in to be unlocked
by Mrs. Jarley, who, attended by George and the driver, arranged their
contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental work) to make
the best show in the decoration of the room.
When the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be, the
wonderful collection was uncovered; and there were shown, on a raised
platform some two feet from the floor, running round the room and parted
from the rude public by a crimson rope, breast high, a large number of
sprightly waxen images of famous people, singly and in groups, clad in
glittering dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or
less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and
their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of their legs, and
arms very strongly developed, and all their faces expressing great
surprise. All the gentlemen were very narrow in the breast, and very
blue about the beards; and all the ladies were wonderful figures; and
all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and
staring with tremendous earnestness at nothing.
When Nell had shown her first wonder at this glorious sight, Mrs. Jarley
ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child, and,
sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the center, presented Nell with
a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out the characters,
and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty.
"That," said Mrs. Jarley, in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a
figure at the beginning of the platform, "is an unfortunate maid of
honor in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her finger
in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood which is
trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with
which she is at work."
All this Nell repeated twice or thrice--pointing to the finger and the
needle at the right times; and then passed on to the next.
"That, ladies and gentlemen," said Mrs. Jarley, "is Jasper Packlemerton,
of terrible memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and
destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were
sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue. On being brought
to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he
replied yes, he was sorry for having let 'em off so easy, and hoped all
Christian husbands would pardon him the offense. Let this be a warning
to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the gentlemen
of their choice. Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of
tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared
when committing his barbarous murders."
When Nell knew all about Mr. Packlemerton, and could say it without
faltering, Mrs. Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin
man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a
hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who
poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical
characters and interesting but misguided individuals. And so well did
Nell profit by her instructions, and so apt was she to remember them,
that by the time they had been shut up together for a couple of hours,
she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment,
and perfectly able to tell the stories of the wax-work to visitors.
For some time her life and the life of the poor vacant old man passed
quietly and happily. They traveled from place to place with Mrs. Jarley;
Nell spoke her piece, with the wand in her hand, before the waxen
images; and her grandfather in a dull way dusted the images when he was
told to do so.